Work TV

Simon Collyer, ABC founder appeared today on BBC Essex Radio and he was interviewed about Bus Gates? Not quite ABC business except that fines of any description are incredibly difficult to finance if you are on benefits. 

This what the case was about:

Simon Collyer V Department of Transport - some general notes. 

In the autumn of 2017 I drove through a ‘Bus Gate’ at the back of Tesco’s, Hythe (I had never seen a Bus Gate before) I was looking an actual ‘Gate’. I went to a Company ‘Wheel Worz’ I don’t normally use this route.   As you may know, Colchester Borough Council did a deal with Tesco Stores that if Tesco’s paid for a bridge (I believe) and other infrastructure projects developed by Colchester Borough Council (CBC) the Council would route the traffic past the front of Tesco’s. Cut the story short I had two PCN’s one going one way in the dark and a return trip during the day. I defeated the first PCN as the sign lights were not working but the other daytime PCN was upheld. I did my research and I found the legislation allowing Bus Gates was enacted in April 2016, but the government had not updated four documents downloadable from the YouGov website: The Highway Code and ‘Know Your Road Signs’ with any information on ‘Bus Gates’ even as we entered 2018.  I am having to sue the Department of Transport and they are defending the case. Essex County Council has taken millions of pounds in Bus Gate fines I believe. So this will be a significant case for all motorists including European Motorists that come to our country and who might ‘read up’ about UK road signs and be unaware of these traffic prevention measures and their purposes. We also have to consider learner drivers for whom the Highway Code is a ‘bible’. Chris Grayling was appointed Minister of Transport in May 2016. Chris Grayling was a previous DWP minister. Bus Gates legislation was enacted in April 2016.

To give you an idea of the scope of the issue. 

According to the BBC Essex County Council has received more than £1.5m from 43,864 penalty charge notices (PCN) for the misuse of the Duke Street bus gate in Chelmsford, since cameras were installed in 2017

Of the 139 cases which went to tribunal, after the council rejected appeals, a single fine was upheld.

According to the BBC just one fine handed out to motorists wrongly using a city's bus gate has been upheld at tribunal, figures show.

Road safety device or Highway Robbery - what do you think? 

Image courtesey of the BBC: A Chelmsford Bus Gate in Duke Street. 

ABC comment, have your say below:

This evening Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran will use the Adjournment Debate to bring a Bill to parliament that would see the 1824 Vagrancy Act repealed.

The Vagrancy Act currently criminalises those that sleep or beg on the streets.

Commenting ahead of the debate, Layla Moran said:

“I’m delighted that I have the opportunity to debate this Bill and bring it back to parliament today and to hopefully move a step further to eradicating this cruel practice of criminalising rough sleepers.
 
“Moving people on, issuing fines and putting vulnerable people in prison cells should be a source of shame to our authorities and our government. It is time that this archaic act from the nineteenth century was repealed.
 
“I want to see a society that cares for those that have fallen on hard times and treats them with compassion, not cruelty and condemnation. I hope that parliament joins me in supporting the end of this legislation.”

ABC Comment, have your say below: 

Simon Collyer (ABC founder)  is appearing on BBC East News today lunchtime and on Wednesday morning on BBC Essex Radio.

The topic: 'Bus Gates'.

Councils have been collecting millions in 'Bus Gate' fines yet of the four documents downloadable from the YouGov website, including: The Highway Code and Know Your Road Signs none have any mention of 'Bus Gates'.  

Who is the Department of Transport minister? None other than former DWP minister Chris Graying. The DOT are doing for motorists what Benefit Sanctions are doing for the unemployed. Our Councils are raking it in.

If you want to find out more then tune in: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj5w

ABC comment, have your say below:

Stop and Scrap Universal Credit Haringey

Are you in receipt of benefits in Haringey ask organisers? Are you opposed to the introduction of Universal Credit? Do you want to understand what Universal Credit is? Do you advise or support claimants? If so come to the Haringey Against Universal Credit Public Meeting.

