Government Exposes Claimants Unnecessarily to Infection and Death

CORONAVIRUS - The government are still requiring benefit claimants to attend meetings with their Jobcentre Plus, Work Coaches in England and Wales. whilst in Northern Ireland, this practice has been stopped.

Work Coach is a fancy title. Companies stopped using the Jobcentre as the main means of recruiting back in the '80s and '90s. Before the advent of Internet job boards which emerged in 1995, the Jobcentre or Labour Exchange was the hub for companies looking for blue-collar workers and for filling clerical jobs. Jobcentre staff had a lot of knowledge of the local economy and who was firing and who was hiring. That has all changed.

Visiting the Jobcentre is a pointless ritual and many more educated claimants know much more than the advisers in many cases who are supposed to council them.

How many Work Coaches have ever set-up and run a business, most have worked for the DWP for decades. So, exposing claimants to unnecessary risks that the working public - who are advised to stay at home - is an example of how the government sees those on PIP, ESA and Universal Credit.

When the government suspended face-to-face meetings for Work Capability assessors it was announced it was to protect medical professionals, not to protect the persons being assessed who already have underlying health issues and are an at-risk group.

Requiring job seekers to attend the Jobcentre while other workers stay at home is a Human Rights issue.

ABC Note: In the US face-to-face meeting have already been stopped. 

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