Subversion of the government by the government….

IDS denied it. But the proof is here. Scorecards are being used to monitor precisely just how jobcentre districts are doing sanctioning people.

It breaks down the sanctions performance by district, and includes a column headed “direction of travel”, with red and green arrows showing whether a district is up or down on the previous month’s performance.

DWP ministers have acknowledged that they collect this data, but on Monday night Lord Freud told peers this was purely in order to “correct the anomalies”.

Furthermore

But the mounting documentary evidence and reports from staff suggest that on the ground these scorecards result in targets and pressure on staff who are not meeting apparently expected levels of sanctions.

Numerous jobseekers who have had their benefits stopped for weeks or months after being told they are not doing enough to find work have told of the hardship of being penalised and have disputed the fairness of the sanctions.

The numbers in the scorecard are revealing. They indicate that in January alone more than 85,000 sanctions were applied or upheld against claimants, and that most districts were down on the previous month’s performance.

The spreadsheet shows detailed further information on sanctions: 24,000 of these “adverse decisions” came from referrals by work programme providers. Almost 1,400 decisions were made against recipients of employment and support allowance (sickness benefit).

The figures include referrals to mandatory work activity (MWA), with 1,442 claimants sent to work for their benefit during January. Arrows show almost all districts were increasing the numbers of people they sent to MWA.

This is how it works

To illustrate, a claimant who receives a four-week sanction for failing to show proof of actively seeking employment may then fail to attend the jobcentre to sign for their benefit, as no there is no financial benefit.

“After the sanction is served, they will make a fresh claim to jobseeker’s allowance. The office in question will claim the off-flow, and the statistics look favourable. However, the cost of making a fresh claim to benefit in real terms is around £500 and is therefore [a] false economy at its worst in order to try to climb up the league table – which, despite all assurances, do exist within clusters, districts and regions for all departmental targets.

“Simply put, the targets imposed for sanctions is a way for district managers to fudge figures in order that they are seen to be doing their jobs, whereas the government continues to stress that the off-flow should always be into sustainable employment and is being kept in the dark about the reality. All advisers at my place of work and most in the district have been given mid-year review statements (on which performance-related pay is based) which include a target to achieve 6% DMA referrals, although again this has been widely denied.”

The existence of these targets is denied by politicians such as IDS. The government line in public at least is that they do not exist and that any manager enforcing such targets will themselves be in trouble. What is being uncovered here is a secret subverting of the governmental process. How can such subversion be said to represent the democratic will? How can any decision about sanctioning be made in a way that is accountable?  How can the civil service be acting in an impartial way?

The South Park Conundrum

Past experiences of witnessing groups outside the Labour Party being set up with good intentions, good faith and good comrades then watch it being wrecked by some democratic centralist organisation is a bit like Groundhog Day. You build them up and watch them being knocked down. Getting biblical I suppose it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. There’s always this desperation, the classic knee jerk response, the default setting that’s all about control.

It’s never about doing the right thing, is it?

In Bristol, there’s BADACA (Bristol & District Anti-Cuts Alliance) which has a variety of people involved committed to fight against the cuts and then you have….Ta-da… Unite the Resistance, which is apparently a group of trade unionists fighting against the cuts. Why? Oh, why? Do we need another group when BADACA is already there…. organising against the cuts? Ah, I see… UtR is different not the same but different:

“The key difference between these groups and Unite the Resistance is the emphasis on the trade union movement.”

Er… BADACA has trade unionists actively involved, and it is established. Why, again, do we need a competing organisation? Reinventing the same kind of organisation. Except… could it be that UtR is maybe a front…? UtR claims it “supports the work of these groups and don’t wish to displace them or duplicate their work.” So why set it up? It  looks like duplication and displacement. A network of trade unionists…? Really? Could it be, perchance, a SWP front… Well, as that popular saying goes if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck… then it is a duck…

What’s more when you are talking to someone in a democratic centralist organisation you never ever can tell whether the views spouted are their own or what has been handed down from on high from the CC… You just can’t tell!

In all of my political activism I have never ever had the desire or urge to be part of the “take over”. It just doesn’t make sense, why the need to control and wreck? The end result is a number of pissed off comrades who have zilch respect for the democratic centralist posse that destroyed the group (I still have very sad memories regarding the Socialist Alliance and its demise…….. )

And talking of democratic centralism……..

