Socially engaged artist Helen Mandley exhibiting at Middlesex Uni BA (Hons) Fine Art and Design Show at Old Truman Brewery, 16-19 June 2017

(This blog post was uploaded again here because of earlier deficiencies in the original publication. At that time, the Kwug Blog editor was using other people's equipment — MacBook Pro and iPad — that are unfamiliar to him. This marks republication marks his first uploading of a blog post using a Windows 10 laptop. The earlier posting of this content received 82 viewings before it was deleted on 22 June 2017.)

Helen Mandley knows the importance of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group as both the subject matter of a socially engaged artist and a former customer of the now scheduled for closure Kilburn Jobcentre. Becoming an artist requires years of dedication and for Helen2 of Kwug it has meant additionally the kind of empowerment that comes with knowing more of one's rights than Department for Work & Pensions officials like customers to know they have.

Then, she received threats from staff to toe the line set by them and those who give them their orders. Those orders basically said that as a Fine Art & Design Foundation student at Working Men's College she lacked talent and her tutors were conning her when they said otherwise. They threatened her with sanctions for 'not making herself available' for the kind of alienation that she would get through surrendering her sense of social engagement as being herself and being an enabling neighbour. The placards she saw as the backdrop to Kwuggies' appearance at that place showed her that there was a valid alternative source of Information, Advice & Guidance to what Jobcentre staff told her was the only way for her to go.

Kwug could not guide her artistic expression as her course teachers and leaders could and have done, but the knowledge of her rights obtained from attendance at Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group meetings helped keep her on the path to becoming not just an artist, but also a socially engaged artist.

An installation by socially engaged artist Helen Mandley, aka Helen2 of Kwug

She texted the Kwug Blog editor on 14 June:

"I'm installing work over the next day and today.

"The Exhibition is open to public Daily from Friday 15 June to Tuesday 20 June, 11am to 6pm. Private view is Saturday 17 June at 6pm.

"The venue is Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL."

The kind of 'Private View' that will happen this Saturday is very different from the kind of 'private view' that goes on in a Jobseekers Allowance claimant's 'interviews' at the jobcentre!

Social engagement vs patronage of and by the wealthy

Of course, social engagement is very different from the kind of sponsorship that has gone on previously between the wealthy and artists as people needing to be paid for their output. Social engagement works both ways, and Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group does not sponsor artists in the way that royalty traditionally has.

Conservative Government promotes 'Universal Credit' saying that it is to 'incentivise' people to work. The reality as authoritatively stated recently by benefits adviser and Basic Income UK representative Barb Jacobson, that in order to obtain and maintain paid employment, a person needs capital.


Kwug in association with youtube has given a platform for youtube video content by Helen for presenting 'studies' that have gone into her work that is to be exhibited.

Helen has written of her subject matter in a Middlesex Uni publication 'May Grey June Gloom':

"Socially engaged art is my main focus, mainly working in the last year with film and photography, yet also sculpture and installation. I aim to understand, to see and capture people's movements, conversations, resistance and their need that is a result of government policies in the UK today.

"Most of my work is driven by a constant duel of working to survive and striving to garner more understanding of the political and social inequality I see in my life and around me.

"I use film and photography as an embedded artist within a community group that campaigns against austerity cuts. Campaigning could be a conversation and sharing of information, but the challenge is that many of the group members wish to remain anonymous."

"Ths new challenge has created many layers and a deeper understanding of the moving image. Capturing the esence and role of the group whils staying within an art framework has been my main focus and challenge."

helenmandley@icloud. com     helenmandley.wordpress.com

Helen has also told the Kwug Blog editor in one-to-one conversation that she likes to think of her work as an antidote to the social poison of such 'reality tv' output as 'Benefits Street' and the like.

Terra firma benefits services closures leave the economically vulnerable more firmly in the lurch

Face-to-face benefits delivery service cuts have been going on for decades, Dude Swheatie of Kwug argues.

Jobcentre closures creates winners and losers, says Dude Swheatie

I would describe Honorary KUWG member Kate Belgrave as a 'benefits touring' blogger. Her latest blog post is DWP: "Closing jobcentres will improve the service."(1) Maybe those in the DWP and their allies in 'think tank' ReformUK who advocate 'digital jobcentres' (2) — and 'digital courts and tribunals and a lot else besides (3) — ought to go in for such 'benefits tourism' themselves, where they would meet users of terra firma [solid earth] jobcentres for themselves?

(Incidentally, Theresa May has described ReformUK as "the country's leading think tank on public service reform."(4) I am reminded of the saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?")

