Claimant Commitment or Signing Your Own Death Warrant

The Government's new Claimant Commitment is being rolled out up here, and we are just seeing the first ramifications of this further change to Welfare policy. The Claimant Commitment is the Coalition Government's answer to the Job Seekers Agreement, something you have to sign up to when you make a new claim. Esther McVey (is she the worlds only Tory Scouser??) says:

"The Claimant Commitment marks the start of a redefinition of the relationship between the welfare state and claimants. In return for state support, we expect claimants to do all they can to meet their responsibilities to return to work. It also strengthens the ability of Job Centre Plus staff to support claimants back in to work at the earliest opportunity. Work coaches and job seekers will agree to regular specific tasks and training opportunities and the penalties claimants could face for failing to meet their responsibilities  to get in to work will be clearly spelt out"

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jobseekers-to-start-signing-new-claimant-commitment-today

I have no idea how, in practice, the new Claimant Commitment helps Job Centre staff to support claimants back in to work at the earliest opportunity.  Its just a soundbite to try and make her appear credible.

Just imagine that you have been on some form of disability benefit for the last 15/20 years, you fail your ATOS assessment and your appeal and are put on to Job Seekers Allowance, and you are asked  to complete a Claimant Commitment. This "Commitment" spells out what you are going to do to look for work.  How do you know where to start? How do you know what you are capable of?  Once you sign on the dotted line, that's it, if you don't fulfill your obligations as per the Client Commitment, you can be sanctioned.  Once again, its just a massive buck-passing exercise by the Government.

And again, its agencies like ours that will pick up the fallout from these Governmental policies. We already have people coming to see us who say "I need to do a 30 hour job search, can I block book your computer?"  We have one PC.