A meeting is being held on the below dates should you wish to attend:

Date: Thursday 24^th January 7.30

The Eventbrite page for the meeting is http://bit.ly/ucevent 

Venue

Alevi Centre

19 Clarendon Rd 

Hornsey 

London 

N8 0DD 

Speakers:

Image: Catherine West, MP

Catherine West, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green (chair)

Cllr Kaushika Amin, Haringey Council Cabinet Member for Civic Services (including rollout of support for Universal Credit)

Miriam Bindman, disability rights activist (Disabled People Against Cuts: DPAC)

Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary, PCS union

Linda Grant, employment and poverty researcher and Sheffield Heeley Constituency Labour Party executive member

Additional speakers to be confirmed

Local advice groups will have stalls at the meeting Organised by Stop and Scrap Universal Credit Haringey

We are a broad-based group of mainly Labour Party members and Unite Community members that came together to campaign against this cruel benefit system and support people receiving it. 

5 minutes’ walk from 144 and 41 Wightman Road bus stops. Nearest tube station: Turnpike Lane (Piccadilly Line) 

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We are missing a few pages. Just bear with us following an upgrade. 

ABC Comment, have your say below:

The Department for Work and Pensions’ in-house IT company BPDTS Ltd has begun 2019 with a boardroom shake-up, with two additions to its top table – including a new chair.

Mayank Prakash is stepping down from his directorship of the government company, following his departure from the civil service. 

Joining the board of directors for a five-year term is former BP and Barclays executive Valerie Gordon-Walker, who will serve BPDTS in a non-executive capacity.

Also arriving in the boardroom is Jeremy Moore, who has been appointed by work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd as chair of BPDTS Ltd. Moore previously spent about 16 years at DWP, rising to a role as director general of strategy, policy, and analysis before his retirement from in 2017. Earlier in his career he worked at HM Treasury, the Department for Education, and the Student Loans Company.

He said: “I am delighted and honoured to join BPDTS at a key point in its growth and look forward to working with all colleagues and stakeholders to deliver IT and related services to support DWP in its hugely important role.”

BPDTS – whose name stands for Benefits Pension Digital and Technology Services – was established by the DWP in to take over the delivery of a range of digital and IT security services that were previously outsourced by the department to HPE. In the months that followed, about 380 of the IT company’s staff were transferred to BPDTS under the TUPE employment regulations.

As of 31 March 2018, the GovCo has 399 employees. 

In the 2017/18 fiscal year – its first full year in operation – BPTDS delivered about £42.4m of IT services to the DWP, the annual accounts show.

In addition to the non-exec boardroom arrivals, in November BPDTS added to its executive team with the appointment of Peter Dewfall as head of digital service management. He was previously employed by IT services giant DXC, where he oversaw various engagements with the Ministry of Defence. 

The new chief digital and information officer of the Department for Work and Pensions has picked out the use of data, digital identities, and artificial intelligence as his three top priorities for the year ahead.

ABC Comment, have your say below:

The Resolution Foundation has produced a new report:

Setting the record straight: How record employment has changed the UK.

These are the key findings:

First, is the employment boom all about migrant labour? No, immigrants have been some of the main beneficiaries, but not at the expense of native workers. Migrants have accounted for two-thirds of the increase in employment since 2008 (in part because they have grown as a share of the population), but in the same period the employment rate for people born in the UK has risen by over two percentage points to a record high of 75.8 per cent.

Second, has jobs growth been London-centric? No, rising employment has been driven by relatively low-employment parts of the country catching up. The story of the last decade is that of lower-employment urban Britain catching up with the rest of the country, while low-employment rural areas have done less well. Where the capital is distinct is in population growth. It is for this reason that London accounts for around a third of the net employment increase since 2008. It is the size and expansion of the capital, not its labour market performance, which stands out.