Clay Cross Jobcentre in Derbyshire that Kate writes about in her latest blog post (5) is by no means the only one facing closure and there are closer threatened jobcentres for Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group regulars. In January 2017 the Brent & Kilburn Times reported:

Jobcentres in Wembley, Kilburn and Neasden facing closure (6)

.... The sites in Olympic House in Wembley, Cambridge Avenue in Kilburn and Chancel house in Neasden, are facing the axe with workers facing redundancy or being relocated to other jobcentres.

The Department for Work and Pensions say the sites are being underused as four out of five claims for Jobseeker’s Allowance and 99 per cent of applicants for Universal Credit submit claims online.

Jobcentres and benefit centres are covered by old building contracts which are now coming up for renewal after 20 years.

Some smaller jobcentres will be merged with larger ones, and others will be co-located with local government premises.

The closures, which union officials say will affect one in 10 job centres in Great Britain, are predicted to save the DWP £180million over the next 10 years,

the Brent & Kilburn Times reported.

What's behind all this?

Let us have a look at that DWP assertion:

The Department for Work and Pensions say the sites are being underused as four out of five claims for Jobseeker’s Allowance and 99 per cent of applicants for Universal Credit submit claims online.

Is 'digital by default' online claiming a matter of 'service user choice'? In June 2014 Elizabeth Rust reported in The Guardian:

When the UK goes 'digital by default', who will be left behind?

UK government services are going digital, yet often the people who need them are not able to access them. [17% of service users are left behind.](8)

I had a decades long history of claiming Unemployment Benefit and later Jobseekers Allowance before I ever claimed the disability benefit Employment & Support Allowance (Support Group) status. So with hindsight I am able to see how this move toward 'service user not seen and regarded as fully human' has crept in over the decades. In the early 1990's while our news services were focused on Russian bread queues, Department of Social Security offices were done away with and replaced by remote control offices. Claims offices for LB Brent jobcentre users were transferred to Belfast, and those for LB Camden jobcentre users were transferred to Glasgow, and chaos happened as claim forms got lost in the post. My old DSS office at Archway is now being developed as a block of flats by 'Exclusive Living' under that incidental piece of privatising public land.

I remember the 'death throes' of that building as a DSS office in 1991 even while the remote control offices were being introduced. Upon making a new claim for Unemployment Benefit I was kept waiting 12 weeks even then while my claim form had reportedly 'got lost in the post'. When I did force myself to visit that building after several weeks of waiting, I was told by my peers that I was not the only one trapped in that system melt-down, and that the previous day the building had got so overheated that it was closed down for health and safety purposes. (The windows of that building as a DSS office were never opened, reportedly so that claimants did not get the temptation to throw themselves out of one.) And it took me more than one day's visit to secure an emergency hardship payment.

(While the second place country for viewings of Kwug Blog in the past month have been from Russia — with the USA in first place — it is ironic that at that time the UK's corporate news media were strongly focused on bread queues in Moscow to the exclusion of such problems closer to home.)

Jobcentre workers have been like the supermarket 'checkout' persons inducting service users into 'self-service' operations that threaten their own jobs

In July 2006, Hertfordshire County Council Head of Money Advice reported in a then-regular column in Community Care magazine:

Jobcentre Plus wrong to deny use of paper forms(9)

Currently the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) apparently insists all benefit claims should be made over the phone or internet.

In the past couple of years, both the pensions service and the Jobcentre Plus network have moved towards a system of teleclaiming. This is despite the evidence that many pensioners find making claims over the telephone difficult. Working-age claimants of benefits, such as income support, incapacity benefit and jobseekers allowance, have fared even worse, as at least pensioners had an alternative when claiming pension credit, because paper claim forms for that benefit are still reasonably widely available.

Jobcentre Plus staff at local level, however, were giving out a clear message that paper claim forms for the benefits they administer no longer existed – and even if claimants were determined enough to get hold of a copy, it wouldn’t do them any good because the local Jobcentre would refuse to accept it.

Thankfully, common sense (and a clearer understanding of the law relating to benefit claims) has prevailed. The DWP realised that Jobcentre Plus staff were acting unlawfully in refusing to allow benefit claims to be made on paper claim forms. As a result, guidance has been sent out to all Jobcentre Plus managers, in the May edition of its Managers Update. It is worth printing the Clerical Claims Process – Standard Operating Model guidance in full, in case you come across any problems with your local office.

“Customers should always be encouraged to make new and repeat claims via the contact centres where possible. However, regulations give the customer the choice on how they make their claim and this means we must not refuse clerical claim forms...."