Which one of the competing 57 varieties will lead us to the barricades? That’s a toughie and a conundrum. This compares favourably to the South Park episode where all the religions are represented in hell. Eventually they ask which one was the true religion… “Mormons”… apparently. But you get my drift. Which one of the democratic centralist groups will lead us to the revolution? My money is on the Posadists who will hopefully beam us all into an alternate universe. It’s a wild guess, I know… but fingers crossed!!

I question the motives of these revolutionary left groups, they recruit some extremely diligent and committed people who become part of the loyal machinery, or drop out,  or just wake-up and discover it’s all nonsense. And there are many traumatised trots out there. Possibly these groups give a sense of belonging (parallels with religion) and acceptance but at what cost.

Finally, these secretive top-down closed-off  intellectually defunct democratic centralist groups are outmoded, outdated and damn well obsolete. To be honest, they aren’t fit for purpose nor do they advance the class struggle, they actually hinder it with their political scraps, squabbles, sectarianism and quarrels … Oh, and the control freakery, packing meetings and take-over bids regards to leadership structures.

Give it up comrades, you have nothing to lose but the bill for your dues! It’s not about subservience, loyalty, obedience or any of that. It’s about building looser meaningful alliances and creating unity in organisations. The problem is that you are never far away from wondering when one of these groups are gonna make a bid for take-over! You want to be able to work together as equals, along with debating and discussion in an open, transparent and democratic way.

Even with the latest incarnations outside Labour that have committed and genuine comrades looking for alternatives to austerity, socialist aims and campaigning you still have to keep an eye on the former leaders from the various splitsville massacres during the past couple of years because they don’t to seem to have learnt any valuable lessons from past behaviour. And the need to control and reign supreme is never far away. Once that happens, if it’s not tackled, becomes dead in the water. Another group with potential goes down the drain… cue further disillusionment and despair. Combined with a cynicism that’s about won’t get fooled again.

So comrades, here’s the thing, let’s ditch the old style of top-down methods of organisations, closed intellectual hierarchal systems,  let’s loosen the dead hand of democratic centralism forever. It’s about doing the right thing for the class struggle not for your CC.

You know it makes sense…….

Jabberwocky Weekly Worker style…..

I have read some garbled articles in my time but this one takes the biscuit! The author desperately wants to take a pop at the SWP but basically seems to agree with the SWP’s line on women and feminism. Confused? You will be after reading this article. It’s jumps around from the Mail, “creeping” feminism, Women in the labour movement blog, SWP, rape culture, no-platform and back to feminism. One mish-mash of a dog’s dinner of an article. Criticising the SWP yet blaming feminism.

What is meant by?

The far left’s complete loss of traction on the women’s question – and the latter’s domination by decreasingly rational forms of feminism – is a particularly clear example.

Ah yes, by meaning decreasingly rational forms of feminism… he’s saying irrational. Irrational feminism. Just say it. To be honest, there’s a distinct heavy stench of the irrationality about Demarty’s article.

Another attack on feminism is with this they aint much like allies just now. The motion to Unison women’s conference, apparently, a tissue of hoary feminist clichés. 

Firstly, I disagreed with the motion, as I believe it can be used by the bureaucracy to attack the Left BUT reducing the criticism to insults and stereotypes isn’t honest debate. Let’s have a real discussion about this as opposed to reaching for your favourite caricatures that could have been lifted from The Sun newspaper.

Secondly,  I do understand the sentiments and reasoning behind this motion. Politically wrongheaded but totally understandable. In the current climate of devaluing, demeaning and denigrating rape, it’s been shocking and damaging to the Left. It has unearthed nasty misogynistic views and exposed a seriously worrying trend of rape apolologism. And you only have to look at how the SWP dealt with the allegations of rape. And when people speak out about any kind of sexual assault and rape there’s a tendency to dismiss, blame and ultimately to blame the victim/survivor. For me it’s about listening and taking seriously what is being said, including allegations as opposed to the knee jerk reaction of disbelief, and this is reflected on the Left too. I am sick and tired of this, women being disbelieved, demeaned, humiliated, and confronted by the Left’s version of rough justice! This article written in this sneering, sarcastic, ranty and juvenile way is utterly disrespectful and isn’t about debate. It is not clever nor can he put forward cogent arguments. It’s pathetic.

And why is the statement about “Our movement must be a safe space for women” dubious? I signed it because I agreed with it. Why it is so dubious to show solidarity regarding confronting and challenging violence against women?! Again, the author is dismissive and actually it exposes his ignorance.