Third, is employment growth only in low-paid roles? No, the recent decade has been one of occupational upgrading, but there are worrying trends for younger workers and pay performance has been poor across the occupation scale. Between 2001 and 2018, occupations that started out in the bottom three deciles of the earnings distribution have declined as a share of employment while those in the top three have increased (by 80 per cent).

Fourth, has the increase in job quantity come at the cost of job quality? The answer is ‘yes’, particularly in the jobs boom’s initial phase. Two-thirds of the growth in employment since 2008 has been in ‘atypical’ roles such as self-employment, zero-hours contracts or agency work. Since 2016, however, atypical work has plateaued as the labour market has tightened and full-time work has grown.

ABC Comment, have your say below: 

Ministers are being accused of 'failing people at the most vulnerable point in their lives' after it emerges nine disability claimants die each day while waiting for decisions on disability support.  

Meanwhile it has been pointed out that pensioners may have to rely on Universal Credit.

According to  Paul Treloar 

Made by: Guy Opperman (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Pensions & Financial Inclusion) HCWS1249

…”In 2012, Parliament voted to modernise the welfare system to ensure that couples, where one person is of working age and the other person is over state pension age, access support, where it is needed, through the working age benefit regime. This replaces the previous system whereby the household could access either Pension Credit and pension age Housing Benefit, or working-age benefits.

Pension Credit is designed to provide long-term support for pensioner households who are no longer economically active. It is not designed to support working age claimants. This change will ensure that the same work incentives apply to the younger partner as apply to other people of the same age, and taxpayer support is directed where it is needed most.

I set out to Parliament last year that this change would be implemented once Universal Credit was available nationally for new claims. Today I can confirm that this change will be introduced from 15th May 2019. “

PLEASE NOTE: 

This means that couples with an age gap will have to wait longer to receive pension credit, losing out on around £7,000 for each year that they have to wait.

With a twenty-year age gap for example, the older partner will now be nearly 90 before the couple is allowed to claim pension credit.

The state pension age is currently 65 for men and is gradually increasing to 65 for women. From 2020, it will be 66 and by 2028 it will be 67.

ABC Comment, have your say below:

We were able to send the last of our free welfare posters yesterday showing current rates of welfare benefits to a domestic abuse centre in West Pontmorlais Merthyr Tydfil Mid Glamorgan South Wales. These posters ae produced by Benefits & Work Publishing Ltd. 

According to Living Without Abuse (LWA)

Domestic abuse:

• Will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime
• Leads to, on average, two women being murdered each week and 30 men per year
• Accounts for 16% of all violent crime (Source: Crime in England and Wales 04/05 report), however it is still the violent crime least likely to be reported to the police
• Has more repeat victims than any other crime (on average there will have been 35 assaults before a victim calls the police)
• Is the single most quoted reason for becoming homeless (Shelter, 2002)
• In 2010 the Forced Marriage Unit responded to 1735 reports of possible Forced Marriages.

In addition, approximately 400 people commit suicide each year who have attended hospital for domestic abuse injuries in the previous six months, 200 of these attend hospital on the day they go on to commit suicide

The cost of domestic abuse

It has been estimated that domestic abuse costs the public £23 billion per annum.  This includes the cost to the criminal justice system, to the health service, to social care and to housing.  It is widely accepted however that this figure is an under-estimate as there are so many costs that can not be measured.

The Home Office estimates that each domestic abuse murder costs the country just over £1 million and totals £112 million per annum.

If you feel that you are the victim of domestic abuse you can contact Living Without Abuse here:

 ABC Comment have your say below:

In a speech in London Friday, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd will confirmed that the unpopular two-child limit on Universal Credit for kids who are more than 21 months old will be scrapped.

She will also confirmed the “managed migration” of claimants to Universal Credit will slow down.

Amber Rudd has not ruled out resigning if a no-Deal Brexit goes ahead. 

ABC Comment, have your say below:

BBC Video