What happened to the telephone application process? It became oversubscribed, as Gary Vaux had reported in Community Care in February 2006:(10)

Pick up that phone!

In early November 2005, the newly appointed chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, Lesley Strathie, admitted to a House of Commons select committee that Jobcentre Plus was “failing badly” and had  a “huge, huge journey to make” in relation to meeting customer service targets for its contact centres.

Yet, by mid-December, Strathie felt she was able to announce in the foreword to its annual report that Jobcentre Plus  delivered excellent progress against a challenging set of objectives.

Strathie said the department was expected to achieve or exceed five of its six performance targets for the year, despite staff reductions of 5,000 in the year to March 2005.

When two such apparently contradictory statements are made within just a few weeks of each other, it’s difficult to see where facts end and spin starts....

How do you solve a problem like benefits helpline meltdown?

In November 2006 Community Care magazine reported:

Jobcentre Plus: Poor service continues(11)

Earlier this month, MPs slammed Jobcentre Plus for leaving 21 million phone calls unanswered in 2004-5. Despite government claims of improvements, stories of poor service continue to mount, argues Neil Bateman

Jobcentre Plus (JCP) is the arm of the Department for Work and Pensions that administers benefits and job search activities  or people under 60. It was set up in 2001 as a key part of the government’s welfare-to-work reforms, the aim being that people could obtain advice and help on benefits and job-seeking under one roof.

Since the announcement in 2005 that DWP had to lose 30,000 staff over three years, on top of other spending cuts in the department, concern has been growing in the social care and welfare rights fields about the deteriorating standards of service provided by JCP. There has been concern about the effect on vulnerable customers, particularly care leavers, those with sensory impairments and people with mental health needs who have greatest difficulty with the JCP one-size-fits-all approach to customer service.

Welfare rights advisers and social care specialists identify problems with JCP, including:

• Delays in processing claims and changes of circumstances – six weeks is common – leaving people destitute.
• Communications between different parts of JCP “not being received”.
• Huge difficulty accessing JCP by phone.
• JCP staff insisting that all benefit claims are made by phone, when the law does not state this.
• Frequent refusals to communicate with third parties (despite the DWP’s good new policy on this).
• JCP staff making basic errors in advice to claimants and when assessing their claims.
• Inflexibility in how people are dealt with caused by JCP’s use of scripts for telephone enquiries and deficiencies in the content of the scripts.
• Resistance by local JCP managers to consultation and dialogue with stakeholders.

There are exceptions to this, but the feedback was generally negative with many examples cited....

What's 21 million calls in terms of the scale of the problem? Well, in 2004/05, it amounted to 44% of all incoming calls to the JCP call-centre system.(12) Quite a big problem, in other words. And as Neil Bateman pointed out in that November 2006 article:

Paying for JCP’s failures

It is not just benefit claimants who are affected. There is strong evidence that advice agencies and social care agencies are also picking up the cost of JCP’s failures. Citizens Advice said workloads had increased as a direct result of problems and there was evidence that social services departments were often baling out people with no money because of JCP’s failure to deliver benefits on time or to make interim payments – there were even cases of people sent by JCP to social services for money.

Much time is also being spent arguing with JCP staff that they can indeed allow people to make paper benefit claims rather than having to phone a call centre – even in cases involving people in hospital receiving chemotherapy, those with serious mental health problems, people whose first language is not English or those who are deaf....(13)

I asked in this section heading, 'How do you solve a problem like benefits helpline meltdown?' The DWP's covert agenda answer is that you don't solve that problem, you demonise the claimants by way of 'public information campaigns' such as 'Targeting benefit thieves' that were prevalent at the time.

A later, telephone oriented twist on demonising claimants was the introduction of the sceptre of 'Voice Risk Analysis' screening of claimants. Gary Vaux reported in Community Care in May 2008:

Voice risk analysis makes claiming benefits more stressful(14)

The Department for Work and Pensions has announced that it is pushing ahead with the introduction of voice risk analysis (VRA) in another 15 local authority housing benefit teams. But VRA is not a lie detector it’s simply a machine that measures changes in a person’s voice patterns, indicating “stress”. That in turn alerts the benefit official to probe deeper into the claim.

When used on President Clinton’s famous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” statement, a VRA machine recorded a “high risk” reading.
It’s already used by some insurance companies (Esure, Halifax and Provident among others) and no one condones benefit fraud so it must therefore be a good thing, right? Well – maybe not.

The advice sector is concerned that VRA is being trialled despite there being little evidence so far as to its effectiveness in comparison with more traditional methods of fraud detection. The research into its impact in the first seven local authorities to use it isn’t even due to be finished until August.

