We'll Start At The Beginning
I have been working in this job for 18 months, as a manager for an Employment Support project, and during those long 18 months, I have seen things go from bad to worse for those people who are unfortunate enough to be out of work.
I have been working in this job for 18 months, as a manager for an Employment Support project, and during those long 18 months, I have seen things go from bad to worse for those people who are unfortunate enough to be out of work.
I am sick and tired of reading
about benefit scroungers and unemployed and disabled people in the mass media,
which aims to vilify and victimise the most vulnerable members of society and
portray them as lazy, workshy scroungers who take the food out of the mouths of
"honest, hard-working tax payers".
Being in a position to see this first-hand, I thought I would write a
blog (anonymously of course, to protect the identities of the people I work
with and to stop me from being sacked!) so that people can see exactly what
goes on, and what people’s lives are like.
A real picture, not some half-baked made-up piece in a Tory tabloid rag,
whose only aim is to divide and conquer, and take the eyes of the populace off
what is really going on.
Stories about unemployment and
benefits polarise opinion, people in receipt of benefits are either “scroungers”
or “vulnerable” and whilst I have learnt that the two are not necessarily
mutually exclusive, it is always right to bear in mind that at the bottom of it
all, these people are human beings, and as such are inclined to greed, folly
and stupidity as well as generosity, prudence and good sense as much as the
rest of humanity.
About Me
I am a woman in my
mid-forties, and have worked in an educational/employment capacity for some
years, so I didn’t think that I would find this job such an eye-opener as it
has been; I’d worked in Customer Service for several years previously, so there’s
not a lot that surprises me when dealing with people.
My background is working-class, I
was bought up in a council house, part of a large family that survived on
benefits, so I didn’t come in to this role from some idealistic, middle-class
liberal position; I generally take the view of “There but for the Grace of God
Go I…” I was lucky enough to be intelligent(ish) and fairly articulate, so I
went to University; not everyone has the same aspirations or access to the same
options, and sadly, as you begin to realise after a while, some people are
pretty much destined to fail from the start.
The Job
I manage an outreach centre for
unemployed people in a large town in the North-West of England. We aim to provide help and support to those
people who are seeking work, by helping them write CV’s and covering letters,
we also have facilities such as PC’s which our clients use for job searches/job
applications. Town B, where we are situated, has high levels of unemployment,
especially amongst 16 -24 year olds, and massive levels of people in receipt of
sickness benefit (or what is left of sickness benefit). Child poverty is high, and the town overall
is ranked in the Top 20 most deprived towns in England. That’s one chart rundown you won’t be hearing
of a Sunday afternoon…
The unemployment picture is
somewhat skewed as we have two very large employers in Town B, who employ
people with very specific skills, and thus command high wages. At the bottom end, however, are huge swathes
of the population who have very limited, or no skills, and as such, are unable
to secure the type of jobs that demand a very specific skill set. These people made up the majority of our
client base.
Then along comes the Coalition
Government’s Welfare Reforms in their catchily entitled policy: Simplifying the
Welfare System and Masking Sure Work Pays. You can read it here: https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/simplifying-the-welfare-system-and-making-sure-work-pays
Iain Duncan Smith, Esther McVey and "Lord" Freud, a rogues gallery if I ever saw one, are the authors of this policy and the effect that it has had on people has been devastating. This is just my viewpoint, but as someone who works every day with unemployed people, I can see the consequences of the "reforms" first hand. George "Gideon" Osborne tells us that the economy is booming and unemployment is down. Up here it ain't...
Iain Duncan Smith, Esther McVey and "Lord" Freud, a rogues gallery if I ever saw one, are the authors of this policy and the effect that it has had on people has been devastating. This is just my viewpoint, but as someone who works every day with unemployed people, I can see the consequences of the "reforms" first hand. George "Gideon" Osborne tells us that the economy is booming and unemployment is down. Up here it ain't...
