CEX is Great

It's been a while now since I last posted anything about how my unemployed life was going, and I finally have some good news to share with you guys. CEX (Complete Entertainment Exchange) is opening a store in my local area, and my wife & I applied for positions there.

Sadly I didn't get the job, but Lindsey did!

It's a full time position basically working in a pre-owned/second-hand exchange store.

Lindsey is currently receiving training in a nearby store:

In previous posts I've made mention about Lindsey's Asperger's, and how this can greatly hinder her chances of finding work. Well, to all people with Asperger's or any other form of disability for that matter, check out CEX for the most wonderful and accommodating employers I've ever encountered. Since starting her training at the store, Lindsey has had a couple of panic attacks and had to phone in and say that she couldn't make it to work; their response? "Are you ok? Is there anything you need?"

Needless to say, our minds were blown...the first panic she had, she was so worried that she'd lost the job, but in the few weeks she's been working there, she's made friends and she's even now being considered for Supervisor Training (CEX try their best to only promote internally, so all Supervisors and Managers that work in their stores have had experience as Sales Assistants in the past).

This is the break the both of us needed, as I can now apply for literally any job going (and I have done, in the past few weeks I've applied for cleaning positions, Library jobs, receptionist jobs, etc). As long as the position is more than 10 hours per week, I can do it.

The next couple of months are going to be hard, for some very stupid reason her first paycheck will be almost completely taxed because she's been out of work for so long. She can claim it back, but that'll be a while, so the next few months we're going to have to cut back on a lot of expenses (and, would you know it, just as this has all happened our TV has died...so we're shit out of luck there).

In the mean time (here's all the rubbish and bad news), while also looking for work, I've been having to contact the JobCentre and Council about changes in circumstances that will affect our claim.

The JobCentre is run by the Department for Work and Pensions, these are the guys everybody has to go through to make any sort of benefits claims (whether it be Jobseeker's Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, etc).

According to Wikipedia:

The agency provides services primarily to those attempting to relocate an employer and to those requiring the issuing of a financial provision due to in the first case lack of employment, of an allowance to assist with the living costs and expenditure intrinsic to the effort to achieve employment, or in all other cases the provision of social-security benefit as the result of a person without an income from employment due to illness-incapacity including illicit drug addiction. The organisation acts from within the government's agenda for community and social welfare.

Now, I don't think anybody is ever going to deny that they do their job. The Jobcentre still does what it was designed to do. The big problem is the way it all works.

To make a claim in the first place is relatively easy, you go in to the centre, or phone them up, and they'll sort out a few forms to fill in with your details and bingo, you have a bit of financial help. But now you're in the benefits trap.

In the past 4 days, I have had to make 4 phonecalls to their service (often waiting in a queue for 15-20 minutes at a time), 1 trip up to the physical centre, and 1 trip to the local Council Offices, all so I can inform the right people about the change in circumstances so the claim can be stopped. In the mean time, none of the correct services are completely in contact with eachother, so at any moment one or another may completely screw something up and leave the wife & I in an even worse position than we were in before she got her job.

Needless to say, I find this quite backwards (surely, in my opinion at least, it should be far easier and more supportive to cancel a claim than to make one?), but it's all we can do really.

As it stands, for the next few months we will be quite poor and will have financial difficulties along the way, but by the end of it all I will hopefully have (at the very least) a part time job to top up our income, and we will finally be able to work towards our future goals.

Once again, all I can say is thank you to CEX for being one of the best employers I have ever encountered, a thank you to the few people at the JobCentre that have been genuinely helpful in this whole process, and a big fuck you to those at the JobCentre that decided to hang up on me halfway through a conversation for no reason whatsoever.

Have a good day.

Great Expectations or, "How I can't afford a HDTV you pretentious fuck."

For anybody that isn't aware yet, I'm a gamer. My hobbies and interests tend to revolve around a digital world filled with whatever else somebody has come up with me to explore, talk to, and occasionally kill.

Any hobby is expensive when you really think about it, so any purchase for that hobby generally has to be justified if you barely have the money to support yourself, so when Minecraft (an Indie game originally released in Beta for the PC) was announced for the Xbox 360 I was quite happy, but couldn't justify the purchase as I already had the PC version (which only cost me about £5 by the way).

Then they announced 4-player drop-in/drop-out co-op meaning that all my friends that enjoyed Minecraft, but didn't have a PC or the money to get their own copy on PC, could potentially come round mine and we could have fun building things, exploring a world, leading Creepers up to each other, etc, etc.

So that was the justification. Buy the game for the 360, have fun with friends for countless hours. I saved for several months to put the money aside to get the game when it was released.

The game was released yesterday for 1600 Microsoft Points (roughly £17), and I bought it immediately. My friends sat with their controllers in hand (which they'd brought themselves, not purchased by me), and waited patiently for the game to load up and for co-op fun to begin.

There was no option for me to have co-op. All the settings were there, but whenever I tried to invite anybody to the game, it couldn't be done.

A quick jump online lead me to THIS forum thread which in turn lead me to the tweet below from the developers:

So, hang on...I need an HDTV and component cables to be able to enjoy this in splitscreen with my friends? I don't remember reading this in any of the official advertising or marketing:

Yep, there we go, it says Offline co-op 1-4 player, but no mention of needing an HDTV to be able to play it like that. Usually something that important will be noted, like when a game needs you to play online to access the co-op, see how they note you need to be online to play 1-8 player co-op?

Needless to say, I complained about it. I've complained to the developer, I've complained to Microsoft, and I've been interviewed by Kotaku.

The developer didn't respond. Microsoft said they won't give me a refund. The Kotaku article lead to many people saying I need to get myself out of the stone age.

In response to 4J Studios:

This annoys me, mostly because it wasn't advertised. You have your reasons for not letting SDTV owners play splitscreen, but perhaps you should have also mentioned it in the advertising. The vast majority of people I know don't own a HDTV, and cannot afford one, so as far as I can tell you're blocking out a large group of possible customers. Like I say, that's fine, but some warning would have been nice.

In response to Microsoft:

You say you can't give me a refund because the game works fine. It doesn't work as advertised though does it? I don't want my money back, I just want my points back so I can purchase a different game that I can enjoy with my friends.

The Kotaku out-rage:

Believe it or not, there's more of this all over the comments section. People that seem convinced that money grows from trees, that having different budgets means you're lower than them, that not having the latest gadget means you're an idiot.

Is it genuinely hard to believe that it takes time for someone to save up enough money to treat themselves on a cheap game? Why? We're going through a recession, we don't all have jobs.

Why do these people seem convinced that it's ok to lord this sort of behaviour over other people? If my friend doesn't have the latest gadget, I don't laugh at them and say they're an idiot, I just ignore it, forget about it, whatever.

The main purpose of my complaint was that a game that I had saved up for, planned on buying for the big selling point (splitscreen co-op), was not advertised as requiring something else to play it. Like I've said multiple times, if I had known that it needed an HDTV, I wouldn't have bought it.

If I had a good job, I'd just go out an buy a HDTV, but I don't have a good job. What little money I have has to go towards more important things, and the one treat I get to pick me up when I'm feeling fucking miserable enough as it is? Can't play it properly.

Community reaction?

"Get a HDTV you jobless bell-end."

Thanks guys, thanks alot.

Have a good day.

Stumbling Around

It's now been approximately a year since I completed my Journalism course at University, almost 5 months since my graduation ceremony.

I am still unemployed.

