and About Time Too

[equusdriving]

The post above applies to many people who are getting JSA. Remember that people are found fit for work DESPITE illnesses and disabilities so Equus if you too think that people claiming JSA are able to up sticks and move perhaps you could answer the questions above.....

wow that is spooky,I only just mentioned mamby pamby do-gooders and then as if by magic.................In his keynote speech at the conference, the Chancellor will say: “For the first time, all long-term unemployed people who are capable of work will be required to do something for their benefits to help them find work

[squidge]

Oh dear

Let me explain this to you

If you have been on JSA and you have attended a medical and been assessed as fit to work - not entitled to ESA then you have to claim JSA because despite what you might think - you have been assessed as fit to work. The Chancellors statement says "capable of work" because if you are claiming JSA then you are by definition capable of doing so. If you have cancer, or multiple sclerosis or depression and are claiming JSA because there is no option to do otherwise after ATOS find you fit for work then you will be classed as capable. If you try to explain that you are not really fit then you will either have to claim ESA ( which they have told you, you cant get and you certainly wont get if you apply with the exact condition you had when you were declared fit for work) or your benefit will sanctioned for not be capable and you will not be able to claim JSA either. If you are caring for children aged 5 or over then you will be expected to participate in this scheme.

So can you explain to me how people on benefits can afford to move to a variety of places?

[mi16]

Oh dear

Let me explain this to you

If you have been on JSA and you have attended a medical and been assessed as fit to work - not entitled to ESA then you have to claim JSA because despite what you might think - you have been assessed as fit to work. The Chancellors statement says "capable of work" because if you are claiming JSA then you are by definition capable of doing so. If you have cancer, or multiple sclerosis or depression and are claiming JSA because there is no option to do otherwise after ATOS find you fit for work then you will be classed as capable. If you try to explain that you are not really fit then you will either have to claim ESA ( which they have told you, you cant get and you certainly wont get if you apply with the exact condition you had when you were declared fit for work) or your benefit will sanctioned for not be capable and you will not be able to claim JSA either. If you are caring for children aged 5 or over then you will be expected to participate in this scheme.

So can you explain to me how people on benefits can afford to move to a variety of places?

As mentioned earlier the DWP have loans available which could be used to help with relocation costs.
If relocation is not possible and you are deemed fit for work then you will just have to do the tasks allocated to you in order to continue to recieve the payments, on the plus side this may bring you new skills and experience which can be exploited in your CV and help you to find paid work.
Either way you are no worse off and lets not forget that it is for the long term unemployed, if you have been on JSA for an extended period and cannot "find" work then something needs to change in order to help you find work of some sort.

[changilass]

Our move to Aberdeen happened because hubby was made redundant from Dounreay. He signed on, but before getting any money managed to get part time work in Tesco. This actually cost us more money than he was earning, but hubby needed to work for his peace of mind. This obviously couldn't go on and we had to take the decision to leave Caithness.

Hubby managed to get a job in Aberdeen and following a 6 week training period he moved to Aberdeen, he initially stayed in a caravan and then in the YMCA before we managed to find accommodation that we could afford (needless to say it wasn't exactly a very nice area or property).

We stayed in Caithness untill he was taken on permanently at which point we moved down to join him.

I am not saying it was easy, it was bliddy hard. Hubby away on his own and me stuck in Caithness basically a single parent, but it was worth the sacrifices we had to make.

I also know a single mum who had to move to Inverness from Caithness, again following being made redundant.

If you want to work there is work out there, it just involves a lot of hard work and sacrifice and bloody mindedness.

[rob murray]

and the trouble is not only in a lot of cases does Mohamed not only want the mountain to come to him he wants it to bring a big wedge of money for his "necessary" luxuries like plasma tv, blackberry,sky tv, fags, booze, designer clothes for his many state funded offspring etc etc.
and in answer to the mamby pamby do gooders This has nothing to do with the sick, mentally ill etc, but the people who are signing on declaring that they are actively seeking work!

