Work TV

Watch our TV Channel dedicated to the ‘World of Work’. Explore our video library for informative videos featuring career opportunities at leading companies, franchising opportunities, further education and recruitment professions and their services.

Simon Collyer

Website URL: http://www..abcorg.net
Saturday 31 October, 2015

London Job Show

One for the diary next year is:

The London Job Show

Friday & Saturday 26-27 February 2016

10.00am – 6.00pm

The London Job Show showcases some of the very best employment and training opportunities from the region’s most respected International, National, Regional and Local Employers.

The London Job Show provides direct access to a huge range of vacancies across numerous industry and business types from entry level vacancies to senior exec level!

Westfield London
Ariel Way
London W12 7GF

Phone: 01908 843 646
Mobile: 07912 434948
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Saturday 31 October, 2015

Living Wage

The local Living Wage Campaign has come up with these statistics from the ONS

There are 19,000 jobs in Colchester (22.7%) currently not paying the Living Wage, with workers in the cleaning, catering, hospitality and care sectors most likely to be paid under this rate.* It is therefore vital that we make a combined effort to promote the Living Wage locally and help reduce income inequality.

Saturday 31 October, 2015

The Forgotten Dead

This letter to David Cameron is very interesting. A lot of attention was focused on the Oakley Review and a great deal of work was done on the effect of sanctions. Yet there has been little change. A yellow card and just delaying the effects of a decision is no solution to a system that is really contrived to find reasons not to pay people, rather than encourage and reward positive behaviour. 

The 'death statistics' an embarrassment to the whole of the parliament, not just the government, have been quietly left to sink into the background. To an extent one is forced to ask if the DWP Select Committee has cooperated with the DWP to let this happen? 

This letter has been sent to the PM. 

+++

Dear Prime Minister,

We are writing to offer you a chance to reconsider the disastrous plan of persecution you seem determined to inflict on the sick, the disabled and the working poor, with your proposed cuts to tax credits that will affect families and disabled people working 16 hours or more, and your declaration that people who are found unfit for work by their GPs are to receive an ESA benefit that is diminished by £30 per week for no reason.

These decisions are in direct contradiction of recommendations and promises made after Parliamentary debates and select committee investigations into the effects of cuts on social security benefits.

More than 120,000 UK citizens have been left without money for weeks on end due to the disproportionate loss of benefits.

 

  • Teachers are stating that thousands of children are coming to school hungry.
  • Coroners are stating that people are dying with benefit refusal being cited as being a factor.
  • Citizens Advice has estimated that nearly 30,000 UK citizens have been denied food, heating and electricity - the essentials of life - after your government ignored a select committee recommendation that the DWP should pay ESA to them while their claims underwent Mandatory Reconsideration.
  • Not a single one of the 26 recommendations made by the Oakley Review has been implemented. 
  • There has still been no cumulative assessment into the impact of benefit cuts as promised to WOW petitioners 18 months ago 


The real difference to thousands of sick and disabled people has been a massive drop in the quality of their lives.

Your government has attacked the sick, disabled, unemployed and working poor, more than four million of whom receive Social Security benefits (don't call it “welfare”, Mr Cameron. Your government lost the right to do that when you started cutting benefits below the amount that covers the basic physical and material well-being of people in need).

Your government has dehumanised them by calling them "shirkers and skivers", saying they want 'something for nothing' when you know perfectly well that they are also taxpayers who deserve state benefits as much as anybody else – and more than the corporate sector, which receives a far greater proportion of public money, even though such subsidies are not needed.

You told us your government was "fully committed to ensuring that disabled people of all backgrounds and ages can fulfil their potential and play full roles in society."

You stated that "disabled people will be at the heart of a new disability action alliance, ensuring that the policies and actions taken forward will make a real difference to their lives." 

But you closed the Independent Living Fund and have not implemented recommendations made nearly two years ago by your own experts on improving Access to Work, which helps to pay for specialist equipment and support workers, necessities that allow people with disabilities to stay in the workplace.

Your Work and Pensions Secretary, along with ministers from his department, walked out of a debate on food poverty on December 18, 2013, rather than answer the questions it raised. Meanwhile the number of food banks in the UK has increased exponentially, year on year. You can't blame that on Labour - when you came to office, fewer than 41,000 people received three days' food bank aid per year; by 2014, that figure had increased to over one million. 