At the moment, I feel like I am stumbling around with nothing to do. I am getting more and more depressed as time goes by, becoming less and less enthused about any application I hand in, any CV or Cover Letter I send off, or even any job that I find.

In the past year I have applied for jobs that I am qualified for, that I have trained and studied for, and that I have a real interest in doing; but at the same time I have also applied for any job that I felt that I could do, cleaning positions, positions with local stores or coffee shops, I've even been looking at care positions in my area (you get a fair amount of money for doing what should come naturally to most people, looking after someone, being there for them, etc, etc).

In that entire time I have had two interviews, both of which have gone nowhere.

I was overly optimistic for the first few months out of University; happy for the break from essay writing and interview sourcing, but looking forward to finally getting my hands dirty with some real life journalism (even if it did mean just getting the real journalists some coffee or tea while I wrote the obituaries and fluff pieces).

I have considered becoming a teacher (either in English, Religious Studies, or Media Studies), thought about joining the MOD's media section, and seriously considered putting an application into the Armed Forces, I am this desperate for something to do.

My wife (Lindsey) found a blog that inspired me to write yet another entry, it's about the 5 stages of UNEMPLOYdenialMENT:

So forget grief a second. (And the running… my legs are on hiatus) Here I am, four months post last exam, every day I basically do the job of a broadcast journalist at a very nice, local radio station. But I’m not paid, I have no written agreements and I can’t afford to move out of my mum’s house. It’s a strange and unnatural state, this unemployment. And I’ve come to view my own experiences in five phases – not so much the stepping-stone progression stages like the Grief journey, more like a haphazard cycling of which lottery ball is going to spurt out of Lancelot today…

 The rest of the entry can be found HERE, it's worth checking out because it's amazing how true it is...especially that she's a writer/journalist like myself.

But this entry isn't the only thing she's inspired me to do, she's also inspired me to get a bit more active on the writing front and hopefully get in some other writers for this blog. I have a hopeful for America, but I'm equally interested in writers from elsewhere, as I know for a fact that I am not the only writer that is out of a job.

On top of this, I recently started writing a new short story which I hope to group together with a bunch more and start selling for the Amazon Kindle, nice and cheap and to earn me a bit of cash AND recognition (here's hoping it isn't shit).

So yeah, I'm stumbling around at the moment, occasionally falling into pits of happiness and inspiration, and I think my cycle of unemploy-denial-ment is coming back round to optimism...maybe.

Either way, finding a job may not be looking up...but I'm trying my best to find things to do in the mean time.

Have a good day.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

When I was growing up, my earliest thoughts on my career path were to do with History and Archeology. I'd always wanted to be an archaeologist, and I think growing up watching Time Team and Indiana Jones probably helped push me in that direction. My parents would take me to historical places all the time, and in my odd little mind I'd try and come up with theories as to why things were the way they were, what the buildings were used for, etc.

I studied as hard as I could with History, and I thought I was doing pretty well up until the point where I started studying it for my A-Levels. All of a sudden I realised that I'm not very good at remembering important dates, or names; I can remember events, but rarely what order they took place in exactly.

So out the window that career plan went, forgotten were the dreams of the younger me; but it's ok, I had a back up plan.

I also happened to be studying Law, Philosophy, and Critical Thinking during my A-Levels. I figured I could become a Lawyer, work my way up the legal system and become a judge of some kind (not too high up, I liked the idea behind it all, but I didn't particularly want to weigh in on huge cases...I just wanted to make a difference).

I'd follow this plan, get into some money, have a nice home, and become a foster parent. I planned on making a difference to the world in my own way.

Turns out I wasn't very good at Law either. Same problem as before, remembering the names, dates, and events, which is surprisingly important for the first step into studying Law. I guess it also didn't help that it was around that time that I discovered drugs & alcohol, started hanging with the wrong crowd, and pretty much got into the mind frame of "Ah well, I'll do it later."

I failed College the first time round, and abandoned my hopes for both Archaeologist and Lawyer.

I came to realise that, although it wasn't what I wanted, there was something in my life that I was far better at. Writing.

I don't know if maybe this was an obvious thing to everybody else my life, but apparently I've always been fairly good at this writing malarkey. I'd never really considered it an option though, because it's up there with Art and Dance as one of those career options that can bring in money, but people still frown at. Add to that the fact that I'd still prefer to be doing something else, and you've got what I was thinking.

It took me 21 years of almost constant failure to realise that the only thing I was really good at, despite having huge interest in other unrelated subjects, was this; writing, journalism, blogging, reporting, ranting, arguing, etc.

Since then I've spent the past four years studying and training as hard as I could to perfect this apparently inherent skill, and this is where I am today.

- - - - -

It's been about four weeks since I last updated this blog, and this is likely to be the most off-kilter one I've written so far, I mean...what does my past have anything to do with unemployment?

Not much to be honest, but does anyone remember one of my earlier entries about Ben? The guy that's been unemployed for so long that he's getting to the point of giving up?

Yeah, both myself and my wife have reached this point. Try as we might, hope as we do, and want like we want, we are officially trapped in a rut.

There are so many things that we both want, things that we want for each other, and things that we want for ourselves, but in this current climate we can't get them. We can't get the steady jobs, we can't get the help that we need, society won't reform to accept differences, etc, etc, etc.

We don't want anything big (but hey, winning the Lottery would be grand), we don't want any miracles (but I say again, perhaps some anonymous millionaire could give me £600,000?), all we really want is to be able to live free of the burden of the benefits system...to be able to support ourselves off of our own backs, to get where we want to go, to occasionally be able to treat ourselves with our own money, to not have to worry about the future, and generally just to live life properly...not just exist.

That's my piece for today.

Have a good one.

Education, Education, Education

Pupils educated at comprehensive schools are half as likely to study mathematics as their counterparts in the private sector, creating a "massive problem" with social mobility, a Tory MP has warned.

Liz Truss, who helped run the centre-right Reform thinktank before her election as MP for South West Norfolk at the last election, said a failure to provide adequate maths teaching was leaving pupils ill equipped for the modern world.

Truss made her comments in a parliamentary debate, held in Westminster Hall, in which she argued in favour of a "subject premium" to boost funding of maths teaching. The MP said that the Young People's Learning Agency, which funds sixth form subjects, awards 12% more funding to media studies, psychology, physics and biology than it does to maths and English.

Truss told MPs that this lack of funding helps explain why Britain now lies in 28th place in the world ranking for maths teaching for 16-18-year-olds, according to the OECD programme for international student assessment (Pisa). This is leaving young people poorly prepared.

"Even for those who don't go onto study maths and science at university a good background in the subject is vital because it is the next generation of primary school teachers, of journalists and politicians who also need to know sure they know the basics of maths," Truss said.

"If their maths is not up to scratch then we will have a damaged ecosystem where we don't have the next group of children getting proper maths education at school, we will have poor quality numerical analysis in our press and in our media and poor quality statistics in our public life."

Full article HERE

Slightly different topic from normal, I know, as it has little to do with my employment status...but it's just one of those things that makes me really despair for our future.

As it stands, it wasn't until after I left secondary school that I learned more about science and maths; during my time at school I was taught the basics on how to pass an exam, or get my coursework done, but actually understanding the subject? Understanding the meanings behind the words I was learning? No, that didn't happen until I was left to figure things out on my own.

Already we're saddled with a media that can barely understand the most basic of Scientific studies, forgetting to check statistics, site sources, or even see if the study has been peer reviewed. Next up we're going to be saddled with a media that not only fails in scientific coverage, but fails at proper coverage of anything that requires mathematics (science, sport, economics, business, etc).

