Living on Jobseekers Allowance is horrendous and a terrible experience. When they think its right they put you on something called a Mandatory Work Programme (MWP) which is basically slave labour and you must attend it for ONE whole month, (FOUR weeks), 30 hours a week or they will stop paying you (benefit) to live which they call "Sanction" - they are very good at this - imposing a "sanctions". The British government is very generous in giving a sanction to anyone whom they please - they love this game of playing sanctions to anyone and everyone whom they think has not met their criteria, rule or standards.
On MWP jobcentre plus staff will put you where-ever they want, and with whatever organisation they want. It could be any type of work from admn, retail, community work etc. The worst thing is they make you work for free and the company you work will usually be strict and you have to adhere to all their rules for example, you must be on time, punctualy, on the dot everyday otherwise it will be marked as late and they will let the job centre know who will punish you with sanctions. It means by imposing a sanction on you they have taken away your right to live! (because you can't live with out money which gets you food).
You have to do EXACTLY what an advisor tells you to do i.e. if they put you on 'training for work' or TfW you HAVE to go training for work otherwise they will sanction you. Jobcentre Plus staff play god with people, they think they are so superior that they do anything they like with you. On the other hand the their customer service, manners and attitude of these people are very bad indeed. Most of them never smile, they are sad, they don't know how to smile or talk properly to people. They can make you do anything they like and when they like and if you refuse they will punish you with sanctions - they are what is known as SCUM. They were once jobless but I don't know how they get jobs as advisors in jobcentres and who actually recuits people with no customer service skills at all.
I spent two years on a Training for Work scheme with no outcome. In TfW they give an appointment every two weeks for the first year and in the second year they put you on some courses which is either for infants or people who have just arrived in the UK regardless of who you are or where you come from, even if you were born and bred in the UK. Training for Work is a complete waste of time. Neither do the job centre people or advisors help you find work nor do the TfW people, they are just put you on very basic English, Maths, CV and interview skills workshops when you already know everything. Jobcentre Plus and Training for Work are just a "show" staged for the government to show they are doing something while they can sit and warm their seats while getting paid to be a fat-cat.
I have witnessed JobCentre Plus adivisors forcing people to go on placements - slave labour and if they haven't attended their benefit stopped. One day while I was talking to one of the good advisors (approx. 2 out of a 100), I witnessed how a female job centre plus advisor who was also at that time my advisor as well, how she forcely but calmly sanctioned a jobseeker. Immediately a row broke out with a lot of shouting and arguments and security had to be called in. The jobseeker was only expressing his rights and how wrong the advisor was to sanction him - such is the horror of JobCentre Plus in London. Does the government tell the poeple who work in job centre plus to mentally and psychologically torture people using sacntions as a punishment ?