Your Work and Pensions Secretary habitually misuses statistics. His department recently stated that Mandatory Reconsiderations of benefit decisions - introduced in October 2013 as a panic reaction to the huge proportion of successful appeals against unjust refusals of payments - were being completed within an average period of 13 days. He failed to mention that this means 89,000 sick and disabled people were being made to wait much longer - in some cases, many months. 

How do you justify that, Mr Cameron?

We recently learned that a coroner had directly linked the death of a man with your government's decision to withdraw an Incapacity Benefit. This happened in January 2014 but only became public knowledge after your government released figures showing that thousands of people have died after being told they are fit for work.

You can read a list of just some people who have died due to the loss of their benefits here. Please take the time to do so.
http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/09/13/the-increasing-death-toll-due-to-the-loss-of-benefits/

We cannot understand why, when your government knows that depriving UK citizens of their social security payments will damage their health or hasten their deaths, you have not taken action to prevent this. In fact you have consistently refused to undertake an assessment that has been demanded into the full impact of all cuts to support and social care for disabled people.

Your government's utter disregard for the plight of the vulnerable has resulted in three new petitions:


One demanding that your government immediately implement two of the Oakley recommendations - to set up an independent review of government benefit sanctions, and to pay hardship payments from day one of a sanction. 

Another to remind the government that it has failed to honour the parliamentary motion of 18 months ago to “assess full impact of all cuts to support & social care for disabled people” 

Lastly a petition to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to investigate Iain Duncan Smith, who in 2013 was reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for his regular use of untruths and persistently misleading The Commons, Select Committees and the Media which despite the Government agreeing that "statistics should be presented in a way that is fair, accurate and 'unspun' "is still continuing to this day. 

You say you have nothing to hide, but you will not fulfil your promises to launch a full independent inquiry and a full assessment into benefit cuts.

For the sake of the nation, please consider honouring those commitments.

Yours sincerely,
Gill Thompson........... Petitioner 2014 and 2015
Mike Sivier................ Petitioner twice in 2015
Maggie Zolobajluk.....Petitioner twice in 2015
WOW Petition ...........Petitioner 2013 and 2015
Jayne Linney...............Petitioner 2013 and 2015 

 

 

EVIDENCE SESSION: Benefit delivery

 9.30am, Wednesday 4 November, Wilson Room, Portcullis House

 The Work and Pensions Committee is holding an inquiry into the timeliness and accuracy of benefit delivery by the DWP. Potential problems that can arise when benefits are delayed or underpaid include people resorting to food banks for emergency food rations.

This is the second oral evidence session for the inquiry, with organisations who offer benefits advice and support to claimants and the Minister for Welfare Reform. The committee will question the first panel on problems associated with benefit delivery and the impact this can have on claimants. It will then raise the problems involved with benefit delivery with the Minister and discuss potential solutions. 

Witnesses:

Starting 9.30 am

  •          Lorna Gledhill, Regional Asylum Activism Coordinator and member of West Yorkshire Destitute Asylum Network
  •          Fabio Apollonio, Project Manager, Policy, research and advocacy, British Red Cross,
  •          Phil Reynolds, Disability Benefits Consortium
  •          Sue McCarron, Wirral Citizens Advice Bureau
  •          Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform
  •          Andrew Rhodes, Benefits Services Director, Department for Work and Pensions

 

FURTHER INFORMATION:

 Committee Membership is as follows: 

Frank Field (Labour, Birkenhead) (Chair); Debbie Abrahams (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth); Heidi Allen (Conservative, South Cambridgeshire); Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Paisley and Renfrewshire South); Ms Karen Buck, (Labour, Westminster North); John Glen (Conservative, Salisbury); Richard Graham (Conservative, Gloucester); Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour, South Shields); Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, South Thanet); Jeremy Quin (Conservative, Horsham); Craig Williams (Conservative, Cardiff North).

Watch it at the ABC website live

The final report of Fabian Commission on Food and Poverty

The final report of the year-long Commission sets out how a fairer food system can be built that works better for people on low incomes.