The media is a strong focus for me, but clearly isn't the only thing we should think about with this. The public as a whole has an even worse understanding of science (to the point where they blindly accept what the media tells them when they get it wrong), and I dread to think of what our society is going to be like if the people we deal with on a daily basis can't handle basic mathematical problems.

Hey, I'm probably blowing this way out of proportion here...well, not probably, I am blowing this way out of proportion, but given how bad the state of scientific literacy is in the world at the moment, I can't help but wonder why promises to support the education system at all costs is being forgotten.

It's probably safe to say that this generation is shit out of luck when it comes to finding decent paying jobs within the next couple of years, but the next generation should realistically be OK for finding jobs...if they have the education.

Have a good day.

Welfare For All?

David Willetts in his book, The Pinch, writes: "We know that each generation is going to move on… we know its chances of doing better… are greatest if it is standing on our shoulders." Standing on our shoulders, in this current climate, requires solidarity. Baby boomers, beneficiaries of a free university education and housing boom, the more affluent among pensioners should give up their personal tax allowance if it spares the young a further diminishing of their prospects. However, Willett's language of civic virtue, interdependency and mutualism needs to resonate much more strongly to wipe out the toxic aftermath of the bankers' excessive appetite for profit .

Their greed has torn the social fabric. A YouGov poll this month indicates that we believe the government spends too much on benefits; "scroungers" are an issue and the universalism that glues the welfare state – such as child benefit for all – needs modification. Recession always sees a reduction in empathy; greater prosperity improves it. Nonetheless, the demonisation of those on benefits, including the sick, the disabled and those unemployed because of structural changes to the economy, undermines us all. Gradually, every unemployed person transmutes into "the other"; the underclass, the dispossessed, victims of their own behaviour, not the catastrophic misjudgments of governments.

While the so called "underclass", living without what Adam Smith called "regard" , are easily damned, admiration is shown for the excesses of the "overclass", the stateless nomads, seeking the next tax-free domain, "earning in their sleep"; making money from money, contributing pitifully little to the public coffers. While few of us will ever meet the likes of Sir Philip Green, who spent £6m on his birthday bash, many of us will soon know men and women, trying hard, who have lost a job. Will that personal contact with those drawing for now on the welfare state help to revive social solidarity and draw some of the poison injected by political rhetoric?

When social cohesion is replaced with envy, mistrust and suspicion, we increasingly believe what we wish to believe rather than what the facts reveal. The sad truth of this budget is that it is the poorest who are proportionately paying by far the highest premium for the national albatross of the multibillion pound deficit. Once all the tax, credits and benefits alterations are churned in the budget mixer, the poor will be 63p better off a week; a couple with a joint income of £80,000 may benefit by over £8 a week while those on a salary of half a million pounds or more will have £357 extra in their pockets. Even given the Liberal-Democrats achievement in removing two million from paying income tax altogether, these figures – against a backdrop of the huge cuts still to come – do not add up to social justice.

Full article HERE

There is little else that I can add to this that I haven't previously said, of the rich getting richer, and of society feeling that anyone on benefits is nothing but a scrounger or a liar.

I think it's going to become a recurrent theme on this blog, and quite likely on The Guardian and numerous other newspapers.

"Osborne picks the pocket of pensioners," read the Daily Mail.

It's interesting that perhaps other, less reputable (in my honest opinion) newspapers are also joining in and trying to build some sort of solidarity between the public and those that are currently claiming benefits. Though I feel it's unlikely to last for long with these papers.

As a part of the welfare reform that is being pushed for at the moment, my wife received another form to fill in to see if her circumstances or her disability had changed at all. Many would probably find it funny that the government, the jobcentre, whoever sends these forms out, is of the belief that someone with Asperger's Syndrome will suddenly get better...we just find it infuriating, given that we last filled one of these forms in in December.

I am still searching for work, and I am currently attempting to increase my prospects by learning to drive (which in itself is costing a ridiculous amount of money). The job I applied for, and interviewed for, in London didn't come together in the end, so I am once again searching every day for work or experience.

Despite all of this, my wife and I are made to feel terrible for the lives we live, and it's building to the point where we stop even caring or trying anymore (for all the difference that it would make), leave the country, or end our lives.

It's great that a welfare system is able to push people to this point.

Have a good day.

Breathing Life Into Britain

Mary Portas' Bottom Line on 4OD

I apologise for directly linking the video instead of just embedding it, but for some reason Channel 4 don't want people to embed their videos into other sites. Sadly this is likely only viewable within the UK, so for those that aren't aware of who Mary Portas is, or why this has any relation to my blog, you can check out her official PR spiel here: About Mary Portas

Mary (Queen of Shops) has spent the past few years doing what she can to boost the economy of the UK, by working with the government, launching a new clothes line, and all round just trying to generate new jobs in the UK (which is one of her goals in her latest show Bottom Line).

Watching Bottom Line is interesting, insightful, entertaining, and also downright depressing.

Her goal is to create new jobs by creating an underwear range that is entirely British sourced (all items manufactured and created within the UK), but she can only start with 8 new positions and 9 months to prove herself. On the day of all the job interviews, over 300 unemployed people turn up, and most of them are in tears by the end of the interview as Mary probes into their reasons for wanting the job, or any job.

If this is successful, which I certainly hope it is,then this really could generate more jobs in the UK and ultimately lead to an improvement on every UK Highstreet (I hear Portas is also planning something new to improve the Highstreet in general which my local council appears to be placing a bid on tomorrow).

I guess it's nice to see that there are people with power trying to get something done, not ignoring the people that really need the help, but it's equally depressing that it has to be like this and that it has to start so small.

Have a good day.

The Failings of A Big Society

It is hard for those living in more private circumstances to appreciate just how public life in social housing can feel. Partly this is due to the nature of the flats. However, small, inadequately soundproofed flats are by no means unique to social housing: more significant is the fact that a social tenancy is so difficult to get. Demand so massively outstrips supply that if a young single person is given a flat, everyone knows there must be a reason for it. And the reason, if not quite public knowledge, is certainly an object of public interest, most particularly to the longer-term residents.

Feeding this interest is the highly visible nature of the various interventions. Police, bailiffs and ambulances can be obvious and regular visitors. As can social and support workers, at least to those in the know. Some tenants respond by abandoning any attempt at privacy. One mother who lived near to me used to call her kids from across the street. "No, you come here! I can't come out, can I; I got a fucking tag on!"

And then, of course, you recognise your own. You may recognise people personally, having seen them on the wards or in the waiting room. Or you may, as with my new neighbour, recognise a situation. The inevitable question is how to respond.

It's straightforward enough if you have reason to believe a neighbour is at serious risk. In that situation you have an obligation to act. But my current dilemma is more common and much more complex. In a sense, not responding is impossible; I cannot "unaware" myself of something I am aware of, walking on past is in itself a response. I've tried smiling, but even that felt intrusive, let alone knocking on the door and offering some curtains.

And it's not only my neighbour I'm thinking of. I have to protect my own boundaries. For professionals these come with the role and indeed enable it. Hours and a place of work should help to protect other times and places for things outside work. When you live next door to someone you must establish such boundaries yourself. This is something that I, like many people, struggle with. It may be 3am but if someone's in need, it's difficult to say no. If you know that support is available, this makes things much easier for everyone. But in the age of the "big society", professional support is being cut dramatically. Situations such as this are going to become ever more common. I do hope someone's considered the implications.