But the icing on cake, pièce de résistance is this half-baked nonsense:

Rape – and domestic violence – are not conducted, by and large, by people who explicitly hold women in contempt, but are rather symptoms of an underlying social psychopathology, a deformed consciousness that does not manifest itself in a way that it can, as the writers of the statement imagine, be “confronted” or “challenged” in a direct way.

Huh? Say what?

Where to start? Where’s the empirical and rational basis for this? Good grief… this really is highfalutin’ verbiage.  Where does this fit in with a rigorous Marxist analysis. My favourite has to be “underlying social psychopathology”… Methinks that is psychobabble along with”a deformed consciousness”…

This “analysis” lets violent men off the hook. No mention of power relationships between men and women. Of course, patriarchy theory to the author (and many on the Left) would be like opening the blinds on a sunny day to a vampire. Nooooooo…

But the underlying issue here is the lack of individual responsibility (also collective responsibility is a bit thin on the ground too) for violent behaviour. The statement is not counterproductive it’s a valid view of the Left.

Finally (as I don’t want to spent too much time on this)

Most of all, we can now see why the charge of ‘creeping feminism’ was so pathetic. In its utterly moralistic approach to politics, the SWP encouraged its members to become feminists. It fostered illusions in campus campaigns to ban lads’ mags, in local campaigns to close down strip clubs, in all the censorious and oppressive nonsense to have come out of that movement (the carnivalesque and gleefully perverse side of feminism seems hardly to have appealed to the SWP at all, alas).

Now the curtain-twitcher’s finger is being wagged at the SWP – and it has no answers at all.

Did the SWP encourage its member to become feminists? That’s news to me. And what fresh hell is this, the carnivalesque and gleefully perverse side of feminism seems hardly to have appealed to the SWP at all, alas.

Just what is the author talking about? Wot… Not workerist enough? SWP shoulda/coulda been more resolute against that creepy crawly feminism?

The mind boggles at this incoherence…. and that makes it utterly reactionary!

Time to sack Liam Byrne!

In moments of indolence I like to imagine Liam Byrne forced to work for a workfare scheme. Demeaned and dehumanised with only his benefits to look forward to, if he misbehaves then it’s sanctions! But no, just a wild fantasy where Byrne gets his comeuppance. Though I wish someone would send him a membership form to join the Tory Party because that’s where he belongs. Even better if Mister Ed did the decent thing and sacked the lowlife scoundrel.

Labour abstained on the Worfare Bill and woe betide anyone who did the principled and only thing by voting AGAINST! Byrne said that, “it had been a very, very difficult decision”…. 

Huh? A difficult decision is taking on the ConDems. A difficult decision is taking on the powerful. I always have a tendency to balk when I see all that guff about  a “difficult decision”… It’s always in relation to when they are doing the wrong thing, making the wrong decision. Abstaining was the wrong decision! It wasn’t difficult it was plain wrong! And Labour looks utterly shockingly bad over this, sitting on their hands doing nothing. Just how low can Labour go in their pursuit of being the a pair of safe hands that the establishment can trust?!

But critics within his party accuse Byrne of failing to mount any significant opposition to the government’s bill. “The problem is that Liam basically agrees with them,” said one. “There is a lot of anger. This is a very important issue. He has missed an opportunity and put us on the wrong side of the argument.”

Of course Byrne does. It’s still about triangulation. Byrne is nothing more than a divide and rule merchant. And Mister Ed’s  pet salivating attack dog who possibly licks his chops at the possibility of savaging “evil benefit scroungers”. I mean, his constituency has one of the highest unemployment figures in the country. Does he tell those “evil benefit scroungers” get thee to a workhouse? Moralise and lecture them about the wonders of workfare? Who knows…. But what is bleedin’ well obvious and something that Mister Ed (Who he? Ah yes, spineless Mister Ed… Labour leader who seems to live a Howard Hughes existence!) should do and that’s sack Liam Byrne and tell him to piss off to the Tories…..

…..Now that would be a brilliant reality!

Jobseekers (robbing the unemployed) Bill….

“It is also about changing culture: finding out whether someone is working and not declaring it; and getting people used to the idea of getting out of bed in the morning and attending somewhere where they do what they have been asked to do, because they have so got out of the habit of doing that, that even attending an interview has become a problem for them. This is not just about training; it is about getting people culturally back in line so that they can then be dealt with by advisers.”

