Happy Birthday Job Centre

The Job Centre is a 100 years old this month. The Observer had a feature on this auspicous anniversary last week.

The piece mentioned the role that Winston Churchil the then Liberal President of the Board of Trade had in founding the Labour Exchange as it was then called although the history of the Job Centre/ Labour Exchange goes back further than that.

William Booth is credited with founding Salvation Army run labour exchsnges in the 1880s and even earlier Labour exchanges were established as a protype for of time bank or LETS by the father of British Socialism- Rober Owen. As arly as 1820 Owen proposed a labour exchange where time and goods could be exchanged by workers using a form of Labour currency. This early form of cooperative enterprise were largely based in London and Birmingham and ran for a few years in the 1830s.

I have used unemployment centres a few times the most recent being for part of last year. I cannot say that the service was as customer friendly as the Government seem to be making out.

Last July I wrote to the Tory peer who in 2007 had published a review of the welfare state for the Government which was severally critical of the welfare dependency culture.

This is what I wrote

Dear Lord Freud,

I understand that you have been appointed the Conservative Party spokesman on Welfare Reform.

As someone who has been receiving Job Seekers Allowance for three months and has been out of work for a large part of 2006 I thought that I would write to you as it is looking increasingly likely that the Conservatives will win the election next year.

The first thing that I would like to say is that I do not like being reliant on benefits I would prefer to be in work, I would say that despite popular myth most people in the same position think as I do. It is not because I fear change either. I have no problem with becoming self employed and I have seen a business adviser. I have written a business plan for a tourism idea that I have, but more of the travails of business start up for someone on benefit later.

I have also continued to apply for jobs and I have made about 50 applications and had 12 interviews. Interestingly the last 8 interviews have been before panels of women who went on to appoint a younger person.

I guess my age of 54 is a major stumbling block.

I did read through your report in February 2007 when ironically I was working for a private company that was getting people back to work in Ellesmere Port. Then of course there were vacancies, now when I checked with the Job centre Plus website for Leek there were just vacancies in a town which has around 1,600 people of working age on benefits.

My main complaint with the benefit system is that is inflexible and unwieldy. I am sure that many of the staff that work there are ignorant of the rules as they are overwhelmed by the number of claimants that have to see. I was told by someone that the Job Centre in Stoke on Trent that advisers are seeing 60+ clients a day and when I saw my adviser yesterday the exchange was over in less than 5 minutes. Two weeks ago when I had my three month interview with my adviser I did ask her about an education grant as I was interested in taking a barbering course at the local College. She said that she would contact me and of course she did not.

I also heard a story from another claimant at Hanley Job Centre that he was sent on a 20 mile journey for a warehouse job on an industrial site that had not even been built. He was very annoyed at the waste of time and money he spent going on this futile journey.

But perhaps the best example of the idiocy of the system was my experience earlier this month. I took a part time job for a few weeks as an exam invigilator at a local High school. I told the job centre of this and filled in the required form on the understanding that I would bring my wage slip in once I had been paid by the Local Authority and this would be deducted from the next JSA. My honesty cost me as the following week I discovered that my JSA had been withheld on the grounds that I was working. I explained to the Job centre that it was no more than 8 hours a week work and that it lasted three weeks. I also said that it would take some time to clear as they had to do a retrospective criminal record bureau check and that payment for my time as an invigilator would be some weeks away( as I am a former Councillor I know how slowly systems work with councils). It took me 4 days and 11 phone calls for the JSA was restored. And in the case of 3 of those phone calls no one from the Job centre called me back.

This happened over a weekend and I had only £6.86 in my current account. I was helped out by a local Church fund that was set up in the 17th century that gave me £30 to tied me over during the weekend. I was saved from destitution from a bequest set up during the reign of William III and failed by the 21st century system.

I made my calls from my local Citizen Advice Bureau were I work twice a week as a volunteer advice worker and I am aware of my work in a bureau in a small North Midland town that my experience was not unique. There are many examples of people being misinformed by the Job Centre or simply not having the courtesy to return calls.

I did write to the Prime Minister about this example of public services not working for me although as of yet I have not received a reply- not that I am expecting a response.

I found out a few things from that experience.

Firstly it seems that the two halves of the Job Centre Plus system by which I mean that part that sees the Job Seekers and that part that pays out the JSA do not seem to have direct telephone contact with each other. During one of my telephone calls with the Job centre one manager told me that they have to use the 0845 telephone number like members of the public.