Full Article HERE

I'm finding it harder to remain specifically focused on unemployment and welfare issues at the moment, given that there's only so many times you can repeat the same point and more importantly there are other related issues that also need to be talked about.

This particular article kind of struck a chord with me today, and I feel it really is an issue worth talking about.

Disability is something I've touched on, especially Mental Disability. My wife & I are lucky to have each other in our lives, we always have that one person to fall back on, to lean on, to help take the pressure off sometimes, but this isn't always the case for many people with a disability, and it wasn't always the case with myself nor my wife.

Mental Illness, and other invisible illnesses, is notoriously hard to spot or comprehend by those that aren't surrounded by it on a daily basis. I remember a friend of mine at University quite correctly pointing out one day that many people claim to be depressed, when they are in fact just having a bad day, and this greatly confused the matter of whether or not someone really was suffering from depression.

The high number of people out there that don't really understand depression, or other forms of mental illness, or other types of disability, muddy up the water and confuse the definitions of these problems. In the long run, when combined with the often negative portrayal in the media, this means that the public has an often disbelieving attitude towards these issues and will ignore them or pass them off as nothing important.

So now here we are, the year 2012, Cameron's Big Society is slowly taking shape, and apparently that Big Society is one that likes to cut the few lifelines that people like my wife, or myself, or our numerous friends and relatives with similar issues, have available to them.

A Big Society that ignores the people that need the help, ignores the groups, companies, and schemes that could really help the country, and repeatedly backs the people, companies, and schemes that only benefit a minor percentage of the population.

Have a good day.

The UK Video Games Industry

In a desperate attempt to get the country back on its feet, the government is attempting to put together a growth strategy. This includes a discussion on whether we need a holistic industrial policy – a sort of return to the 1970s.


The government's recent move to make its work programme voluntary is a welcome one – it is in my eyes a flawed system that coerces people into free labour with no promise of a job. Having gone through the scheme, I was lucky enough to be offered a part-time job at the electronic retailer Maplin, but perhaps more can be done to ensure a better outcome for everyone, especially in places like the north-east of England, where I live.


After gaining a degree in computer games programming, I found very little in the way of support for people like me. Unfortunately the industry is somewhat ignored by the government. It was promised tax breaks by both the coalition and previous Labour governments, only to be denied them on numerous occasions. It is a real shame to let down this burgeoning industry: the UK used to be third in the world in the production of video games but has slipped to fourth behind Canada. We have produced franchises such as Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto and LittleBigPlanet and, unbeknown to most, the north-east region not only contributes massively to the industry within the UK but is also becoming a hub for gaming and digital media.

Full article HERE

Here's an interesting, and slightly off kilter, blog for you guys to mull over today.

Video Games are something I'm quite passionate about, and to get a job within that particularly industry would mean a great deal to me, yet the UK Games industry is mostly ignored by both our government and our population as a whole.

Coming from a media background, education wise, I've learnt a fair amount about the amount of tax breaks the movie industry, and to an extent the music industry, get for working within the UK and using UK labour (for instance, if a film uses British camera operators over operators from an outside country, then they get more tax breaks). Thanks to these tax breaks, we've seen an increase in the number of films either partially shot within the UK, or shot entirely within the country.

Similar incentives were promised to the UK Games industry, as the article above notes, but have failed to be fulfilled.

People tend not to realise the boon that the games industry is able to bring to those that are willing to support it, and fewer are aware of the companies that are either partially based within the UK, or wholly based in the UK.

Just to give you an idea, the UK is home to Traveller's Tales (the company behind the famous LEGO games), Lionhead Studios (Fable, The Movies, Black & White), Rocksteady Studios (Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Batman: Arkham City), Rockstar North (most of the Grand Theft Auto games), Media Molecule (Little Big Planet 1 & 2), and Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword, Enslaved, and DMC), among many more (an incomplete list can be found HERE).

You'll note that many of the games I just listed have won numerous awards, and this list doesn't include the numerous foreign companies that have set up studios within the UK to expand their customer services and branding (UbiSoft and Capcom are notable companies with UK offices).

These companies are producing top tier, critically acclaimed, titles for the video games market and are brining in ridiculous amounts of money because of this...and yet they have little to no support from the government.

Can you imagine the number of jobs that could be generated within the country if these companies had more money? Not just jobs building or designing the games, but jobs in customer service, jobs in sales, PR, marketing, Tech Support, and numerous other positions that I couldn't realistically name. Often times there are more people working on a modern video game than there could be working on a blockbuster movie.

So yeah, just something to have a think about. Once again the government seem completely unaware of the world we live in, focusing not on schemes that could generate more work and money, but instead on ways of polishing their egos.

Have a good day.

How Far Would You Travel?

This is a short entry today, written on my phone in a hotel room in London.

I have a job interview tomorrow, and I wanted to make sure I turned up on time so I'm staying the night to avoid train delays.

I was wondering how far other people would be willing to travel for a possible job? Myself? Clearly I'm willing to commute to London everyday.

Have a good day guys.

A Cycle Of Pointlessness

Recently, I applied for a part-time customer service position in a local supermarket in the hope of earning some extra cash while studying for my A-levels. I was soon contacted to arrange a date for an interview. I was nervous, excited and worried – I, like many people, have a number of commitments and extracurricular activities, but I understood that working and earning some money would have to take priority over them. How could I complain? After almost two years of relentlessly handing out CVs and application forms, this was the closest I had ever got to employment.

A day after the interview was arranged, I received another call to inform me that a recruitment ban had been put in place at the store and they were no longer hiring. Despite my frustration, I wasn't all that surprised. With this supermarket having originally been named as one of the prime leaders in the government's "work experience" scheme, why on earth would they hire me for a permanent position when they can sift through all the eager, cheap young labour being filtered through the system?

Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne said on the BBC's Daily Politics show that workfare was designed to combat a "something for nothing" culture in our society. However, the major flaw in this argument is that major corporations are getting exactly what they want for nothing. Some of them claim that they may end up paying work experience placements, but this will never amount to the full wage of an employee contract.

Everyone can agree that work experience and training are important and fulfilling, but they should not be to the benefit of exploitative businesses, designed to minimise cost and maximise profit. Surely it's worth questioning that there is now such a plethora of available work placements on a weekly basis: are we to believe that none of these could be converted to actual jobs? The system is just self-manufacturing biased and false success.


The government is constantly throwing statistics at the media in attempts to qualify their "achievements", but the rate of people finding work following the scheme does not differ much from the amount of time it usually takes someone on benefits to find employment anyway. The information is too quantitative and not qualitative enough to explain unique individual cases of how employment was found.


Here's a statistic that the government is been rather quiet about: seizure of cannabis in England and Wales has more than doubled since 2004. Growing frustration at a lack of proper employment is only likely to make that figure grow higher and higher.

Full article HERE

I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day, in which we discussed the lack of jobs currently available, and how many graduates end up working in placements at supermarkets or other retail jobs.

Now, I think it is obvious to say that a job is a job, it should never be frowned upon, but I think it should also be noted that no graduate ever expects to come out of University and find themselves in a position they could have taken before they'd even entered College.

So the other problem is now faced of where the 16 year olds go for work? If every University graduate is taking a position in the local Tesco, or Poundland, or Sainsbury's, then what positions can the younger citizens take?

Although an obvious exercise, I think it worth going over in your head to really contemplate the utter pointlessness of the current WorkFare scheme, a scheme that places people into these retail positions while they are also looking for work.

All-round, it is a cycle of pointlessness.