Reactionary words from Iain Duncan Smith

“It is that, but there is also a wider agenda of making people feel guilty just because they are out of work and guilty just because—temporarily, in most instances—they have to depend on some benefits. This is about scapegoating and victimising the poor and people who cannot get a job. It is about harassment and exploitation. At the heart of that is the judgment that Parliament was not properly informed of what those schemes and regulations meant. That is what the judgment said.

I make it clear that I shall vote against the Bill because it is immoral and wrong. Before we vote to render those schemes lawful retrospectively, it is important that Members are aware of what we will be supporting. Boycott Workfare is an organisation that set up”

Wise words from John McDonnell

 

Labour abstained on the Workfare (robbing the poor) Bill. Why? I mean, it this Labour’s default spineless setting! Sitting on their hands hoping nobody will notice while £130 million is robbed from in benefit rebates to about a quarter of a million jobseekers. Very courage. Instead their argument for abstaining is based on concessions that include, an independent review of the benefit sanctions regime (as argued by Liam Byrne). But that doesn’t mean the Parliamentary LP couldn’t vote against! Thankfully 57 MPs voted against this appalling Bill. Wouldn’t voting AGAINST this Bill have given Labour more of a leverage? Tories are probably laughing at Labour (who can blame them!).

And Labour capitulated to the weasley option… abstaining…

The DWP argue: “A retrospective transfer of public money to this group of claimants would represent poor value to the taxpayer and will not help those unemployed enter employment… It is vital that in the present context of austerity measures the public purse is protected from such claims which could cost up to £130 million…”

So it’s OK to take advantage of the poorest, steal their money and twist the rules so that the ConDems with an abstaining Labour can indulge in daylight robbery. As John McDonnell said in the debate: “It is worth noting that, according to the Government’s impact assessment of that delegated legislation, employers will gain £290 million and employees will lose £250 million”.

And as the ConDems along with a spineless Parliamentary Labour Party… Workfare still gathers speed and support with the likes of the YMCA and the Salvation Army who possibly believe they are doing God’s work. The Salvation Army states:

“We would be extremely concerned if a person turned down a mandatory work activity placement with The Salvation Army, because of any doubts they had about the support and welcome they will receive from us,”

BUT it’s the fact that people are working for their benefits, not a wage, it’s unpaid labour. It’s exploitation And the YMCA and the Salvation Army are giving ideological cover to the ConDems in their attack on the poor. Duncan-Smith thinks it’s about the poor who can’t be bothered to get out of the bed therefore they need a kick in the shins, punishing them for being unemployed by forcing them to work, punitive sanctioning if they refuse and organisations like the Sally Army and the YMCA are shamefully using and exploiting free labour.

Boycott Workfare has a week of action including protests outside the YMCA and Sally Army. So tell ‘em what you think!

Mealy-mouthed pathetic statement from the YMCA defending the indefensible

Statement from Christianity Uncut

MPs who voted against the turbocharged Bill

• Anderson, Mr David
• Brown, rh Mr Nicholas
• Burden, Richard
• Campbell, Mr Gregory
• Connarty, Michael
• Corbyn, Jeremy
• Crausby, Mr David
• Davidson, Mr Ian
• Dobbin, Jim
• Dodds, rh Mr Nigel
• Donaldson, rh Mr Jeffrey M.
• Durkan, Mark
• Edwards, Jonathan
• Esterson, Bill
• Flynn, Paul
• Glindon, Mrs Mary
• Godsiff, Mr Roger
• Goggins, rh Paul
• Havard, Mr Dai
• Healey, rh John
• Hoey, Kate
• Hopkins, Kelvin
• Hosie, Stewart
• Howarth, rh Mr George
• Lavery, Ian
• Lazarowicz, Mark
• Leech, Mr John
• Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn
• Long, Naomi
• Lucas, Caroline
• MacNeil, Mr Angus Brendan
• Mactaggart, Fiona
• McCrea, Dr William
• McDonnell, John
• McGovern, Jim
• Meacher, rh Mr Michael
• Mearns, Ian
• Mitchell, Austin
• Moon, Mrs Madeleine
• Morris, Grahame M. (Easington)
• Osborne, Sandra
• Pearce, Teresa
• Riordan, Mrs Linda
• Ritchie, Ms Margaret
• Robertson, Angus
• Rotheram, Steve
• Shannon, Jim
• Sheridan, Jim
• Skinner, Mr Dennis
• Sutcliffe, Mr Gerry
• Twigg, Derek
• Walley, Joan
• Weir, Mr Mike
• Whiteford, Dr Eilidh
• Williams, Hywel
• Winnick, Mr David
• Wood, Mike

 

 

Why the TUC is wrong on benefit sanctions…..

