As some of you will know I have joined the ranks of the unemployed, this of course gives me the chance to prove/disprove the fact that unemployed people are raking it in and much better off than employed people.
Day one, signing on:-
How easy is this,,go to Job Centre, sign on, get money.
Well not quite as easy as it sounds, first they have moved the bloody place, second you cant actually get to see a person you have to phone Derby of all places, despite my protestations that I live in Ramsgate and didn’t want anything to do with Derby that is what you have to do, so after having made my protest and discretion being my middle name I decided to leave before I was escorted from the premises. Having got home and calmed down a bit I phoned Derby, after five minutes worth of pressing options 1-3-2-5-8-1-3- Hurrah !!, I actually spoke to a real person, now being a bit of a nerd I had downloaded the JSA Application form from t’internet and filled it in so I was ready to answer the questions this guy threw at me. How wrong can you be !! either they have changed the form or they use a different one for telephone applications, anyway I started this phone call at 11-45 am and finally got off the phone at 12-30. 45 bloody minutes !!!
The upshot of all this is that tomorrow I have to go to the Job Centre to presumably repeat the whole process in front of a person, I also need to take 2 forms of identity, proof of this, proof of that, proof of the next thing, proof of something else, what a palaver, and still no idea if I am going to get what I have paid into for my working life, you have to have the equivalent of 44 years contributions to be entitled to your full pension, etc.
I am initially convinced that the system is designed to put people off claiming JSA or indeed any kind of benefit, for example the Council Tax benefit form is 40 pages long.
My next battles will be with the folks who provide my payment protection insurance for my two credit cards, initial prolonged phone calls indicate that it will not be easy, I will also have to battle with something called The Insolvency Service as my Employer was declared insolvent and was not in a position to pay me notice, holiday money or redundancy pay.
Fortunatly I have a bit of time on my hands now so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Day two follows tommorrow,,,,,,,,,
Thanet Councillor Jo Gideon shortlisted for Conservative candidate for Kent Police and Crime Commissioner
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Local councillor Jo Gideon has been shortlisted in the selection of the
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12 comments:
Welcome to the real world of the of us people on minimum wage and have to work on short contracts moving from job to job.The local job center is supposed to be a place to seek employment but it is far from that you can's see anyone speak to anyone and is very intimidating.
Mike one thing you can be absolutely sure of by phone, online or at the job centre there won’t be any straightforward system in place for the ordinary worker who loses their job. We are well into the 21st century and this is a problem that it should be possible to deal with seamlessly and online, the incredible waste of money caused by the chaos you describe, I first tried to use the job centre dole office etc back in 1960s to deal with the problem of losing a job wanting to get another one and to survive in the mean time. Things don’t seem to have got any better with successive governments.
Years of paying tax and national insurance and when you have paid a proper contribution over the years and it just don’t work properly, well it’s just infuriating.
Quite a few of my customers have lost their jobs one way or another because of the economic downturn and the level of dissatisfaction with the system is universal among them.
When I was made redundant some years ago I dutifully signed on but, because I was a teacher, there was nothing that they could offer me. I didn't have skills in demand, it seemed. Every time I went along to be interviewed I saw a different person and their interpretation of the rules varied week by week. I opted to do voluntary work in a school below that for which I was qualified and, as a result, got my benefit stopped as I couldn't do 'the job' voluntarily. Hopefully the level of training for the staff has improved but all I can say is, 'Good luck' and I hope you get fixed up soon.
Good luck Mike. Have you tried the airport?
I have heard that Cllr Latchford OBE is looking for new kitchen staff at his very large house!
Mike, you could always get a job at one of the many old peoples homes; as long as the rest of the staff don't confuse you with the residents you should be alright.
Or there is always Gerry O'Donell's tea shop - he could use someone to sweep up!
Mike - this is why you were a councillor, to represent the common, mucked about and pissed upon from a great hight type of people, now your one of us and its not very funny is it. However, if you want to make this disaster worse, do what i do, work for 16 hours a week because you dont want to be on the dole, then get told you cant claim for family working tax credit coz your not working enough hours a week, then when you persuade your boss he needs to employ you for the extra hours coz it will help, you find out that yeah, you may be entitled to the tax credit but because your hours have increased, so has your council tax and any other subsidy or benefit you may get so you may as well have not got the extra hours in the first place as your now paying out more. Wicked aint it - and i have not even started on Council Tax yet - good luck, see ya in the queue.
Visit the Bizz Fizz site for their Hastings scheme.
Have a word with A Ken Gregory.
Go self employed around a core idea and thus be more available for temp and part time work than you would be whilst locked into the inflexible benefits system.
Enough people do this then the Fruit Farmers might find they have a pool of seasonal harvesting workers again without importing them for example.
Remember if you are researching or preparing for self employment then your expenses to that end for 7 years before start of trading are tax deductible on your first year.
Think 21st century and not 19th century servant seeks new master attitude or you may never leave benefits.
Best wishes
Filling in a few forms and spending 45 minutes on the phone isn't hard work to receive a few quid. Don't know what you did before but thank God it is a little harder to get Aunt Sally to pay for your daily bread than you trhink it should be. No wonder the country is full of scroungers with people like you leading the charge for a handout.
Anon 22.18
Go self employed keep the less than 16 hours direct employed work you have (you can integrate it on to your self employed self assessment return) Claim tax credit for working more than 30 hours per week.
Have a word with Bizz Fizz if the Hastings adviser is able to help you in Thanet.
Job done.
plug the numbers into Entitled To dot com. If you have a job in the hand then you have an assured cashflow to work self employed. To aid cash flow you might even take on another part time job.
Check out what you can do self employed (van and man, minicab, window cleaning, security, carpenter, handyman, painter dec, driveways, gardening, whatever) and go for it.
What you will be initially claiming working tax credit on in your first year is your pre tax profit forecast. This can even show zero profit and you are still entitled to working tax credit.
As you trade so the real figures emerge and the working tax credit adjusts to either recover overpayment or pay you arrears.
It is geared to help you off benefits into self employment. Use it.
Thanks for that, will look into it
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