Drawing on public hearings, expert testimony and the insights of people with experience of managing poverty, the Commission has uncovered a crisis of food access for many households in the UK. There are multiple cases of parents – usually mothers  – going hungry to feed their children or having to prioritise calories over nutrients to afford their weekly food shop. Many people are feeling a deep sense of anxiety from the struggle to manage serious squeezes in household budgets that arises from the cost of living rising faster than income.

The Commission defines this state of living as ‘household food insecurity’: the inability to acquire or consume an adequate quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so. But a lack of official measurement means nobody can be clear how many people are affected by household food insecurity in the UK.

Reducing and eventually ending household food insecurity needs an active approach from government to tackle its structural drivers, and the Commission have produced a 14 point plan for how the government can create a food system that works for people on and near the breadline.

The commissioners’ recommendations include:

  • A pilot tax on sugary drinks so that the efficacy of taxes on unhealthy food and drink can be assessed.
  • A review of current advertising codes to identify where existing rules are being flouted and children are being bombarded by unhealthy promotions
  • A new cross-departmental minister with responsibility for eliminating household food insecurity in the UK
  • Action to reduce acute household food insecurity caused by social security benefit sanctions, delays and errors
  • An inquiry to identify effective ways of removing poverty premiums for key living costs including food, utilities, housing, household appliances, and transport
  • Local authorities establish food access plans that will address any physical barriers to affordable, nutritious food in their area

The Report is attatched below:

EVIDENCE SESSION: Department of Work and Pensions Annual Report and Accounts, 2014-15 

 9.30am, Wednesday 28 October, Wilson Room, Portcullis House

 This is Committee’s first oral evidence session of the new Parliament with the Secretary of State. The Committee will question the Secretary of State on the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts. Therefore the session can span the range of DWP’s responsibilities and expenditure, including:

- the impact of spending cuts on claimants; administrative spending; departmental capability and capacity; and fraud and error in benefit payments;

- the Department’s preparedness for implementing pension reforms, including auto-enrolment and the New State Pension;

- delays in processing benefit claims, including Personal Independence Payments and Employment and Support Allowance;

- welfare-to-work and tackling the disability employment gap; and

- the ongoing rollout of Universal Credit.

Ray Dalio (born August 8, 1949) is an American businessman and founder of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates.In 2012, Dalio appeared on the annual Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2011 and 2012 he was listed by Bloomberg Markets as one of the 50 Most Influential people. Institutional Investor’s Alpha ranked him No. 2 on their 2012 Rich List. According to Forbes, he was the 30th richest person in America and the 69th richest person in the world with a net worth of $15.2 billion as of October 2014.

If the economy interests you this is a video you ought to enjoy. 

Monday 26 October, 2015

Lords Speak Out

The government has been defeated in the Lords over tax credit cuts to be introduced in April next year.

The House of Lords has voted to delay cuts to tax credit cuts, having decided against scrapping the changes entirely.

Lib Dem Baroness Manzoor's "fatal" motion has been rejected by 310 to 99 votes. However Baroness Meacher's motion to delay the cuts has been backed by peers by 307 votes to 277. 

Since the House of Lords was last reformed in 1999, the upper chamber has grown bigger, less conservative and more ready to speak out. After the reforms of Tony Blair’s Labour government, Liberal Democrat and crossbench members began to hold the balance of power, making the House of Lords home to more left-leaning and peers more ready to speak up.

A good result for many for sure. 

Monday 26 October, 2015

DWP W&P Committee

Tax Credit changes are being debated at the DWP Work & Pensions Committee

 

Parliament UK

The House of Lords will vote on motions that could delay the controversial cuts or sink them altogether.

Ministers say peers do not have the right to block financial measures approved by the House of Commons. A point dismissed by others.

Labour's shadow welfare secretary Owen Smith said such arguments were a "total sideshow". Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock said Chancellor George Osborne was in "listening mode" over the cuts.

This diagram shows 2020 but people have to survive now and cutting Tax Credits before wages rise, will sink many 'workers' - the very people the government claim to be supporting.

Tax Credits Infographic

Source: Infographic Resolution Foundation 

 

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