Two weeks ago I published
a post in which I revealed that
the Jobcentre Plus offices at Ramsgate
and Margate had sanctioned 5,273 benefit claims in a 21 month period from October 2012 until June 2014. I said
that this was twice the sanctioning rate of anywhere else in Kent and I
speculated that this massive number of sanctions, the equivalent of 251 per month, was “because Jobcentre bosses in Thanet are
more hard-line than their colleagues elsewhere in Kent. Perhaps they are
operating unofficial sanctions targets and putting pressure on front line staff
to sanction first and ask questions later”. Well it looks as though I was spot
on!
According to evidence submitted to the Government’s Work and
Pensions Committee, who are investigating benefits sanctioning; Jobcentre bosses have indeed been setting
unofficial sanction targets in offices around the country. Staff working in
Jobcentre offices have claimed that their
bosses put them under intense pressure
to meet these unofficial targets. They claim that they were threatened with
disciplinary action if they did not meet these targets. It would appear that thousands
of benefit claimants, especially vulnerable
claimants, are set up to fail. They are given demanding job application targets; their job searches are subjected to
forensic levels of scrutiny, they are forced to attend short notice
meetings – all
with the deliberate intention of causing a breach of the so-called jobseekers
agreement which then leads to sanctions.
Much of this evidence has been reproduced in the Guardian newspaper
this week and is extremely disturbing. Thousands of innocent people who’s only
crime is to be vulnerable and out of work, are being bullied, harassed and
victimised on the orders of Job Centre bosses, to reduce unemployment figures
and cut the amount of money spent on benefits. Many of those sanctioned are forced into
destitution, poverty and reliance on friends, family and food banks to get
by. It makes me so f***ing angry that public service managers are allowed to behave in this awful inhuman way. In my
opinion this behaviour is verging on the criminal!
I will be making a formal complaint to Jobcentre bosses at
Margate and Ramsgate. I will be asking for a full explanation as to why the
rate of the sanctioning is so high in Thanet when compared with the rest of
Kent. There is no justification for targeting people who are down on their luck
and making their already difficult lives intolerable.
I was told about a year ago by someone in a work placement organisation that Margate Joke Center had unofficial sanctions targets and that I should not give them any reason for them to give me a sanction, even if it means lying / bending the truth when I sign on.
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