I think what might be nice, if the WorkFare scheme really is to continue, would be for companies offering internships or other office based positions (or even numerous other companies that don't do office work, but also don't do retail) to be brought in to this scheme to offer more graduate level experience programs for those that have chosen to move beyond retail work and more into managerial or similar positions.

That's just my thought for today at least.

Private Tenancy Evictions Up By 17%

The number of tenants being evicted through the courts by private landlords has increased by 17% since the credit crunch began at the end of 2007.

Analysis of possession order claims by legal information specialist Sweet & Maxwell shows that 14,895 were launched in county courts by private landlords in 2011 compared to 12,686 in 2008. A possession order legally entitles a landlord to evict a tenant and regain possession of a property.

The firm says unemployment and rising rents are likely to have caused the increase in tenant evictions. Rents have risen by 8% since 2009, reaching a record high at the end of 2011, according to the LSL rental index.

Data published by the Office for National Statistics in February showed that the number of UK unemployed rose to 2.67 million in the three months to December 2011 – the highest level since 1995.

"Rising unemployment will obviously have an immediate and clear impact on an individual's expenditure and financial obligations," said Daniel Dovar, co-author of Residential Possession Proceedings, published by Sweet & Maxwell.

"Many landlords may feel they have little option other than to evict tenants who are not paying full rent and who can no longer guarantee that their rent will be paid in the foreseeable future."

Tenants who are unemployed can claim for housing benefit. But the government introduced lower limits which restricted the amount paid out to tenants signing up to new rental contracts in 2011 and renewing existing ones in 2012.

The limits have caused shortfalls between the amount of benefit paid to tenants and the rent charged by landlords, particularly in London and the south-east where rents are highest.

But while David Cameron has stated that the lower housing benefit limits will force landlords to reduce rental levels, rents in these areas have continued to rise as high levels of demand mean landlords can easily replace tenants in arrears.

Full article HERE

The emphasis on the final paragraph was added by myself, as I feel this is possibly one of the most important parts of the entire article (though seemingly glossed over afterwards).

I've said before that it is a big worry between myself and my wife that if our benefits are cut, or canceled, we run the risk of not being able to pay our rent, or bills, or buy ourselves food, so that paragraph really strikes home for us.

My wife & I received a letter from our renting agency that our rent was increasing again; it's only a marginal increase, but over time it really builds up. If we suffer a cut in our benefits, then this could severely effect our ability to pay rent (obviously we would have to use the little extra money we get to top up the rent payments, which would have a knock on effect on the amount of food we could buy, etc.).

Once again it seems that the government are focusing on cutting and reforming entirely the wrong sectors of the welfare system, putting families and other people that rent their property at risk of either becoming homeless (which in turn means that the government has to spend more money on supporting them) or suffering various issues such as having to eat less.

The current government appears incapable of thinking ahead unless the idea is practically stroking their ego (hello Big Society), and are seemingly unwilling to consider the consequences of their actions. Given that the the government are meant to represent the citizens of their country, it feels disheartening to learn that they will not consider those that are sorely in need of that consideration.

The Reality Of The Situation

In the wake of Wednesday's u-turn by the government on sanctions for people who dropped out of the voluntary Work Experience scheme, we've picked up on some interesting reports through Twitter.

Some jobseekers have claimed that after turning down a voluntary placement, they have very quickly been put on the Mandatory Work Activity programme – a compulsory scheme which requires jobseekers to work up to 30 hours a week for up to eight weeks. Refusal to participate can lead to benefits being suspended for up to three months for a first breach, and six months thereafter.

The programme cannot be used as a punishment, but can be given to any jobseeker unemployed for less than a year where their advisor feels it is appropriate.

I've managed to speak to a few people who say this has happened to them, but we'd like to see if it's happened to more people.

If that's you – or someone you know – please get in touch, either by email (james.ball@guardian.co.uk) , phone (0203 3533 293) or if you're happy for it to be seen publicly, @jamesrbuk on Twitter.

Discretion is assured –we won't use your name or any identifying details about you unless you're happy for us to do so. You can also fill out this form to tell us more:

Full article HERE

The Guardian are asking for help from its readers, if anybody here happens to have a story or experience to share with them regarding the current issue of the Work Experience scheme, you can contact them at the addresses above.

Equally, I would like to ask the same from my lovely readers. If any of you have any stories of unemployment, disability, or benefits issues to share with me, please leave a comment on this blog and I will try and get in touch with you to arrange an interview.

Have a good day guys.

A Step In The Right Direction

All benefit sanctions on the government's work-experience scheme are to be dropped by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) following meetings between ministers and employers.

The news was conveyed by Anne Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo's and one of the employers present at the 90-minute meeting between the employment minister, Chris Grayling, and more than 50 firms involved in the scheme.

They had met to seek reassurances that the government was not seeking to force young unemployed people into work-experience schemes.

The government says the scheme is voluntary and gives unemployed people eight weeks' work experience. But participants can lose two weeks' jobseeker's allowance if they leave for no reason after more than a week on the scheme.

There have also been suggestions that some jobcentre staff do not make it clear that participation in the scheme is voluntary.

The removal of the sanction after one week was a key demand of employers, some of whom said they would withdraw from the scheme unless reforms were made.

Full article HERE


I suppose it's time for a mild celebration here, since we can now safely go back to business and not fret about going hungry if we get placed into a Work Experience scheme that actually offers nothing to us.

I've ranted and raved enough about how terrible this scheme was to literally fill up a couple of blog posts, so I think I'll just let the article and the quote above fill you up with the joy of a progressive step towards realistic welfare reformation.



In other good news, one of the companies that I currently volunteer for is advertising a position as Community Manager which I have applied for.

This position is basically what I have been gaining experience in with both companies, so while my chances of getting the job might be slim (I'm under the assumption that the job is being advertised in many places, and is likely to have several hundred applicants, if not several thousand), I hope that I can at the very least get an interview with them and show them my worth as an employee.

Fingers crossed that I get at least an interview, or hopefully even the job.

But don't worry, this diary/blog will continue even if I do gain employment, as I feel the issue is still an important one to cover in this particular economic period.

In The Firing Line

With the welfare reform bill still pinging and ponging between the houses of parliament – there's another vote expected on Wednesday – the final verdict is not quite in, but the government has already clawed back most of the ground. Specific amendments – which would, for example, have safeguarded the benefit rates of disabled children and their entitlements when they reach adulthood – have given way to vague ministerial commitments to undertake some form of review. The great battle to double the proposed time limit on the main incapacity benefit from one to two years has ended in an amendment that gives Whitehall the power to postpone the cut-off at some later date – in the event that it has a rethink. No wonder ministers were happy to accept that one.

On some other questions campaigners are left with more crumbs of comfort. Although the Lords' demand that cancer patients be exempted from the time limit has been overturned, there is at least the promise that days spent enduring chemotherapy will not count against the clock, and a pledge to rethink ways that certain criteria are applied in cancer cases, which may smooth the roughest edges. The bishop-led charge to protect child benefit from George Osborne's £26,000 benefit cut was pushed back in the Commons, but the government has offered families thrown out of work a nine-month grace period, before the cap bites. That extends some protection in redundancy cases, but none to those (more numerous) parents who have long been without work, either because no jobs are available or because childcare or health represents an insurmountable barrier.

Full article HERE

It seems that, despite protestations from media outlets like The Guardian and people like myself, very little is going to change with regards to recent plans for benefit or welfare reform.

I'm not sure if this is down to a lack of reporting of the real issues by the media, or if it's down to a push from both the media and the government to make people think the worse about unemployed people during this period and shift the blame over to them.