Yep totally agree....people on benefits buying plasma tv, blackberry,sky tv, fags, booze, designer clothes have second incomes...working on the fly or are involved in other illegal activities. Wise up stop making stupid generic statements, and Im no gooder, its this stupid ill informed bile that getws me. Check out benefit rates ...then show me how the hell people cam buy plasma tv, blackberry,sky tv, fags, booze, designer clothes ....all on tick never to be paid back !!! Benefits doesnt stretch that far.

[rob murray]

As mentioned earlier the DWP have loans available which could be used to help with relocation costs.
If relocation is not possible and you are deemed fit for work then you will just have to do the tasks allocated to you in order to continue to recieve the payments, on the plus side this may bring you new skills and experience which can be exploited in your CV and help you to find paid work.
Either way you are no worse off and lets not forget that it is for the long term unemployed, if you have been on JSA for an extended period and cannot "find" work then something needs to change in order to help you find work of some sort.

Something needs to change that I will agree with but whats being suggested is pure nonsense !!

[rob murray]

Oh dear

Let me explain this to you

If you have been on JSA and you have attended a medical and been assessed as fit to work - not entitled to ESA then you have to claim JSA because despite what you might think - you have been assessed as fit to work. The Chancellors statement says "capable of work" because if you are claiming JSA then you are by definition capable of doing so. If you have cancer, or multiple sclerosis or depression and are claiming JSA because there is no option to do otherwise after ATOS find you fit for work then you will be classed as capable. If you try to explain that you are not really fit then you will either have to claim ESA ( which they have told you, you cant get and you certainly wont get if you apply with the exact condition you had when you were declared fit for work) or your benefit will sanctioned for not be capable and you will not be able to claim JSA either. If you are caring for children aged 5 or over then you will be expected to participate in this scheme.

So can you explain to me how people on benefits can afford to move to a variety of places?

See my previous posts on the logistics of daily signing on...your right, people on benefits cannot afford to move to a variety of places

[squidge]

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/s...dgeting-loans/

Oh right - the maximum you can have as a budgeting loan for a family is £812 You cant owe the social fund more than £1500 in total but that is not the total budgeting loan you can get - that is as I said £812.As a single person it is £348. Rent in advance is covered but a deposit isnt - you usually have to pay both. Now when I moved to Inverness in 2004 it cost me £1500. How do you find the shortfall if you are on benefits?

The articles I have reads all state "long term unemployed" how does that affect carers?

People with caring responsibilities also claim JSA - how do they move areas if they have caring responsibilities?

who has said that a single parent with 2 kids will have to do anything that doesn't fit around them?

Anyone who's youngest child is over five must claim JSA and therefore will have to participate in the workfare scheme or lose benefits. Again how do they afford to move house if they are a single parent?

and with this superb new scheme no one will have to face those financial and emotional costs, just do the same as all the people who pay taxes to keep them do!

And here we are right back again - there are not the jobs so how is the workfare going to move people into work? The mandatory work programmes have been shown by the DWP themselves not to work so how are they going to move people into work? If you want to PUNISH people for being unemployed then say so dont dress it up and pretend its support when it isnt.

Either way you are no worse off and lets not forget that it is for the long term unemployed, if you have been on JSA for an extended period and cannot "find" work then something needs to change in order to help you find work of some sort.

Absolutely it does. There needs to be proper support and quality training, there needs to be jobs and employers who will actually consider the long term unemployed - see if I had a pound for every employer that said "dont send me anyone who has been on the dole for months -Im not interested" I would be a rich woman. There needs to be proper fraud prevention and wages subsidies and there needs to be investment in young people to prevent them becoming long term unemployed in the first place. There needs to be a change to help people see they have something to offer instead of berating them for being lazy idle and scroungers and then we might start to actually make a difference to the unemployment figures.

[rob murray]

Oh right - the maximum you can have as a budgeting loan for a family is £812 You cant owe the social fund more than £1500 in total but that is not the total budgeting loan you can get - that is as I said £812.As a single person it is £348. Rent in advance is covered but a deposit isnt - you usually have to pay both. Now when I moved to Inverness in 2004 it cost me £1500. How do you find the shortfall if you are on benefits?


People with caring responsibilities also claim JSA - how do they move areas if they have caring responsibilities?

Anyone who's youngest child is over five must claim JSA and therefore will have to participate in the workfare scheme or lose benefits. Again how do they afford to move house if they are a single parent?

