Morning at the Job Centre!

Long gone are the days when the local Job Centre had bomb proofed waiting areas, reinforced glass screens protecting the staff and Gestapo-like security guards controlling the angry folk trying to make sense of the bureaucracy and simply make ends meet.  Sure, the Department of Work & Pensions has done much to be more “customer focussed” and the like. But is it working?  Although the question remains and my morning at the Job Centre illuminates some workings of the DWP, here’s how it went….

Through the morning I joined a Work Coach in our local Job Centre, this is connected with my involvement with Christians Against Poverty.  Locally we are keen to work with the Job Centre and they too are pleased to be connected with us.  Moreover this is positively encouraged by their managers and the manager’s managers, if you get the drift.

The friendly Work Coach had a number of pre-booked appointments and these were all connected to the Universal Credit.  UC is incredibly controversial in the UK currently and I think if it weren’t for Prince Philip having a prang in his Range Rover and the endless shenanigans of Brexit, we would probably be hearing far more about this.

Making a benefit claim seems quite an involved and fraught business.  There is huge potential for lots of too-ing and fro-ing with heaps of identification, bank details, address details, health details and so on.  Then there is the need for everything to be on-line, which is fine, providing the customers can hack this.

I sat next to the Work Coach as she tipped and tapped away on a computer while customers sat with her; this was all about progressing claims ahead of the first payment being made.  Other customers waited anxiously on comfy, corporate seating just out of earshot.

This process all seemed okay and I could understand what she was doing and why.  The tricky bit came when she asked each customer to do something themselves where this involved accessing their UC account.  Each one had a smart phone but none could do it through not knowing how to find the browser!  Neither did they have internet access at home and so their only option was to use a computer in the Job Centre or the public library.

Knowing the difficulty this involved, the Work Coach wisely suggested the customers used the computers in the Job Centre.  Each had real problems logging on, not because they didn’t know their user name or password (though one or two struggled to find this) but because they little idea how to use a mouse or a keyboard.  I think one hadn’t used a QWERTY keyboard much before and needed help in typing UNIVERSAL CREDIT into the search engine.  He couldn’t easily find the letters and didn’t know how to put a space in between the words.

I queried this, wondering if what I was seeing was typical.  It was typical but even though customers are sent on IT courses, unless they have access to the internet they’ll quickly forget and can become despondent.  Another classic sign of modern day poverty and not having internet access.

Talking of being despondent, there was definitely a sense of customers appearing a little lost, looking only to the next week or two in their outlook.  For some there was an air of hopelessness and simply jumping through hoops.  Others looked very downtrodden, anxious and nervous.

This needs unpicking.  On one hand there is the DWP machinery designed to prevent fraud.  Job Centres have been ripped off in a scandalous way in the past, not only through moonlighting but also through criminals inventing people to claim benefits.  Balanced against this are huge numbers of people with real needs, often a complicated range of needs, who are stuck in the system.  Can the DWP fix these problems, of course not but it’s where we need properly funded, state run agencies and not-for-profit organisations to take care of people’s needs through empowering them to move forward.  There is good support out there for those who either stumble across it or who are directed towards it and this safety net is so valuable; however it needs further investment.

These safety nets, such as Christians Against Poverty, are mostly those in the charitable or not-for-profit sectors.  Staff and volunteers work their socks off for their clients and funding always seems on the meagre side.  This is often very short term, thus keeping such organisations often on the brink of collapse and less able to develop their services to their full potential or plan well financially.

And as for us in Christians Against Poverty, we are one of a plethora of good organisations looking out for the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged folk.  Folk who are neighbours, friends, brothers, sisters.  This combined with the likes of the friendly, skilled and astute Work Coach can lead to some meaningful work taking place in a system which is otherwise flawed through being chronically underfunded.