We also don’t know what effect it will have on genuine claimants – the “if they’re honest, they’ve nothing to worry about” line of argument misses the point. The fact that every call and every claimant may ultimately have to be screened in this way, with the assumption that you might be accused of being fraudulent on the say-so of suspect technology is enough to deter many genuine claimants. This is especially true of those who find claiming benefits stressful enough already....

Back in 2006 while I was regularly ringing the so-called Jobseekers Allowance 'helpline' I was under a great deal of stress. Working more than 16 hours in just one week over the Christmas 2005/New Year 2006 period as a part time care worker doing 'cover duties' for regular staff on vacation while submitting part-time earnings forms at my fortnightly signing on sessions at the jobcentre, I got screwed as Jobseekers Allowance wrongly claimed that I no longer qualified for the JSA benefit. (15)

Even in those days I would have long pauses while the helpline level bureucrat I spoke to referred to their line manager or supervisor and I was somewhat fortunate to be a landline user rather than on pay-as-you-go mobile phone tariff to a Universal Credit helpline. I would have longed for the comparative comforts of face-to-face help at the Archway 'Goulag'!

Now, as a Camden Council report has revealed, Universal Credit claimants are suffering not only long waits for benefits, but also rip-off pay-as-you-go mobile phone tariffs:

Universal Credit: Claimants 'stealing food' to cope with benefit delays (16)

.... The Department for Work and Pensions’ Universal Credit helpline set up to advise claimants on the progress of their claim is providing an unacceptable service. Telephone calls can cost up to 55p a minute [£33 per hour!] from pay-as-you-go mobile phones, which are commonly used by people with lower incomes. Wait times to speak with an adviser can be very long – one claimant in Camden has reported that their phone bill for a month was over £140, used almost entirely on calls to the DWP.

Now consider this: is not the telecomms industry complicit in this theft from economically vulnerable benefit claimants? There is enormous potential for industry to benefit from the real 'benefit theft' which is denying benefit claimants their entitlements and making life harder for workers as there is a fine line between what this Government calls 'incentivising' work but is really making people so desperate that they will settle for anything.

Might plummeting 'takeup' of benefit entitlements be one of Jobcentre Plus' real goals?

Maybe you ought to raise these points with candidates in the forthcoming 8 June General Election if you are a UK voter?

Link references

1. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2017/04/dwp-closing-your-jobcentre-will-improve-the-service-people-who-use-the-jobcentre-no-it-wont/
2. http://www.reform.uk/publication/the-future-of-public-services-digital-jobcentres/
3. http://www.reform.uk/publication/the-future-of-public-services/
4. http://www.reform.uk/
5. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2017/04/dwp-closing-your-jobcentre-will-improve-the-service-people-who-use-the-jobcentre-no-it-wont/
6. http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/jobcentres-in-wembley-kilburn-and-neasden-facing-closure-1-4864912
7. ibid.
8. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/23/when-the-uk-goes-digital-by-default-who-will-be-left-behind 
9. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/07/20/jobcentre-plus-wrong-to-deny-use-of-paper-forms/
10. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/02/16/pick-up-that-phone/  
11. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/11/16/jobcentre-plus-poor-service-continues/ 
12. https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmpubacc/1034/1034.pdf See p7 of 64 on the online viewing, p3 of the printed copy
13. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/11/16/jobcentre-plus-poor-service-continues/
14. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2008/05/22/voice-risk-analysis-makes-claiming-benefits-more-stressful/
15. For more on the background to this case, see http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/benefit-claimants-require-firmer-safegards-not-tougher-sanctions.html 
16. http://camdennewjournal.com/article/universal-credit-claimants-stealing-food-to-eat-due-to-benefit-delays

Say 'no' to work schemes with a smile, not a sanction

While our friends at Scottish Unemployed Workers Network report:

.... there is no attempt to inform people that they can say no to being sent on a work scheme without incurring a sanction; and within the DWP’s punitive regime we have been taught not to question instructions. The system still promotes a culture where people are expected to work for free to earn the right to get a job interview, and to ‘volunteer’ as part of their thirty-five hour a week jobsearch....(1)

we can still do our bit as a pro-claimant support group! So here goes:

Say 'no' to work schemes with a smile, not a sanction

The Human Placard Flower

Link address

1. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/07/27/as-one-door-opens-another-closes/

Casework experience, aspiring helping professionals, and a simple KUWG leafleting session

Elizabeth Niles concludes her Z2K blog piece Case study: a year long ESA saga(1) with these words:

Before I started my placement at Z2K I had no experience of writing tribunal submissions but in the time that I have spent at the charity the caseworkers have been very supportive in showing me the ropes and I am now able to represent clients and help them challenge their benefit entitlement.I would encourage anyone who is interested in law, social welfare or helping to fight injustice to apply to be a volunteer at Z2K.