Either way, I found an interesting letter from Professor Alan Walker that discusses this issue in a brief, yet succinct, way:

Your leader on the work experience furore was excellent as far as it went (25 February), but why not expose how excessively punitive the British system is in comparative terms? Out of 27 EU countries, only Estonia has a higher level of poverty among unemployed people than this country. This is because the benefits paid here are among the lowest in Europe. Over the last 40 years unemployment benefit has been cut by 50% as a proportion of average earnings, to just 10%. (Over the same period the total remuneration of FTSE chief executives rose by more than 1,000%.)

Rather than taking for granted public attitudes towards welfare, they should be seen as fluid and often based on little knowledge. If politicians started to make the case for decent welfare, good quality jobs and fair wages, and if pollsters asked if people really want their country to be vying for the bottom place in Europe, we might see apparently entrenched public attitudes begin to change. In the absence of such challenges the base elements in the tabloid press will always triumph. As in the 1930s and 1980s, when unemployment rises, it is always the unemployed that are in their firing line.

Letter found HERE

The emphasis at the end was added by me.

I can't help but agree with him on this issue. There has been a distinct absence of challenges within the media, and those that do challenge the consensus are often drowned out. It has only been at the last minute that an outcry to this reform has been heard at all, and as the main article states the government are already picking themselves back up and clawing back their position.

The unemployed are once again in the firing line, left to defend themselves from attacks by the government, attack by the tabloid press, and attacks from the general public.

It is not the unemployed that have screwed up the country, it is not the unemployed that have messed up the welfare system, yet we are taking the blame.

Work Experience & Volunteering

While fury engulfs the varied toil-while-you-claim benefit schemes, it is worth remembering that real work experience can be valuable. Sociologists say acquaintances matter more than any qualifications in getting a job – it really is who you know, not what you know – and contacts with employers will not be forged at home on the dole. For slump-era youngsters who have never had the chance of a job, exposure to almost any culture of work can only be a Good Thing: yes, including in high-street stores. Heaven knows enough journalists found their way to their desks through an internship.

Volunteering while claiming the dole used to be barred, and it was right to lift this ban – it closed off a route into employment. But the all-important question is what constitutes decent work experience. In essence it has to do what it says on the tin – that is, provide real experience from which one can actually learn, as opposed to the dismal dead end of unremunerated labour. Important in the distinction between the two is time: a day or two's taste of even menial work might teach the uninitiated something about employed life, although this "education" would clearly not take long to complete. With less skilled and more routine work, there is less training to do and any unpaid spell should be measured in days, not months. A good scheme would take account of older workers' experience and young people's ambitions. In one reported case, however, a mundane placement came at the expense of a more interesting internship which fitted better with the individual's dreams. Above all, fair work experience must be undertaken freely. Any teacher will tell you that you can't impart much knowledge to someone desperate to get out of the classroom, and non-paying employers will run into the same problem.

Full article HERE

I've spoken before about the volunteer work I do for two different companies, and I've spoken at length about the various issues that surround voluntary work, part time work, and benefit claims so I don't think it should come as any surprise to find me reposting this particular issue and article from The Guardian.

The volunteer work I do is largely from home, checking the websites and communities for these 2 companies and uploading news and various other small tasks. It's generally only about an hour per day, so nothing taxing. I am occasionally asked by one of them to pop into their offices for a discussion about what needs to be done, future plans, etc.

There is a small (very very small) chance that I may get employed by one of them one day, but for now it's decent enough experience to place on my CV that is relevant to my chosen career path, and the people I volunteer for may be useful as references for any future job applications.

As it stands, if I were to be placed into the work experience program that the government are currently fretting over, I'd be unable to do the voluntary work that I currently do and would likely be placed in the local Poundland, or Tesco. Experience in stores isn't a bad thing, especially for those that are under-qualified and under-experienced in basic retail jobs or even cleaning positions, but when I already have years of experience in retail and other labour type jobs I find it quite insulting to be forced into these sorts of positions simply under the pretense of giving me "experience" for the future.

I worry almost daily about getting a letter through the post, or a phonecall, telling me that I've been moved into this new scheme and will be expected to turn up at one area for a certain date and time. If it comes to that, I'll do the placement for fear of losing everything and going hungry, but I'd prefer to remain doing the volunteer work I'm already taking part in as this gives me relevant experience.

"The Jobcentre hinders my search for work"

I'm 24, a bit of a geek, spend a bit too much time online, and in front of the Xbox. But mostly I look for work, like an ever-increasing proportion of everyone I knew from school, college and university.

Like most graduates, I'm in vast amounts of debt. I owe £18,000 (and rising) to the Student Loans Company, £3,000 to Halifax and £750 to HSBC. Despite this, I don't regret my degree course for a second (I have a BSc in genetics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth). No, my demons reside at the jobcentre. Forced to move back in with my retired father (whose state pension is barely enough for him, let alone both of us) I rely on jobseeker's allowance to get by, to stay out of poverty.

The Jobcentre has done nothing but hinder me in my search. When I was asked what qualifications I had, and I told them about my degree, Btecs, A-levels, AS-levels and GCSEs, they responded with "Are you sure? Have you got certificates to prove that?" To be patronised and looked down on didn't faze me, but what did was the suggestion by a personal adviser that I take my degree off my CV, saying it might be scaring employers. I steadfastly refused, and later asked another staff member who said there was no way any adviser would suggest a customer remove a qualification.

Full article HERE

My, doesn't this sound familiar?

I have to be perfectly honest here, I gave up on going to the physical JobCentre after my first stint of being unemployed (my gap year before University), I found it far easier and far quicker to find work on my own, looking on their website or walking around looking for adverts in shop windows.

The issue of being an unemployed graduate is a real problem for me, like I've said many times before I'm either over-qualified or under-qualified for a position.

The kicker is, if I take my degree off of my CV, then there's a 3 year gap in my employment history where people (potential employers) must wonder where the heck I've been, and what the heck I've been doing. It just doesn't help at all.

The most annoying thing is that potential employers assume that if they offer me a job, I'll get bored and leave after a while because I've got a degree.

I. Need. Work.

I. Need. Money.

If I got offered a job that was far under my qualifications, and it was all I could take at the moment, then I will work it, and I will put up with it, because I need the money to survive.

Is there a chance I'll leave? Yes, but there's also just as much chance as the other people leaving, whether they're over-qualified or not. It's pretty much unfair treatment simply because I spent my time getting a degree instead of working up the corporate structure.

So, yeah, the JobeCentre does not help much (it is another of those things that badly needs to be reworked and reformed, especially the staff), and the view that potential employers take is ridiculous.

I am not lazy or workshy. I send at least 20 job applications every week. No replies. No recognition of your existence. And of course, no jobs.

At university, I was part of a project researching how to make heat-resistant potatoes that could grow anywhere a cactus could grow, even in the desert. We were going to solve world hunger by feeding Africa chips. Now they say I'm only good enough to stack shelves. For no wage. It's a very bitter pill to swallow. I suspect, for my generation, there is no future. We were supposed to be the next set of great thinkers. What do you think we think about now? How to stay out of poverty. How to avoid being made a slave.

Have a good day.

Unemployment Statistics - I am now a number, not a free man

The UK unemployment rate has remained at 8.4%, the highest level since 1995 according to the latest figures published today.

