Below is a photograph on an actual letter, the first of 5 pages of a disabled and incapacitated person’s claimant commitment who has been found ‘fit for work’ and has put placed in the ESA WRAG (work-related activity group) – or possibly its Universal Credit equivalent.
The ‘job coach’ – a title given to a jobcentre worker – has decided that this person can and indeed must contract to look for work in order to receive ESA which is paid at the same amount as job seekers allowance (JSA) of £73.10 per week.
The job coach has decided this person can work 1 hour per week and for no more than 12 (twelve) minutes each day and with a 45 minute travel time to and from each 12 minute maximum spell of work each day.
This scrounger is FIT FOR WORK according to the DWP!
As you can see at the top of the page it lists what practical conditions this person has in terms of employment. The person:
- Cannot stand for more than 5 minutes
- Cannot sit for more than 5 minutes
- Cannot work further than 100 metres
- Cannot operate machinery as medication makes here drowsy
- Cannot operate machinery as medication causes concentration problems
- Cannot travel more than 45 minutes each way to work (the usual stipulation is 90 minutes each way!)
Yet this woman is FIT FOR WORK according to the DWP and can work for up to TWELVE MINUTES PER DAY.
This genuine letter describes what the DWP and the Tory government mean when they say you are FIT FOR WORK.
In DWP and Tory-speak FIT FOR work is the lowest common denominator and if you are fit to work for this 1 hour per week though it could easily be 1 minute per week you are deemed as fit for work.
The fact that no employer would ever empty anyone for 12 minutes each day has no bearing whatsoever on being deemed ‘fit for work’ and having to show that you have sought work for this time as a legally binding commitment in order to receive the same £73.10 per week that a fully-abled body and mind person receives. (Please excuse terminology)
IF and at the absolute discretion of the job coach you have not done enough to search for work then they have the absolute power to sanction the person which means no benefit paid at all and for up to three years!
This same claimant commitment also sees that the job coach has included and made part of this legally binding contract that this person:
- Must be available to attend an interview immediately, and
- Must be available to start work immediately
So if a job advert does not state it is for 12 minutes per day then the job coach could sanction the person for not attending an interview immediately to find out whether this maximum 12 minute per day option is available!
Finally there is an old expression that looking for a job is a job in and of itself. So this person still has to prove she has looked for work and looked for up to 35 hours per week (which is a standard issue) in that search to find a job that she can do on a 12 minute maximum basis every day. If the claimant does not look for this 35 hours per week and/or cannot prove she has looked then she can still be sanctioned.
This is what FIT FOR WORK means
This woman has been through a work capability assessment conducted by a private organisation for the government at huge cost and she has been found to be fit for work – that goes before this assessment and claimant commitment with the jobcentre worker that this letter represents – and reveals just what a sham the WCA is in finding this person be placed in the work-related activity group of ESA (formerly known as Incapacity Benefit for good reason.)
This woman who by virtue of her many health conditions that do incapacitate her from working to the extent that a maximum 12 minutes per day is permitted is still FIT FOR WORK says this Conservative government so get off your lazy so-called disabled arse and find work is what this Conservative government policy means and says.
One final point as you all know my love of numbers as facts. The claimant can do no more than 12 minutes per day and no more than 60 minutes per week of work. So this claimant commitment is for 1 hour of work per week over a minimum 5 days and each one of those days sees a travelling time and COST of 90 minutes per day.
Now lets say this job can arise and it is fairly local just a single bus ride away. The claimant has 10 bus journeys per week at a £3 fare each time which is £30 in travelling costs to the claimant.
This 1 hour per week job must therefore have to pay at least £30.01 per hour to – in the immortal words of Iain Duncan Smith – work will always pay more than benefit! No!
If it did pay £30.01 per hour the claimant would see £6.50 of her £73.10 per week clawed back as the first £20 per week is disregarded and then each £1 earned over that sees a loss of £0.65p in benefit – and have £30 more to pay out in travel to work costs meaning the claimant is £6.49 per week WORSE OFF.
So if this mythical potential job paid £40 per hour then the claimant would still be worse off as from this £40 we have to deduct £13.00 in reduced benefit (65% of £20) and £30 in added travel to work costs making the claimant £3 per week worse off.
If this mythical one hour per week job paid £50 per hour then we deduct the £19.50 reduction in benefit and the £30 travel to work cost and we find the claimant is nominally FIFTY PENCE per week better off.
You couldn’t make this shit up!!!
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Quick Update
As a comment on Twitter pointed out how can she travel 45 minutes each way if she can only sit or stand for 5 minutes? Maybe she has a flying carpet to transport her to and from this mythical job and in which case please ignore my travel cost expenses bit above!!!
Sunday 27 August 2017 – Please note I will not be allowing any more comments here as the issue needs to remain on the above and not the truly offensive comments of 1 imbecile who said that all benefit recipients are “parasites”
Speye Joe 
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