In KUWG's collective experience, a preliminary to casework can be just standing outside a jobcentre and/or disability benefits assessments centre, say, with leaflets and placards as 'ice breakers' and listening to people as they unburden themselves. It can be very good to talk to someone whose leaflets suggest  that you are not the first person who has ever been abused by government officials. And it can be very heartening to learn that it's not necessary to go out and dispose of yourself as a huge 'saving for the public purse'. ;-) It's great to be listened to by another human being who is not out to rubbish you as the Government would have DWP employees do to service users,(2) or as professional workers burnout despair leads service users to feel they have been treated.

For further details of volunteering opportunities with Z2K go to http://z2k.org/volunteering-at-z2k/(3)

For how to get involved with KUWG, come to one of our weekly Thursday afternoon, 3:15pm to 5:20pm business meetings at Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH. Location map.(4) How to get there.(5) At present, we are planning to have a caseworkers workshop on how to deal with burnout. That is likely to take place in July 2016.

Link

1. http://z2k.org/2016/06/case-study-a-year-long-esa-saga/
2. http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/pcs_comment_archive.cfm/id/0BCC603C-DEE6-4F77-A7338C216969AA58
3. http://z2k.org/volunteering-at-z2k/
4. http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=525177&y=184362&z=0&sv=NW6+2JH&st=2&pc=NW6+2JH&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf

Placards in support of Tony Cox and the right to be accompanied at jobcentres and benefit-entitlement-assessments

'Never attend anywhere official alone' is our golden rule

This Thursday 9 June at 09:30 members of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group will be standing outside Kilburn Jobcentre, 3 Cambridge Avenue, London NW6 5AH meeting and greeting claimants as they enter and leave that building. Location map.(1) As usual, we can expect the privatised G4S staff and/or Jcp management to call the police in an attempt to remove the attention we draw to what goes on inside that building, and any police presence that arrives to realise that we are not a threat to the public and least of all to vulnerable adults and staff inside the building. (The Department for Work & Pensions are the real danger to vulnerable adults and staff and to standards of service delivery.)

Arrest abusers of vulnerable claimants, not advocates!

Tony Cox is  hero, not villain

Tony Cox is innocent

On this particular occasion, there is an added message of UK-wide solidarity. For on Thursday 9 June Scottish Unemployed Workers Network activist Tony Cox will again be hauled up in court for spurious charges. Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty is calling for Tony's supporters to attend Dundee Sheriff Court for 10am in support of Tony Cox and the right to be accompanied. Advocacy is STILL NOT a crime — Solidarity with Tony Cox June 9th(2) We cannot transport ourselves up to Dundee Sheriff Court in support of Tony's appearance there on that day, but we can get a group 'selfie' AND give some support where it's required on the same day.

Attend Maximus alone at your peril!

The prime motto of the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is, "Never attend anywhere official alone."

Link

1. http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=525454&y=183527&z=0&sv=NW6+5AH&st=2&pc=NW6+5AH&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf
2. http://www.edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/node/200

Making life difficult for disabled people

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Kate Belgrave wrote:

"Eddie’s ... mother used to work with employers to find him jobs. As a result, he had work for many years as a general kitchen and hotel assistant. But his mother died about ten years ago and he was made redundant a few years after that. He’s never found another job. He had a support worker a couple of years ago, but that person simply stopped turning up. Eddie was never sure why and he didn’t really know who to check with, or how to chase the person up."

– Jobcentre to man with learning difficulties: Do as we say or we'll make you sign on more often | Kate Belgrave

That echoes with my own experience both as a disabled person myself and as a former paid care worker to adults with 'mild learning difficulties' [sic].

Notes from a former paid care worker's notebook

In 2005-2006 I was a paid care worker to a guy with learning difficulty in his forties who had recently been completely orphaned. (As online self-help network for family-based carers CarerWatch has long reported, UK society's support networks for people with disabilities and debilitating health problems do not support families to support themselves. Thus most family-based carers are in meltdown from a structures that do not enable. I would not be surprised if the average age of adults with learning difficulties etc at parents' deaths is not much greater than those in the general population.)

Grief at the loss of a parent can be stressful for anyone and result in dysfunctional behaviours. But what of the parent with a learning difficulty that makes communication difficult for them except with people who have the special skills and patience to help work out what the person is saying? One day a casual contact said to the guy I worked with, who I'll call 'Owen', "Hello! How are you?" but did not wait to properly decode the response before saying, "Ah, that's great! You must be really proud of yourself!"