And here we are right back again - there are not the jobs so how is the workfare going to move people into work? The mandatory work programmes have been shown by the DWP themselves not to work so how are they going to move people into work? If you want to PUNISH people for being unemployed then say so dont dress it up and pretend its support when it isnt.

It is punishment, a very broad brush stroke, why not attack the employers taking on people working on the fly, they are worse then any so called scrounger : people over 2 years un employed and genuinely fit for work mandatory training linked to jobs...thats fair...but this is Vaithness so what damn jobs...there are people whether we like it or not who don't or never want to work and are free loading that must stop but in a proper manner, opportunities must be given and very hard sanctions have to apply if the opportunity is abused.

[squidge]

Most of the jobs there are in Caithness are never advertised which is ok if you are "in the know" or your face fits or your name fits or your mother brother father sister or girlfriends cousins husband works there and can put in a good word for you.

That is the perogative of employers to take on who they want in the way they want but it penalises those who for whatever reason are trying to overcome difficulties and get work and it plays into the hands of the prejudices we see so clearly articulated above. "Im not taking him he is a lazy scrounger" This is why wages subsidies work better than mandatory workfare. IT actually financially benefits an employer to take on someone who has been long term unemployed and they are more likely to take a risk, give someone a chance if they have some sort of financial protection at least in the short term.

[equusdriving]

Oh right - the maximum you can have as a budgeting loan for a family is £812 You cant owe the social fund more than £1500 in total but that is not the total budgeting loan you can get - that is as I said £812.As a single person it is £348. Rent in advance is covered but a deposit isnt - you usually have to pay both. Now when I moved to Inverness in 2004 it cost me £1500. How do you find the shortfall if you are on benefits

? read Changilass's post, you will be surprised what people can do ,if they want to

People with caring responsibilities also claim JSA - how do they move areas if they have caring responsibilities?

as I said they wont have to now with this superb scheme

Anyone who's youngest child is over five must claim JSA and therefore will have to participate in the workfare scheme or lose benefits. Again how do they afford to move house if they are a single parent?

as I said they wont have to now with this superb scheme

If you want to PUNISH people for being unemployed then say so dont dress it up and pretend its support when it isnt.

I don't want to punish them, I just want them to put a little bit back in the pot, like everyone else does

[equusdriving]

Yep totally agree....people on benefits buying plasma tv, blackberry,sky tv, fags, booze, designer clothes have second incomes...working on the fly or are involved in other illegal activities.

well at least they wont have time to now.

Wise up stop making stupid generic statements,

likewise

and Im no gooder, its this stupid ill informed bile that getws me.

its bad spelling that gets me

Check out benefit rates ...then show me how the hell people cam buy plasma tv, blackberry,sky tv, fags, booze, designer clothes ....all on tick never to be paid back !!! Benefits doesnt stretch that far.

either way ,they must have the spare cash to pay back the tick

[mi16]

I don't want to punish them, I just want them to put a little bit back in the pot, like everyone else does

Exactly, no one want to see anyone punished but in the same vein what makes folk think they are entitled to take money from the state for prolonged periods for absolutely nothing in return?

[squidge]

? read Changilass's post, you will be surprised what people can do ,if they want to

Lol I dont need to read changilass's post Equus I know exactly what people can do - I moved from Caithness to Inverness after my marriage ended with no job, three kids, no family here because it was the right thing to do for me and I was ABLE to make those sacrifices. I took the first job I could and I scrimped and scraped and worked really hard to make a life for my children and I. Dont preach to me about what people can do. That was after I had moved my family 500 miles north to make a new life in Caithness. The thing is I know EXACTLY why I was able to do that and exactly how I was able to afford it. Thats why I know how hard it was and why I understand why not everyone is able to do that. Why not everyone has the financial ability to do it and why not everyone can cope with the emotional hardship. Changi had the support and love of her husband and the I know she has the personal strength to cope with the sacrifices and make a success of things. She is an impressive and remarkable lady in many ways.


I had the need to get away from a difficult situation and the personal strength to cope with the sacrifices and I had the money to move. I know EXACTLY how hard it is - and thats why I know that not everyone is able to overcome the difficulties or afford the money it costs.

