Travel-to-Interview – Unfair Contracts

 TRAVEL-TO-INTERVIEW –Unfair Contracts

This submission is from Mr Collyer the founder of the Association of Pension & Benefits Claimants CIC to the DWP Work & Pernsions Committee. 

The ABC believes that the Travel-to-Interview scheme is an Unfair Contract in law and is an ‘abuse of a dominant position’ by the DWP.

Benefit Claimants are finding it harder and harder to live on their benefits. Although food prices are static or dropping in money terms, quantities supplied are falling. Note your average bar of chocolate and how many brands have shrunk in size. One supplier of chicken breasts to Tesco’s has proudly added to the advertising strapline, printed on their bags ‘With added water’. An injection of water is frequently used to bring chicken breasts up to the required weight. It is hardly protein needed to sustain life.

So although inflation is still low officially; true inflation, the rate of actual inflation being felt by shoppers, is being felt much more keenly.

The Travel-to-Interview scheme has NO written terms and conditions, a practise used on other DWP schemes.  The NEA scheme for example - where claimants are forced to sign-off, before claiming their loan without knowing the exact interest rate or terms. The practise of failing to put things in writing is frequently used by the DWP in order to create deniability – in same way staff refuse to give their full names on the telephone.

Claimants who write in to the JCP and complain to a specific individual, often find their response is from someone else, so no one individual can be held personally accountable.

Claimants are being forced to pay for travel from their food budgets. The cost of rail travel and bus travel has skyrocketed since privatization. A return ticket to London from Colchester just 55 minutes travelling is £50.40. JSA for a single person is £73.10.

Claimants submitting job interview information are finding that Work Coaches are refusing to ‘approve’ travel funding in advance. So on going to an interview a Claimant is unsure that they will get refunded.  Travel-to interview is ‘Discretionary’ while job searching is ‘Mandatory’. Claimants are being forced to ‘gamble’ with their precious benefits.

You would not ask a builder to work on your house, and then claim there was no budget left, and the builder would have to accept the fact he was not going to be paid?

On-going to an interview; say on a Friday a Claimant urgently taking in their receipts on a Monday can find their Work Coach too busy to see them without an appointment and this can take time to arrange. If they hand in their receipts; Work Coaches are quibbling. They can bring in all kinds of arguments. Where was the job advertised, how did they get to hear of it? A whole load of largely irrelevant questions all designed to slow up payment. 

People who work on contracts, like IT staff are finding that the JCP are refusing to fund interviews for contract work.  They are being systematic discriminated against, despite the fact their industry -like many other service industries - has moved to a more flexible model. They are no different to supply teachers who sell their labour on an: ‘as needed basis’. 

Other issues

On signing-on, Jobcentre Plus are reacting to the statement given over the telephone rather than waiting for claimants to attend a signing-on interview where the details are checked. Thus HMRC are being told to cancel Tax Credits before a jobseekers details are checked. This is a Breach of Due Process.

A man’s part-time job (PAYE) finished on June 30^th but he was working 15.5hrs a week but he had further work on the horizon and potentially a grant being decided upon.  He was claiming Working Tax Credits (WTC) as with a his ‘work ‘tallied up, he was working more than the required 30hrs a week necessary to claim WTC. He signed-on July 30^th giving a telephone interview to the DWP and then went into the JCP offices to sign-on the following day (31^st July). On the 30^th the DWP had contacted HMRC and claimed the man had stopped work on the 30^th June not the 30^th July. Thus the man was deprived of Tax Credits run-on and he was unable to pay various bills and suffered from a lack of food but also severe late payment fees from two credit cards. The DWP said the man could ask for a Mandatory Reconsideration but that it could take up to 28 weeks to have his grievances addressed, even though it was immediately apparent that the DWP had made a mistake.

Failing to check a claimants details with the claimant when on signing on (details that were given over the telephone and subject to potential error) before taking any action is a ‘Breech of Due Process’.