But what had 'Owen' actually said? "My mum's just died."

So, little wonder that he started on spending sprees, "trying to recoup what could never be regained," as a psychotherapist might say. We care workers in his team did what we could to support 'Owen' in 3 hour shifts. How would care workers and 'service users' or clients cope with sessions lasting just 30 minutes or even less? And that was against the backdrop of his not having to sign on for stigmatising sessions at a jobcentre!

Notes from a disabled jobseeker's notebook

 Before that job, as a disabled jobseeker I had been known as an 'overstayer' at the jobcentre and on New Deal; and it had taken me much longer to learn on jobcentre-funded courses, before and after I had 'under-performed' as a mature undergraduate in the mid-1970s. It had been through determination and post-funded support that I got my NVQ Level 1 in Information Technology with Camden ITeC in early 1978, nine months after I had started on the course with a total eighteen month 'funded period' and sympathetic course leader. (That was when jobcentres were not so insensitive to their 'clients' and I had established contact with a Disability Employment Adviser.) When I tried to go beyond Level 2 at the same provider, the then 'Training & Enterprise Council' refused me the go-ahead, saying that for me to stay with the same provider, that could be regarded as my going for too cushy an option!

Yet in a bid to further my grounding in Information & Communication Technology I got a place funded by the same Training & Enterprise Council at a much worse provider called Direct Computer Training that channelled four classloads through the same 'machine room' for 2-hour sessions each day, with 2 hours per day 'talk and chalk' elsewhere, and the remaining half-day shift assigned as 'open learning' that was mainly in pursuit of "minimum 16 job leads per week." That did not really progress my learning positively nearly as much as continued contact with Michélé Galluccio of Camden ITeC whose letter-of-recommendation-of-best-way-forward support helped me to a home computer paid for by my mother.

So in 2004 I evolved into an adult with learning difficulty, basic computing skills, an NVQ Level 2 in Teaching Adults, and the ability to pass on those skills with patience to other slower learners with the help of a jobsearch coach from a charity paid for by the Disability Employment Adviser's account at the jobcentre. That was time-limited to a few months but he managed to negotiate that I had an extension of that support. That support got me through to the stage of being interviewed by an employer linked to the charity with which I had volunteered, but really did time out before I was actually taken on months after Criminal Records Bureau check hiatus had been resolved.

In conclusion, all this illustrates for me how adults with learning difficulties are really disabled by inadequate support in a world where there are organisations such as Direct Computer Training and Maximus really creaming off the taxpayer and adults with learning difficulties are disabled and disheartened by the message of 'time out'.

Post Script

 I wrote the above in between my return home from the Maximus demo and going out to an evening demo against Brent Council's further slaughter of public services, omitting a crucial detail in the tale of 'Owen'.

The story of the person who 'got the wrong message' from what Owen had said had not come to me from direct conversation with Owen but from another member of Owen's support team who I'll call 'Graham'. My 'ear' for what Owen said was not nearly as finely tuned as Graham's and I confided to Graham: "I'm amazed at the warmth in the way Owen greets me, bearing in mind how little of what he says I decipher correctly at the end of a 3 hour session."

"The thing about you, 'Swheatie'," Graham said, "is that you care. The trouble with so many agency carers [contracted at a moment's notice when a regular worker reported in sick] is that they marshall Owen about, giving him orders and not listening to what he has to say."

Sounds like those 'agency' workers would feel very much at home in current Jcp culture that seems dedicated to making benefit claimants feel out of place, does not it?

Tony Cox is not Jimmy Saville or David Cameron

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

What does the charge sheet for Tony Cox of Scottish Unemployed Workers Network read? What was he charged with?

Scottish Unemployed Workers Network reported yesterday:

... if you’re fond of a joke, you might like this description of the SUWN from Tony’s charge sheet. Apparently we ‘solicit’ outside jobcentres and attempt to ‘coerce’ benefit claimants to get them to have us accompany them! You couldna make it up – but someone just has.

Higher up on the same blog post, I read:

Of course courts are inherently full of rules and controls, but the case took place amid tight security, there was a heavy police presence outside, and we were taken aback to be told that only three members of the public would be allowed in. When it was pointed out that courts are meant to be publicly accessible, they soon gave that one up.