Not everybody is the same.

....what makes folk think they are entitled to take money from the state for prolonged periods for absolutely nothing in return?

most of them dont mi16. And with the right help, the right support, a focus on improvement and a working with people to overcome barriers to employment many of them will get work. Many of them will also stay in work. It often takes imagination and persistence and compassion to move those people who are unemployed long term into work and it also needs jobs. This programme provides none of these things...none. The DWP have evidence which they produced from pilot schemes which shows that this type of programme does not improve the job prospects for the people taking part. What on earth is the point of it unless it is simply to stigmatise the unemployed. What a waste of money when they could be doing something far more imaginative which works.

[equusdriving]

I know that not everyone is able to overcome the difficulties or afford the money it costs.
Not everybody is the same.

well its a good job,especially for those people who you mention, that they will now be able to do their bit, and take pride in the fact, without having to move away

What on earth is the point of it unless it is simply to stigmatise the unemployed.

Surely working and doing your bit for what you get, is far less likely to be stigmatized about than not doing nothing and being kept by the taxpayer or is because they wont still be able to brag to their mates about how much they get for doing nothing

[weezer 316]

Does this mean move house.

Can you explain to me how someone who is on benefits can afford to move to a) Inverness b) Edinburgh c)Manchester or d) London?

Can you explain to me how someone who is a carer and on benefits can afford to move to the aforementioned places?

Can you explain to me how a single parent with two children at school can afford to move to the aforementioned places?

Can you explain to me how much it costs to move house both in terms of financial and emotional costs when you are in the positions I mentioned above?

I cant explain any of that, what I can say though is we moved house 5 times before I was 16, 3 times around Glasgow, then up to Halkirk and then to Thurso. My mum never worked a day in her life and was an alcoholic. So its clearly do-able. Infact even more so now than 20 years ago.

[Alrock]

I would think it would have to worked in a way where, they would have to work however many hours at (at-least) minimum wage that would equal their benefits. So not cheap labor, just honest work for honest pay and all the pride and self satisfaction that goes with it thrown in for free, just like the rest of society that have been following this practice for years, and supporting themselves and their families

So that would be about 10 hours per week, not the 30 that they are talking about...

? read Changilass's post, you will be surprised what people can do ,if they want to

Fine in theory, but if everybody did that then you have the problem that there is still only a finite number of jobs out there, there will still be the same number of unemployed, just shuffled around the country a bit.

[equusdriving]

So that would be about 10 hours per week, not the 30 that they are talking about...

yes "I would think" so

Fine in theory, but if everybody did that then you have the problem that there is still only a finite number of jobs out there, there will still be the same number of unemployed, just shuffled around the country a bit.

yes but not anymore, with the new scheme no one will have to be shuffled around if they didn't want to

and dont forget the other options available " attend the Jobcentre and search for work every day, or be placed in the new Mandatory Intensive Regime"

[mi16]

yes "I would think" so yes but not anymore, with the new scheme no one will have to be shuffled around if they didn't want toand dont forget the other options available " attend the Jobcentre and search for work every day, or be placed in the new Mandatory Intensive Regime"

Any unemployed person who is looking for work should be spending a large majority of their deal searching for work

[squidge]

I cant explain any of that, what I can say though is we moved house 5 times before I was 16, 3 times around Glasgow, then up to Halkirk and then to Thurso. My mum never worked a day in her life and was an alcoholic. So its clearly do-able. Infact even more so now than 20 years ago.

It absolutely is doable - did you not hear me say that I did it???? It is LESS doable now though Rents are high - social housing is harder to get, private rentals require deposits and rent in advance and private rents are soaring. The cheapest two bedroomed flat to let in Inverness on Zoopla just now is £495 per month so thats £990 before you even pack your clothes. Twenty years ago social fund payments were often grants and not loans. Social housing was easier to get - my parents in law applied for a house in Invergordon and within five weeks were offered one and moved up from Glasgow.

The thing is that not everyone is the same. Not everyone CAN move like that - if they can do then they probably all ready have done or will do and therefore will not end up long term unemployed unless they have particular issues like addiction or mental health issues. Telling people that they should move cos "look I did it" shows a complete lack of the ability to understand the differences between people.