"Increasingly rigid job and person specifications"

This had been a comment on "21st century welfare" chapter 2 "Problems with the current system", a link which was on the DWP's own website back in 2010 (however now removed - edit Jan 2018). Most of the discussion is about "rates of welfare dependency and poverty" and "work incentives being poor", ie part time hours on mininum wage with regard to top up benefits. So much discussion of welfare reform does centre on blaming (a) unemployed people for not being willing to take jobs (b) the complexity of the system preventing the ones who ARE willing from taking many lower paid and/or part time jobs. No mention of the employer's role in this equation! First there have to be the jobs to take though, difficult enough in the current climate, then factor in the willingness of employers to offer them to some people who may not meet the criteria 100%, and I'm not just talking about disability here. This comment ties in with what I've often said about the need to re-educate employers. The writer touches on "Increasingly rigid job and person specifications" and the "human resources driven ‘closed shop’ mentality of employers", I've often wondered that many 'human resources' bods sometimes don't pass applications to the line managers that they might actually be interested in if they were to see them. How many applications / interviewees are turned down having only been interviewed / application seen ONLY by an HR bod and not the manager who would be responsible for them if taken on? Very good post, and standing out in that it focuses on the employer for once.

Police investigation over fit-to-work tests

Link to article in the Independent as to whether DWP ministers could face police investigation over fit-to-work tests.

Interview adjustments and competition

This thread on the National Autistic Society's own message board is about Interview adjustments. The 3rd post by user Aspergerix describes up the difficulty with competition and proof of hidden prejudice from a legal stance.

Ken Loach - "I, Daniel Blake"

The Guardian reviews film "I, Daniel Blake" by Ken Loach, a veteran film-maker quoted as "rarely speaking" while developing a project but is so deeply concerned about government policy on benefits and the sanctions regime. The title character worked for years as a joiner but had a heart attack which forced him to give up work and claim benefits. Ken goes on to comment on the divisive rhetoric of people into "skivers and strivers". The article ends with an amendment note by charity Mind had commenting on independent academic research that fit-for-work tests were linked to hundreds of extra suicides.

"What exactly are jobcentres for?"

Thread from Kate Belgrave and shared to Reddit. User 'KarmaUK' is right on point in several comments, especially where private companies were being paid thousands to hold courses of zero value to people who already have GCSE English and Maths and can create their own CV, and touching on the kind of 'team building exercises' going on in work training providers like the Flexible Routeways I'd been on in 2008-09.

Work and Pensions Secretary's latest comments in Telegraph and BBC Ouch

Even the right leaning Telegraph publishes this article about the Work and Pensions Secretary being attacked for his latest comments about people with disabilities. Another take on it from the BBC Ouch blog too.

This second BBC article touches on whether the Work and Pensions Secretary had been 'inventing backers' for his sanctions regime, while he himself said someone in the operations department had invented the stories and would face disciplinary action for it. Much as I dislike this current Work and Pensions Secretary, I agree with the theory of the shake-up of the rules on sickness benefit to encourage more people into work being announced. I agree with the comment that the "current system was too binary - with claimants deemed either fit or unfit for work, when it would be better if they could be supported to take up what work they could, even if it was just for a few hours" and more significant than number of hours, with more account of suitable and unsuitable occupations with recognition of Aspergers being capable of much work but for most, not front-line customer facing occupations.

"Focus on people with a bad attitude"

Right there in the House of Commons itself a damning report by the Work and Pensions Committee, on policy beyond the Oakley Review, attacked the current system of sanctions in March and recommended 26 urgent reforms, ways in which the Conservative party were told to "clean up" the system in this article in the Mirror. Really all sactions should be aimed at point 17, those people "with a bad attitude". The article states that employment services professionals believe themselves, assumed to mean both in JobcentrePlus itself and associated training providers (I used to have conversation to that effect with the people where I did the "Flexible Routeway"), that such strict conditionality and sanctions are only necessary with that small minority of claimants outright refusing to work and with "history of poor engagement with employment support". The article rightly higlights the need to protect "more determined jobseekers and the vulnerable", as my own experience of being a determined jobseeker making a lot of applications and simply not being the first choice of employers.

Here's the Parliament Publications PDF link itself, and it is interesting to see just how many of the committee are even from the Conservative party, just a shame they can't see the sense to make one of these the secretary of state.