More…

The same man on signing-on was told by his Work Coach was although there was a waiting period  and he would not be paid JSA for his first week, he would be offered a chance to apply for a loan. This was In order to help him survive -  he could get paid the day he signed, on the  fifteenth of the month. Normally he was  scheduled to be paid JSA on the eighteenth of the month – this way he would get his benefit paid on his signing day.

On visiting JCP offices to  sign on the 15^th, the man found his Work Coach very vague about when he would actually be paid. His Tax Credits has stopped prematurely, he had no ‘phone time’ and on checking the ATM later that day there was no payment.

After going back to the JCP offices, staff told the man  he would have to telephone the Basildon Delivery Centre and ‘claim’ this early JSA payment, it was not automatically given. The man was then told by JCP staff, he had to telephone himself, and that they only had the same telephone number he had. Eventually after having an argument with staff, they eventually emailed Basildon and the man received a call from the next day, and by midday he had been paid. He had to do two trips to the Food Bank during this period having signed-on and having his Tax Credits prematurely stopped.

In summary

The DWP have a range of ‘under- the-counter-practises’ designed to delay payment to the Claimant. Practises where official deniability can actioned.

-The Travel-to-Work scheme should have, proper written, terms and conditions.

-Claimants going to a job interview should have a proper form to complete. This is to stop Work Coaches from delaying or withholding                    payment by asking for largely irrelevant information.

-Claimants who are relying on their benefits to live, should have the option to get a Travel Warrant in advance.

-In terms of those who are paid in arrears; a penalty compensation scheme needs to be introduced to stop JCP offices from delaying                      payment. This should be part of the schemes Terms and Conditions (T&C’s) given to the Claimant. The T&C’s should be pointed out by the            adviser and the Claimant should be asked to initial a box on the T&C’s to prove he was aware of them. This practise should be widely introduced. In  Court, traders selling advertising have to prove, not just the fact they faxed or emailed and order with the Terms & Conditions, but that they had drawn  attention to the T&C’s if they wish to win a case against a customer who refused to pay them. Companies were faxing orders but not faxing the T&C’s  printed on the backs of the order form.

-The London Underground are funding a scheme to give people starting a job free travel for two months. Schemes like these need to be introduced nationally.

-The DWP should not take action to cancel Tax Credits or change any other arrangements liable to prejudice a Claimant before a new claimant has had time to check that their details (taken over the telephone by the DWP) are correct.

-It should be made a criminal offense for a government official or government minister to create schemes, whereby staff in government departments  collude - act in secret against the interests of the public for financial gain.

-The public official who agrees to take part in such a scheme should be equally liable in law if it is shown that they acted in concert with a higher official,  in taking part in schemes designed to disadvantage members of the public, by deliberately denying or delaying a benefit or benefit in kind.  This is the  ‘Nuremburg’ argument. Officials should not be able to deny personal responsibility (the following orders argument) if it can be clearly shown that they  would or could have reasonable grounds, to know or suspect, that the actions they were taking, could or would disadvantage a member of the public. 

-The public should have the right to get the full name of any official they are dealing with and their contact details should be supplied on demand. The  withholding of surnames should be prohibited as well as the use of alternative names - so called ‘pen names’.

-Correspondence to a specific individual should  be answered by that individual, or by another person acting on behalf of that individual. In other words,  personally accountability should not be avoided by simply passing letters for someone else to answer, if an official has been written to in person.  He  should reply in person even via an ‘alternate’ (a  person replying on your behalf).

- The Claimant Commitment should also include a section on the Work Coaches commitment for example to act honestly and fairly, in ‘good faith’.

-A contract is a meeting of minds. Forcing claimants to accept a; Travel-to-Interview scheme that is unfair and open to abuse by the JCP, is an Unfair  Contract in law.

This is what one Claimants has to say about Travel to Interview:

On Tuesday 8 September 2015 I received a call from Reed IT Division in Cambridge asking me if was still available for work as they have a role that would suit me as IT Engineer for 3 months contract for Norfolk Police as IT Engineer Near Norwich,  Under the terms of the plans, As I will not be able to received Travel to Interview scheme expenses as this a contract role I cannot attend the interview.  

 I hope these arguments will go some way towards creating a fair scheme.

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