Bad day for the banksters: After last week’s announcement that Commerzbank was slashing 9,600 jobs, two more large lenders are following suit.

ING to cut 5,800 jobs in ‘automation drive:’ The financial version of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. POLITICO’s Bjarke Smith-Meyer reports: “Dutch lender ING will cut roughly 5,800 jobs in Belgium and the Netherlands as part of an automation drive, which aims to save annual costs of €900 million by 2021. ING’s digital plans will cost €800 million, the lender said in a statement, while a further €1.1 billion have been put aside to pay for redundancy packages.”

Deutsche eliminates 1,000 jobs, as part of bigger cost-cutting drive: Bloomberg’s Aaron Kirchfeld and Jan-Henrik Foerster: “Deutsche Bank AG is poised to reach an agreement with labor representatives this week that will pave the way for the German lender to eliminate about 1,000 jobs in its home market as part of Chief Executive Officer John Cryan’s cost cuts announced last year, said people with knowledge of the matter. The planned job cuts, which need to be signed off by the works council, will mostly affect back-office staff such as in information technology services, said the people, who asked not to be identified because negotiations are private. The Frankfurt-based lender in June struck an agreement with its works council to eliminate about 3,000 full-time positions, including 2,500 jobs at its private and commercial clients business.” 

MEPs are debating a plan previously rejected by the Commission to hand free rail passes to young Europeans. German news service

Tagesschau says giving every 18-year-old in Europe a free InterRail pass could cost €1.5 billion per year

Interrail Passes make it easy to travel to Europe's most amazing places by train.

You can buy an InterRail Card here:

London Luton Airport are recruiting so pop along to the Job fair on Wed 3rd October at the UK Centre for Carnival Arts, 3 St Mary's Rd, Luton LU1 3JA.

Stanstead Job Fair is THURSDAY. 13 October. 10:00-14:30. Hilton Hotel

There are over 80 retail and food & beverage outlets at London Stansted Airport.  

The Stansted Employment and Skills Academy offers career advice, runs regular training courses, advertises vacancies for on-airport companies and are always on the lookout for committed and enthusiastic people who can deliver great customer service.

Please see the Information sheet below:

Ken Loach was born in 1936 in Nuneaton. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and went on to study law at St. Peter's Hall, Oxford. After a brief spell in the theatre, Loach was recruited by the BBC in 1963 as a television director. This launched a long career directing films for television and the cinema, from Cathy Come Home and Kes in the sixties to Land And Freedom, Sweet Sixteen and The Wind That Shakes The Barley in recent years.

A Labour government would scrap the Government’s controversial Work Capability Assessments for disabled people, the Labour party has announced.

The fit-to-work tests try to quantify how ill a person is, to what extent they are prevented from working, and what payment they should therefore receive. The tests have been criticised for refusing benefit payments to deserving applicants – and for the high rate of successful appeals.

Jeremy Corbyn has the ability to transform the country and stand up to the Government’s “abusive behaviour” if his own MPs can halt their hostile attacks, veteran director Ken Loach said.

The award-winning filmmaker said spending time with Mr Corbyn had shown him the Labour leader’s ability to connect with the public.

He suggested that if he entered Downing Street Mr Corbyn could transform the country, reports the Press Association. Loach, whose new film I, Daniel Blake chronicles the central character’s struggles with the bureaucracy of the welfare system, said Corbyn would not tolerate the “horrific” benefits sanctions regime.

Member states with higher unemployment rates do not necessarily always spend more on benefits concludes this report. Moreover, actual expenditure on unemployment benefits seems to react only minimally to actual increases in unemployment, at least for small cyclical variations. This suggests that, outside deep recessions, the fiscal importance of the variations of unemployment over the business cycle might have been overrated. The idea of an EU wide Benefit System may not be easily realised. 

A report downloadable below:

Debbie Abrahams MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, speaking at the Labour Party Conference has attacked unfairness in society. From her speech she said:

“So when this Tory Government imposes the bedroom tax on disabled people but gives tax breaks to millionaires, then their own simple truths are laid bare.'

“It is to me a simple truth that where the dignity of rewarding work is deprived to millions through a lack of quality jobs, the rise of zero-hours contracts, and indignities heaped on loyal work forces by the likes of Sports Direct and BHS, then social and economic progress is stunted.'

“And it is also a simple truth that targeting the most vulnerable in our society damages the least vulnerable, too. If you haven’t already, please read the Richard Wilkinson’s and Kate Pickett’s book, The Spirit Level.

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better was published in 2009. Written by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, the book highlights the "pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, (and) encouraging excessive consumption". It shows that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.