There were 2.67m unemployed people, up 48,000 on the quarter, the statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

The increase in unemployment however, has been the slowest since last June according to analysts. Heather Stewart writes today:

Analysts pointed out that the increase in unemployment was the slowest since last June, when the jobs market was deteriorating sharply, after improving through much of 2010.

Alan Clarke, of Scotiabank, said: "If there was any doubt that the UK economy had turned the corner and that the worst news was in the past, then today's labour report should lay those concerns to rest."

Youth unemployment has continued to rise - the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds in the three months to December 2011 was 22.2%. Described last month as a 'a record high' the number of unemployed 16 to 24 year olds has remained at 1.04m although there has been an increase of 22,000 from the three months to September 2011.

Full article HERE

The South West, the region of the UK I currently reside, starts at number 487 of the list that The Guardian kindly posted up for all to read.

According to statistics, I am currently 1 in 96,083 people that are unemployed in my region which only constitutes 2.9% of the total unemployed within the UK. Once again, how very depressing.

I noticed an odd trend while browsing through the statistics in that the percentage of unemployed men seems to be higher than unemployed women (at least around the South West, admittedly the main focus of my browsing). That doesn't mean anything to me, but it might to somebody else.

I remember reading reports and articles that men were now less likely to go into education or other forms of care, and I wonder if maybe there are more educational or daycare centres in the South West than there are in the rest of the UK?

I doubt that, but I'll stick to that until someone comes up with a better explanation (more men in the South West to tend to the farms seems overly ignorant of the large number of female farmers, which is why I didn't go with that one).

I find there is very little I can comment on at the moment other than how terribly depressing it is to read about just how many people in my local area are unemployed. It gives me an idea of just how many applicants there must be to the positions that I apply for, and perhaps gives me a better understanding of just why it is that I rarely get any interviews for these positions.

There's nothing like statistics to get your hopes up, right?

'People don't have an idea what caring for a disabled person entails'

Her experience of the brutal reality of everyday abuse came as her two daughters grew up. Lizzy, now 17, and an actor, has Asperger's; Emily, 14, has autism with learning disability and epilepsy. Strangers would come up to them in the street and vent their fury at Clark's "inconvenient" offspring, or her "lack" of parenting skills. People behind them in the supermarket queue would say: "That child needs a good slap," she recalls. Others would simply stare, point, or jeer.

"Hate crime always begins with hate speech," says Clark. The systematic bullying, ignorance and institutional neglect that, for example, led Fiona Pilkington to kill herself and her disabled daughter, began because that behaviour was "normalised", she believes, by the casual acceptance of disablist abuse.

Full article HERE

This blog appears to be following a certain trend at the moment, but let's face it it's an important issue.

I brought up before how Lindsey often suffers abuse both online and in the street for the way she is, the way she acts sometimes, and for numerous other small things.

As both her husband and carer, I experience similar problems and I also have to deal with the fallout afterwards. People truly don't understand the amount of work that goes into caring for an individual that has a disability, whether or not that disability is physical or mental.

A lot of the abuse, as I've stated before, tends to focus around Lindsey's invisible disability or the fact that people deem it as an "excuse" for Lindsey not to work. This repeated abuse aimed at both her and myself leads to large breakdowns in private, and has even lead to Lindsey's self-harming when it has gotten really bad.

Nobody else witnesses this. She takes the abuse, puts on a brave face, and doesn't show much emotional response until we get home. The same goes for myself, I ignore it in public, but it destroys my will to live and any sort of love for humanity I have.

I just thought this was worth reposting here, given it sits well with what I've recently discussed.

Work for free, or go hungry

Cait Reilly, 22, is completing three weeks at Poundland, working five hours a day. Reilly, who graduated last year with a BSc in geology from Birmingham University, found herself with five other JSA claimants last week stacking and cleaning shelves at Poundland in south Birmingham.

She says there are about 15 other staff at the store but, unlike them, she will receive no remuneration for her work. "It seems we're being used as some free labour, especially in the runup to Christmas."

Reilly says she told her local jobcentre in King's Heath, Birmingham, that she did not need the experience in the store as she had already done plenty of retail work.

Despite DWP rules, Reilly says she was told by the jobcentre that she would lose her benefits if she did not take the Poundland placement. The DWP says jobseekers should be told about the cooling-off period but was unable to comment on individual cases without being given personal details."I was told [the work experience placement] was mandatory after I'd attended the [retail] open day," she said.

She said she felt she had to do it because "without my JSA, I would literally have nothing".

Full article HERE

This story is somewhat old now, but I feel it is still worth talking about.

It links quite nicely with the scheme that the DWP are hoping to bring in for disabled people, asking them to work unlimited amounts of time for no pay.

As you can see, the DWP aren't specifically targeting disabled people with their schemes, it just seems a natural byproduct of their plans to target those that need the help the most with pointless plans.

In this case, we've got skilled workers, people that are already gaining voluntary experience in the industry that they want to work in, being forced to work in simple retail positions. This is problematic for several reasons; for starters we've got big businesses getting free labour, cutting down on the number of positions or hours available to those that are actually seeking work and forcing those that are on JSA to do the positions that they could take for free.

Finally this also means that those people that set up volunteer work within the industry they want to work in are being forced to cancel their time to work under retail systems that have nothing to do with their future career plans.

Ultimately this doesn't come across as badly as the focus on disabled claimants does, but it really highlights an issue that both the government and the DWP really have when it comes to reforming our welfare system. No matter how many schemes and plans they come up with, they consistently target the wrong people, punishing those that are working to get better or are seeking work, and rewarding or ignoring those that cheat the system.

Workfare, the documents

In document 2 the civil servant who gave the presentation answers some of the questions raised. On pg 4, in reference to the question of time limits to the work experience placements, I went back to the DWP to clarify this further. They said that there were no time limits (unlike in other similar schemes). Over the phone with a DWP spokesperson our conversation went something like this:

"So someone could be doing work experience for for ten years?"

"Don't be ridiculous, it would never last that long."

"So then why don't you put a ten year limit on it?"

[Pause]..."We don't have any plans to put a limit on it."

Full article HERE

Over the weekend, after The Guardian posted up their coverage of the DWP's plans to make people with disabilities work an unlimited amount of time, people were stating their disbelief that the government, or the DWP, could ever do such a thing.

In response to this, The Guardian have posted up the main documents used in the DWP's meeting about the issue, and also included the fascinating phone interview with a representative of the DWP regarding the unlimited nature of these placements.

While the documents themselves point out that only those deemed able to go back to work will be "compelled" to take these placements, it is worth noting that the people doing the assessing often have little understanding of the various situations that disabled people are in.

My wife, for instance, was at one time deemed perfectly fine to go back to work because she was not visibly sweating or rocking back & forth during her assessment, thus proving to the assessor that she mustn't be suffering too badly from anxiety. The assessor was not trained in Autistic Spectrum Disorders, and had no understanding of Asperger's Syndrome, meaning that she missed the fact that Lindsey was completely unable to look the assessor in the eye, could barely speak to her, and was having to control her anxiety because she didn't want to appear "weird" infront of her by stimming (rocking back & forth, shaking her hands, wringing her hands, tapping her feet, etc).

Now, once again, please do not think that I am saying that Lindsey will never be able to go back to work or that people should not go through these assessments; all I ask for is that those that do the assessments be trained in understanding the disability they will be assessing. In this case, it would be as simple as asking Lindsey's therapists, psychologist, or CPN, whether they felt that she was fit enough to return to work or even take up a placement.

