They also serve who only stand and wait.

As well as being a Phd-er, I also volunteer at a homelessness charity, which specialises in helping clients with multiple addictions ( drugs and alcohol).  Many of them have mental health problems, either pre-exisiting or as a result of sustance abuse.  Most have shockingly low levels of literacy, and all of them have some form of contact with either the JobCentre or the DWP.

Which is where I come in.  I have, like many academics I have known, the practical sense of a whelk.  However, I  am good at filling in forms, making tea, fielding phonecalls, and arguing a case.  So, whilst my colleagues run our courses on woodwork, or run the Big Issue, I do advocacy.

This involves having a degree of knowledge about the rules & regs of Housing Benefit (needed to pay rent at the Night Shelter), JSA, DLA etc, listening to clients who have a problem or think they have grounds for complaint, and then, every month or so, going to the local JC to argue their case. As I did  today.

I cannot go into the specifics of any of the cases with which I dealt today-to do so would be unethical as my clients are entitled to their privacy.  Suffice to say that the issues that came up were : Sanctions applied for non-attendence at a course, HB complaints arising both from sanction-decisions & more generally, and a DLA decision so mind-blowingly inept, I am actually going to ask the client to co-post with me at a later date.  Apart from the latter all these are pretty standard issue problems.

But today, there were a lot of them.  A lot more sanctions than usual.  "FFS, Anna, I was only five minutes late and they're treating me like I wasn't there at all!  They know I can be bloody late, but I always turn up!!!And when I'm on time there're only three people on the f**ing desks anyway, they can run late, but I can't,.." and so on with added expletives.  This speech is a paraphrase of about 3 speeches I've heard recently, but the content is the same in each case.  There is one rule for the JC and another for clients.

So, along I trotted, past the security guards, and along to meet a liason person.  Who was late.  I bit my tongue & we went to work.

Sanctioning is JC-speak for either stopping benefit completely or deducting a portion thereof.  Sanctions are commonly applied for lateness, non-attendence at a recommended course, failure to sign on, failure to apply for a vacancy that the JC has given the client, failure to attend a meeting with an advisor or failure to declare any earnings.  Having sanctions applied to a client's cash benefits also results in their HB being affected, with immediate effect.  It can have devastating effects, which is why, until fairly recently, it was used as a last resort.

Sanctions decisions are not made by individual advisors, they record actions taken and then any decisions about sanctions are passed up to 'decision-makers'.  Until recently these people were based in the same building as the JC, and would often still do shifts 'on the floor'.  This way they got to know clients, understood the pressures that staff faced, and could see the issues 'in-the-round'.  This has now changed.

The decisions about sanctions are now taken from another office in another town.  How it now works is that clients come in to 'sign on' and their attendence is recorded on a computer screen, which is networked to the other office.   If the client is late etc, they get one phonecall to explain themselves, and then are recorded as 'non-attending'.  Previously, their advisor might have tried again, or followed up their phonecall with a conversation with a colleague to say that this client is usually reliable, or that they've been down a bit recently..this discretion, based on a knowledge of individuals has now been removed.  Recorded as late?  You'll be sanctioned.  Your HB will cease. And, in order to get back on track again, you will have to deal with an office in another part of the county that you cannot visit.  You must write.

It is at this point that I must, of course, insert caveats. Yes, some clients do take the proverbial.  But, most, in my frontline experience, do not.  They do have often appalling timekeeping (most do not own watches/clocks however, or phones), and very short fuses.  Which brings me to today..

If a client is late, they are sanctioned.  If they make a mistake, or fail to remember something, or lose a piece of paper, they are sanctioned first and then have to prove their 'rectitude'.  They are (rightly, even if the outcomes can be unfair) held to account.

My meeting today was scheduled in advance.  The manager was late.  She didn't have all the paperwork, despite my having provided her with a full list. When I went downstairs, there were only two desks working, as most advisors go on lunch simultaneously, whilst appointments for that time are still dished out-meaning that if a client's appointment was at 1, they can often wait for an hour to be seen.  If a client raises this, they are ignored or told to wait.  If they walk out, after that hour, they are recorded as late, or as non-attending.  The JC holds all the cards.

Which is not to say all JC staff are sods.  They know their clients (as one put it to me some time ago-"There's a world of difference between someone who is is really trying to find work, but who is late for appointments, and someone who turns up once a week, does the bare minimum and then buggers off.  Guess who gets sanctioned?").  They do face abuse, which is now often as a result of  decisions in which they have had no part.  They're not very well paid, and many are on short-term contracts.  They are human.

There is much talk of bringing private sector values to the public sector.  There is also much talk of clamping-down on scroungers, of toughening up the rules for claimants, of what is fair, and what is not.  Today made me wonder-what private business would survive with the JC's approach to customer relations?  Not one.  The relationship between the JC and it's 'clients' is utterly one-sided, and if the Govt really wants to reform the welfare state, it could do a lot worse than to start by addressing this.