As of September 2012, the book had sold more than 150,000 copies in English. It is available in 23 foreign editions.

Download: The Spirit Level PP Slide Show below: 

Reproduction courtesy of the: Equality Trust

First they have to win the next election. 

'The economic programme I set out today will drive the investment our country needs, and most importantly, ensure that every part of the country can reach its potential - so that no one and no community is left behind.'

'I pledged that a future Labour Government will write a real living wage into law, meaning everyone will earn enough to live on.'

Yours

John McDonnell
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 

The DWP is modernising how it receives and processes post by gradually transforming the department’s paper led system to a modern, digital solution. This transformation has resulted in changes to office postal addresses and new details are provided to ensure that any correspondence is correctly addressed.

Selecting the correct correspondence address for offices using the service There are two annexes showing details of office addresses.

Annex A contains details of the most recent offices transferring to this modernised service, scheduled from November 2015 to Summer 2016. Please use their new address on/after the “from date” shown within the annex. The following businesses are involved:

• Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU),

• Disability Living Allowance 65+ (DLA65+),

• Employment Support Allowance (ESA),

• Fraud and Error Service (FES),

• Social Fund (SF).

More offices will be added to the annex as they approach their rollout date.

Annex B includes the addresses of those offices which have already transferred to the service from August 2013 to Spring 2015. Please use the “current MOU address” details shown in the annex. There will be no postal changes for offices that are not shown within either Annex A, or Annex B, so please continue to use their current address. Postal Diversions and Business Reply Envelopes (BREs) All external partners, including Local Authorities, should ensure that they are using the appropriate BREs for those offices using the service. These can be obtained via the business as usual route way. 

The BRE process does not apply to the Compensation Recovery Unit, refer to Annex A for the new postal address. Further information about the service DWP has a service for opening, scanning and indexing post on its receipt. Processing staff are then notified when a scanned image is available for action. The scanning service provides efficiencies to the Department, as well as customers, for example:

• documents are traced and processed more quickly August 2016

• certificates, wage slips and other valuable documents are returned to customers on the day of receipt

• scanned images cannot be altered, ensuring that documents cannot be tampered with, or information lost. All business units within the Pensions Directorate, Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment, amongst others, are benefiting from the service provided by Mail Opening Units in Kidderminster and Telford.

Offices using this service have a Wolverhampton postal address. In addition to the scanning and indexing facility, the mail units are also providing a hard copy post opening and distribution service for the residual DWP business areas, some of which are currently transferring to the scanning process.

Addresses are below if you need them:

The Warm Home Discount Scheme is a 5 year programme from 2011, run by the government and energy suppliers to provide rebates on the electricity bills of households that need it most in England, Scotland, and Wales.

For winter 2016 to 2017, you could get £140 off your electricity bill through the Warm Home Discount Scheme.

The money isn’t paid to you - it’s a one-off discount on your electricity bill between October and April.

The discount won’t affect your Cold Weather Payment or Winter Fuel Payment.

WARNING: The terms of the scheme vary from electricity supplier to electricity supplier. One provider is now offering a lottery as they are over subscribed, other companies need you to have an elderly person or a child in the household.

Electricity suppliers

The following suppliers are part of the scheme:

• Atlantic
• Bristol Energy
• British Gas
• Co-operative energy
• EDF Energy
• E.ON
• Equipower (Ebico)
• Equigas (Ebico)
• Extra Energy
• First Utility
• GB Energy
• Manweb - see ScottishPower
• M&S Energy
• npower
• Our Power
• OVO
• Sainsbury’s Energy - see British Gas
• Scottish Gas - see British Gas
• Scottish Hydro - see SSE
• ScottishPower
• Southern Electric - see SSE
• SSE
• SWALEC - see SSE
• Utilita
• Utility Warehouse (PDF, 213KB)

The Cost of a Child in 2016 finds the minimum cost of a child from birth to 18 is now £151,600 for a couple - a slight increase (1.2%) on 2014-15.  For lone parents the cost is £182,589 – a 9% jump on the previous year.    

For out-of- work families with two children the gap between their income and the amount needed for a minimum living standard is stark: couples families are 39% short, lone parent families 37%.  

Child benefit plus maximum child tax credit together cover only 72% of the costs of a child for lone parents.  The percentage for couple families is 98%.  

The Cost of a Child in 2016 is the fifth report in an annual series. It draws on what the public says every family requires to meet its basic needs and participate in society and is based on a series of calculations supported by Child Poverty Action Group and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation systematically monitoring the cost of a child.

We don't recomend cost cutting in the manner shown as the right solution.