Reform for the welfare system is a necessity, because we know that people are indeed taking advantage of it, but those that are pushing for reform are taking it in entirely the wrong direction. I'd have thought it was obvious that instead of trying to pin everybody under one benefit claim as a liar, they could simply reform the assessment techniques they use and quickly solve the problem of "fakers" and "cheaters".

Dismantling the Welfare State - Brick by Brick

Some long-term sick and disabled people face being forced to work unpaid for an unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut under plans being drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mental health professionals and charities have said they fear those deemed fit to undertake limited amounts of work under a controversial assessment process could suffer further harm to their health if the plans go ahead.

The new policy, outlined by DWP officials in meetings with disabilities groups, is due to be announced after legal changes contained in clause 54 of the welfare reform bill have made their way through parliament.

The policy could mean that those on employment and support allowance who have been placed in the work-related activity group (Wrag) could be compelled to undertake work experience for charities, public bodies and high-street retailers. The Wrag group includes those who have been diagnosed with terminal cancer but have more than six months to live; accident and stroke victims; and some of those with mental health issues.

In official notes from a meeting on 1 December last year, DWP advisers revealed they were not intending to put a time limit on the work experience placements.

When asked at the meeting if there was a maximum duration to the placements, the reply was: "There are no plans to introduce a maximum time limit."

Full article HERE

For the past 4 entries I've focused quite heavily on myself and my problems finding a job, with only a small focus on my wife, her disability, and her problems getting back into work.

Everything I've said previously can be applied to the both of us in equal measure, but Lindsey faces far more problems than I could ever experience when it comes to finding employment in these times.

Lindsey suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, something that is often deemed to be among the "invisible illness" category. It's a mental health issue, and it is something that will never go away with treatment, never be cured, and never be made easier through medication.

Asperger's Syndrome is a form of Autism, it is often classified as "high functioning" autism, as those that have it often have the bonus of high intelligence and increased learning capacity, but suffer from the downside of having poor social skills, and are often prone to panic & anxiety problems. Lindsey also suffers from an increased sensitivity to pretty much everything (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, etc), and is currently unable to venture outside of our flat without being accompanied by myself or a friend.

As I'm sure you can understand, this makes holding down specific jobs a nightmare, and when it comes to the jobs she can do (and has done), it requires the employer to be fully aware of her condition, and the ways in which it can be combated (such as regular breaks to calm herself down, being put into less stressful situations, and not having to deal with large crowds of people for hours on end).

Since being diagnosed with Asperger's only a few years back, Lindsey has been seeking regular help from Psychiatrists and other trained medical consultants to help her manage her anxiety and depression (something that is often triggered by her other problems, due to feeling out of place in this overly social world). She has started an Open University course in Psychology, and is working towards being OK to get back to work.

The problem?

The above Guardian article helpfully sums up the major issue faced by those with disabilities at the moment, especially those with an "invisible" disability, as the current government and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are planning on once again pulling the rug out from under the feet of the people that need the most help from the state.

Recovering from any illness, or learning to live with one, is a lengthy process that can take many years and forcing somebody back to work (especially unpaid and unlimited work) before they are physically or mentally capable of doing so can push back this recovery process by years.

The Guardian have been covering these issues for months now, perhaps one of the few newspapers around that I still respect for their willingness to stand up against current media trends to lable all people on benefits as scroungers and thieves:

I recently read an impact assessment compiled by the Department for Work and Pensions on the proposed "reform" of disability living allowance – in other words, getting rid of it. DLA is a benefit designed to help people with the additional costs of living with a severe disability. Applicants must fill in a 50-page form, spelling out the most intimate details of their care and mobility needs. Doctors' details must be provided together with a statement from someone who knows you well, an occupational therapist or social worker, for example. There are different levels of benefit according to the degree of assistance required, and a large proportion of claims are rejected altogether.

DLA is far from perfect. In particular, it struggles to respond to fluctuating conditions and the assessment form is strongly geared towards physical rather than mental health problems. But because DLA is payable regardless of employment status, it is a highly enabling benefit. A great many people are able to work precisely because their DLA pays for the additional help they need in order to do so.

For a government committed to getting people working, abolishing DLA presents a PR challenge with which the impact assessment grapples heroically. Replacing DLA with a personal independence payment, and slicing 20% off the bill, will "provide an opportunity to … communicate that support is available both in and out of work" it states. A "more objective assessment" (designed to reduce the bill by 20%) will create "a more active and enabling benefit" and – get this – the fact that "those on low incomes have higher rates of ill health" does not mean that "a change in income has an effect on health". What the dickens?

Full article HERE

To save money, and fudge the statistics, our current coalition government is planning on dismantle the welfare state brick by brick, starting specifically with those that need it the most and ignoring the greater issues at hand.

As I have explained before, neither myself nor my wife want to live on benefits for the rest of our lives. Once one of us has a full-time job, we'll be off them, and we'll be happy. But taking away the support that this system offers, and keeping support for the people that don't need it, is just plain ridiculous.

The focus of our current government, and the constant vitriol coming from many media outlets at the moment, against those with disabilities is sickening to the very core, and has created a backlash within society where people seem to take it upon themselves to judge those with a disability as fakers, cheaters, scroungers, and thieves. Those with an "invisible" illness often get it worse, being told they look perfectly fine and should stop faking, that they're too young to have severe disability and should quit complaining.

At 24, Holly Ferrie has to cope with disruption to her life on a scale few of her age could recognise. A complex and as yet not fully diagnosed arthritis-related condition causes her almost constant pain in her legs and feet. On occasions, her legs are seized by agonising spasms.

Yet Ferrie fears she doesn't seem disabled enough. People who don't know her, she says, find it hard to comprehend the severity of a condition that afflicts someone so young and is not immediately obvious. "They either get very confused or think I'm faking, or say, 'I hope the injury gets better soon', things like that," she said. "I've lost some friends over it. Pain is invisible and hard for people to understand."

Such attitudes, Ferrie contends, have become more common and more vehement since the government began arguing for wholesale reductions in disability-related benefits on the basis that many were falsely claimed or received by people who were exaggerating their symptoms or whose health had improved.

...

Ferrie says she is most likely to be insulted or abused on the street after a media article on supposed welfare abuse by the disabled. On a recent occasion, a group of students refused to share a taxi with her, she recounts. "After the next articles came out I tweeted, 'I wonder how long it's going to be this time before someone says or does something to me?'"

It took five days. On another occasion, she was rushing for a bus about to depart from a bus garage when her way was blocked by a staff member standing in the vehicle's doorway. "I said to her, 'Excuse me, can I get on the bus please?'. She looked down at my stick, looked up at my face and said, 'No. You should have walked faster.'"

Ferrie explained why she could not move more quickly, and met a response dripping with more scepticism: "Oh, really?"

"In the end I had to push past her," Ferrie said. "I burst into tears on the bus. I couldn't believe someone would say that to me."

Full article HERE

Holly Ferrie is not the only person to suffer such criticism on a daily basis. Lindsey is constantly tormented by people on the street, people online, and even occasionally from people that only barely know her. We both have friends that have similar problems, having people shout at them for using a disabled parking space when they are barely able to move without a walking cane, or a partially sighted friend of mine who was questioned as to whether or not she really was blind.

By all means, go ahead and question those that legitimately appear to be cheating the system, myself and my friends have reported several acquaintances that spent most of them
ir time playing ill and getting ridiculous amounts of money for it, but judging people with a legitimate illness? People that work hard and try their hardest to overcome their difficulties and live fullfilling lives?

As I said, this is sickening to the very core, and the government are doing nothing to help the issue by targeting disability benefits.