 In that, I was reminded of how the Welfare Reform Act 2012's war of even greater attrition was smuggled through the House of Lords by Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud by staging a reading of the Bill in a Committee Room that had little space for wheelchair accessibility. The Broken of Britain blog called for its supporters to:

.... Highlight the injustice and hypocrisy of the government's behaviour in trying to sideline this important Bill into a room too small for all the Lords to attend and certainly too small to allow those in wheelchairs, or with guide dogs, the very people most affected by this bill to be able to observe from the public gallery.

If we make enough noise before 3.30pm today the government will have to drop this underhand tactic and the Bill will continue to be debated in the main chamber of the House of Lords where everyone who wishes to can attend and observe.

— Urgent appeal for action now!

And the matter of lack of witnesses is implicit in today's reporting on the Jimmy Saville abuses at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the 1970's. In the 1970's there was a huge PR machine behind Jimmy Saville amounting to a manufactory of consent for whatever he planned. Now in the 21st Century there is a manufactory of consent via The Sun, The Mail, and whatever, for the smear stories soliciting General Election voters to make life ever harder for the economically not so advantaged.

Disabled and disadvantaged people and their advocates need more witnesses and supporters, not fewer. Join the 38Degrees petition Advocacy is Not a Crime.

Jobcentre as walk-in-and-out-cattle-pen?

By Dude Swheatie

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group Honorary Member Kate Belgrave and witnesses report on how the drive to get throughput in and out of Kilburn Jobcentre in a form of ritual humiliation amounts to number-crushing.

Tube trains carrying a workforce into their waged positions are often likened to 'cattle trucks'. A Kilburn Jobcentre customer cited by Kate complains of being treated like catlle under the daily signing regime made worse by a half-day-closure of that 'facility'. Instead of being relieved of the duty to sign on with the half-day closure, afternoon signers were ordered to attend in the morning, reducing 'quality time' all round.

Under such circumstances, the treatment given to jobseekers regarded as 'overstayers' — a phrase I heard applied to myself after a time on Labour's 'New Deal' expired in 2003 — it is obviously the person denied 'the help they need, when they need it', is treated as abuser of the system rather than the person abused.

And under such circumstances, I'm really glad that I accepted the fact that for me to carry on as a disabled jobseeker till retirement would make myself vulnerable with not worth the pain of that gamble. From November 1977 till I claimed Employment & Support Allowance in early 2009, alongside inadequately supported stretches of government funded training and 3 years as a full-time undergraduate, my sum-total of waged employment had amounted to a grand total of 19 months.

Of that 19 months, 11 months — May 2005 till April 2006 — were so part-time that I was submitting part-time earnings forms at the jobcentre on my fortnightly signing on dates. And against that backdrop I was also experiencing the frustration of not having my JSA top-up entitlement recognised even while the few hours I did as a £7.81 per hour careworker to adults with learning difficulties was below a single 24+ year old's JSA levels. Forget the idea that that income would allow me to travel by tube to shifts with my service users; I gave up that work when the stress of not getting the JSA top up I required earned me cellulitis in my legs as I walked about 3 or 4 miles to a shift and the same back for one of those shifts.

But I was not the only one let down by the system in those days of the 'noughties, as a Community Care magazine report suggested. The report by welfare rights specialist Neil Bateman sadly lacked anything like the coverage given to portrayals of benefit claimants as 'shirkers' has had. So, yes the current Government has made life much worse for benefit claimants, but the anthem with which the Blair Government was elected — 'Things Can Onlyu Get Better' — did not really apply to people let down by jobcentres even then.  Neil Bateman's report is well worth reading for the picture of a system in meltdown — Jobcentre Plus: Poor service continues.

Yet now that more and more and more people are being abused by the system, it is clear that the agenda has changed from 'cock up' to smear story fuelled malevolence. And of course, the involvement of private 'security company' G4S in jobcentres only adds to the context that jobcentres are now places of penal servitude for those whose only recourse is to seek state benefits to which they are entitled. So maybe nasty right wing governments of whatever political party's administration should formally rebrand the UK's 'jobcentres' as 'correction centres' as the American legal system calls its prisons? (Where are the jobs anyway? Right wing lobbyists are hooked on 'the pursuit of inequality' to the point that they want to drive wages right down and eliminate jobseekers' bargaining power.)

And of course, conversely in reality, when animals bred as food are treated well the nutritional value of the food source they become is improved. And that has parallels with the message of the book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better.

To find out more about what Kilburn Jobentre was like this last Thursday, read Kate's blog-piece Reasonable adjustment for disabled people who sign on? I think not!