Secondly I learnt how ignorant staff were of their own regulations and procedures.

As someone who works as a volunteer for the CAB I also understand that many of the clients of the DWP will not have the time, money, patience or stoicism to ring 11 times without getting angry at the incomprehensibility of a system that seems to lack customer focus.

If you are in any position to make any changes I would like to suggest a few.

Perhaps the most radical is to hand the function of job centres over to the Salvation Army or at least some other faith based group. Interestingly the SA provide this service in Australia and I believe were the first organisation to set up Labour Exchanges at least 20 years before the Liberal Government did in 1908.

The Job Centre in Leek was closed in 2005 and claimants have to travel 12 miles into Hanley in order to" sign on". It costs about £5 to take the bus into the Potteries which is a sizable hole out of £64 a week job seekers allowance for which you receive a very poor service.

I have been working with the local Salvation Army to establish a Job Centre in Leek and it looks as if they will start up an "Employment Plus" project in the town from which other services might be developed. I have been in contact with the Church Action on Poverty who have been addressing the issue of worklessness and have expressed an interest in this proposal.

I also feel that self employment is likely to be the only way in which an older person on benefits will escape. The system again does not help what exists is patchy and still there is the problem of someone who has been on benefits for a long time having access to start up capital.

A good example came up in the otherwise execrable BBC Programme on Benefit Fraud a few years ago of a woman who had been on benefits for some years as a lone parent. She had the idea of starting a business selling children’s clothes on the South Yorkshire estate where she lived. She had regular contact with her New Deal Adviser and she did a business plan. Unfortunately, she could not raise the capital as she had CCJs and that was the end of that.

There was an article in the Guardian’s Society Section last Wednesday which rather reinforced the view that the Government should look to examples in Ireland and the US of ways in supporting people who are looking to set up their own businesses but because of their circumstances have little start up capital.

While I am on this subject I should also offer praise to the Princes Trust "Prime" Initiative which offers support to people over 50 who are starting up their own business possibly the only route that people of my age have in avoiding welfare dependency.

There is one badly needed reform and that is the matter of "disregards" for my efforts as an exam invigilator I will receive only £5 as the rest of the JSA will be clawed back. This is a major disincentive to anything and I think that the "disregard" rule has remained £5 for many years, it ought to be reviewed.

Finally, there is a reform that I know the Tories or indeed any of the other main parties will never consider and that is the introduction of Citizens Income- an idea that has been kicking around since Thomas Paine suggested it back in the 1790s. I am of the opinion that a CI should be introduced because the present benefit system fails to do the job it was originally intended to do.

It has become absurdly complicated and inefficient. Many young people between the ages of 16 and 18 are left in poverty; many adults are prevented from working even in unpaid, voluntary jobs because of the rule about availability-for-work. The existing benefit system stems from the Beveridge Report of more than 50 years ago and the basic principles of the Beveridge Report are as relevant today as they were then.

They were, as I am sure you are aware:

* The right of every citizen to a minimum level of subsistence

* The need to preserve incentive, opportunity and responsibility.

But - partly because of the disappearance of full employment, partly because of social changes - the tax and benefit system has now deteriorated into a complicated morass of constantly changing social security and tax legislation, much of which is counter-productive which my own experience serves as an example. Administration costs alone put nearly 2 pence on income tax. Despite the large amount of annual expenditure on social security there has been a steady and alarming growth in the numbers of those in poverty"

Since the summer I have managed to find part time work in a local supermarket as well as taking advantage of the Self Employment Credit as well as working on an environmental project part time based at North Staffs Warm Zone.

The Job Centre even with the best attempts to improve it remains a cheerless place and the level of advice given is still poor. I don't blame the advisors who are over worked especially as someone told me they are seeing 60 claimants a day.

And there remains the low level of JSA at £64 a week for someone over 24. Some academic research has indicated that the level of JSA as a proportion of average income has steadily fallen since the 70s. In 1979 Unemployment benefit as JSA was then called was 22% of the average wage. In 2010 its fallen to 10%.

The irony is that I believe that we should be looking to the past and recreate the Job Centre in the communitarian model as envisaged by Robert Owen by looking how a system can encourage people to retain or develop skills and by not pauperising them