The TUC believes that the lessons of the success of the Future Jobs Fund and the problems faced by the Work Programme provide strong arguments for the introduction of a job guarantee programme, initially limited to young people who have never been employed or who are long-term unemployed but gradually extended to other disadvantaged groups. Job guarantees should be real jobs, paid at least the minimum wage and with full employment rights to avoid exploitation and minimise the risk of displacing other workers. They should be limited to six months, so that participants are not trapped in a low value-added ghetto. At the same time, they should allow at least half a day a week for job search – applicants are far more likely to get another job if they apply whilst still working on their job guarantee job than after they have returned to unemployment. Because they are real jobs, the same benefit rules that apply to other jobs should also apply; claimants who turn down a job guarantee job without good cause should face benefit sanctions. Investment even only on the scale set aside for the Youth Contract would soon produce the strong results we saw with the Future Jobs Fund.

So the TUC believe that if a claimant turns down a job without “good cause” then they should face benefit sanctions. I don’t know who wrote this document but I have attended a fair few TUC and have heard Richard Exell (senior policy officer at the TUC) spout that line. And on one occasion I made a contribution criticising Exell’s argument and was pleased I got a rapturous applause from the audience. Benefit sanctions don’t work, they are punitive form of punishment. Exell/ TUC are siding with an ideology that believes people can’t be trusted so should be punished. Even if you oppose the overall ideology of the right (which Exell claims he does) supporting sanctions still puts you on the side of the right. Sanctions (and conditionality) are wrong and don’t work!

Contrary to the belief that sanctions are a deterrent coupled with the “workshy” ethos, many claimants have a number of valid reasons for turning down a job from ill-health, child care responsibilities and simply not wanting the job. Can’t claimants be allowed to pick and choose jobs!!

Benefit sanctions don’t work instead they create far more desperate situations and misery for people who are already just about existing, further poverty and people simply dropping out of the benefits system. TUC ought to be ashamed of supporting such a right-wing bullying ideology.

During the 1980s people thought unemployment was about shortcomings in economic policy along with the Tory government. Right ideologues created a reactionary theory called, “culture of dependency” and this links in to the idea that unemployment is about personal choice and nothing about austerity. People become unemployed when there’s a downturn in the economy, when the economy recovers unemployment drops back. If culture dependency was right what you would see would be continuous and sustained rise in unemployment. But that doesn’t happen. Unemployment tracks the changes in the economy. Culture of dependency has caught on massively along with the support from the media. And this theory taps into the view that sanctions are an ideological necessity. And it’s class divisive. Unfortunately the TUC is buying into this reactionary rubbish.

Trade union activists should put pressure on the TUC to drop their support for benefit sanctions as it goes against the principles of the labour movement. TUC is going with the divide and rule ethos.

TUC Budget Submission 2013

 

NB: This TUC submission goes against TUC policy as passed at Congress 2012… see Composite 8 (H/T Andrew Fisher)

Tim Page edits the TUC Budget Submissions.

The ongoing IT saga and Universal Credit….

Universal Credit is apparently meant to be rolled out in October 2013…. Well, that’s if they can get the IT together ‘cos at the moment it looks like a complete fiasco. Where to begin to explain this doomed IT adventure? That really should read £2.2bn doomed IT adventure…

• Rumours that IT contractors have walked off the project.
• To lose one Universal credit programme director may be regarded as a misfortune but to lose both in a space of 4 months looks like carelessness.
• When Universal Credit rolls out next month in Manchester and Cheshire.. the calculations will be done using spreadsheets. Well, I suppose that’s one up from using a quill!

Indeed this looks like one almighty train wreck… an almighty expensive train wreck of £2.2bn.

Furthermore

Scott Mckinven, financial inclusion manager at Affinity Sutton Housing Association, said there are concerns that many residents will be unable to access the internet to receive welfare payments.

“We are finding a lot of residents can’t afford to get online, their phone lines are not active, which cost £100 to activate and then there are the line rental fees, when all they want to do is use broadband for £3-£4 per month.”

He added the body was finding it difficult to get a full-picture of who will be affected because local authorities have different approaches to data sharing. “The data sharing side is complex. Some local authorities share data happily, while others won’t. How can we work with [them] if [they] won’t give us the data,” he said.

But it seems like the DWP have got their heads firmly in the sand when they state, the programme will be delivered on time and on budget.

I’ll see it to believe. Watch this space for further trials, tribulations and trouble….no doubt.