Jobcentre calls in the cops! This time it's not on account of a KUWG leafleting session

Sanctions & staff sickness create tinder boxes of jobcentres

By Dude Swheatie of the KUWG

Often in the experience of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group, when we stand outside a jobcentre with bullhorn megaphone, the police are called in by the lawless place where people are degraded and treated like dirt with no inherent human rights. Of course, the bullhorn helps alert all around to the silent screams for help from jobcentre 'customers' who — unlike jobcentre management — greet us with smiles and thumbs up and really want to talk to us.

And the police, when they arrive, realise that we are not the problem and go on their way, agreeing with us that the jobcentre management are really wasting police time.

Yesterday, however, the KUWG were not leafleting outside Kilburn Jcp and the police were called in and stayed a while as the tinder-box effect was heightened by staff illness and understaffing added to the tensions caused by the staff remaining being left to implement nasty policies that degrade not only the 'service users' but also those hired to implement those policies.

You can read more about the specifics of why the police were called into Kilburn Jcp yesterday on Kate Belgrave's blog. Perhaps the presence of the KUWG outside a 'sanctions centre' with placards, leaflets and bullhorn as well as understanding ears serves as more of a safety valve than an agitant when pressures mount?

Placard designs for KUWG's next demo

Placards designs by Swheatie of the KUWG

 The above placard paraphrases feedback on a recent Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group from a friend of Swheatie who recently attended a KUWG meeting to find out about people who are poor from themselves rather than from statistical studies. (Kwuggies is one of many nicknames KUWG members have for themselves and each other.)

 Whoever devised the system by which JobSeekers Allowance claimants are obliged to attend the jobcentre/slave centre every day at alternating times, did they do it to enhance the mental health or employment prospects of the daily attendance fodder?

For more on this, see our Honorary Member Kate Belgrave's blog piece Daily JSA sign on: more sadism for the hell of it from the DWP.

 Another KUWG Honorary Member, blogger Johnny Void, writes that the DWP has launched another boring 'grass up your neighbour' campaign that allows the real megabucks benefit fraudsters a very easy ride.

Are the perpetrators of such campaigns pleased with their correlative impact on disability hate crime?

While the Gagging Law is now an Act of Parliament, taxpayers money is being used to further hate crimes against disabled people.

 With all the attacks on poor people through the benefits system, what is the 'end game' of these attackers?

Every Atos 'Medical Examination Centre' should have a warning placed outside it

When Atos 'Disability Analysts' are inducted to believe that as they are 'only assessing claimants' the Hippocratic Oath does not apply, where are their core values? Doctors worked in Nazi concentration camps and later claimed they were 'only following orders'. See Sickness benefit clawback firm tells GP people are 'claimants, not patients'

Thanks to KUWG's friend Kate Belgrave for flagging this one up.

Welfare state presides over 'culture of fear', charities say

New figures presented to benefits inquiry expected to show record numbers of claimants have had cash withheld

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• Patrick Wintour, political editor
• The Guardian, Tuesday 18 February 2014 21.01 GMT
• Jump to comments (1206)

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New figures presented to benefits inquiry expected to show record numbers of claimants have had cash withheld....

Evidence suggests single parents are being told they must apply for full time jobs to continue receiving jobseeker’s allowance. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions is presiding over "a culture of fear" in which jobseekers are set unrealistic targets to find work – or risk their benefits being taken away, leading charities have told an official inquiry.

Continue reading at
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/18/welfare-state-jobs-inquiry-culture-fear

Policy-based evidence gathering, and evidence-based policy making and critique

Swheatie writes: IDS is interested in policy-based evidence-gathering. The sort that led an investment banker turned 'welfare reform adviser' named David Freud to pronounce in February 2008:

If you want a recipe for getting people on to IB, we've got it: you get more money and you don't get hassled. You can sit there for the rest of your life. And it's ludicrous that the disability tests are done by people's own GPs - they've got a classic conflict of interest and they're frightened of legal action."

    Under his system, the market will decide who should receive benefit and who should go out to work. "The private sector will have to start making assessments about who they can get back into work at what cost....

 In fact at the very time that David Freud was speaking in 2008, it was a private company that conducted the Incapacity Benefit Tests for government — and hundreds of thousands even then were wrongly denied the benefit, and won it on appeal.

Kate Belgrave, on the other hand, is very interested in evidence-based policy making and critique to the point of attending Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group meetings and much more. Kate writes:

The jobcentre reports* are proving popular and I think it's v important to keep letting people know what people are having to deal with. You probably saw this:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/18/welfare-state-jobs-inquiry-culture-fear
- exactly what you've been talking about.

* See
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2014/02/four-people-talk-about-sanctions-and-the-pointlessness-of-jobcentres/
and
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2014/02/more-jsa-stories-from-jobcentres-its-impossible-youre-trapped/

Swheatie