...and go to the doctors claiming mental health issues, get them to sign you off work and then claim incapacity benefit-if they wanna screw us we will screw them right back-beyond that-get a ski mask and a rambo knife and head for your local bank....

Peace

Get signed off, and whether or not she does, take the following action. Make an official complaint to the manager of the Job Centre who sent her to CDG. Take a witness and insist it all gets written down. Make sure and include names, times etc. and make sure to make a complaint of sexual harassment against the slime who wanted a 'home visit'.

Take it all to the local MP, supplying all the evidence of names, times etc. and insist that something is done.

They only get away with this shit because people are too afraid of losing benefits, and the more people stand up to them the more likely it is to change. At the very least, she will feel empowered by using official channels and watching them squirm. Once she has made a complaint it will also be very hard for them to send her back to the same CDG, and if she is ever sent on another 'course' they will be very reluctant to fuck her about once they see that she insists on keeping her dignity and is willing to make a complaint.

Again, bullying, incompetence and a disrespect etc were the values that seemed to inform BEST New Deal provision. Complete waste of time as well as humiliating. Lots of fun to be had running rings round some of the incompetent idiots though. Some staff were trying hard but were ill equiped, undertrained and underminded by tre complete lack of educational ethos within the company.

Maybe it really means (in reverse) Government's Detention Camp?

Just a thought...

complain

Yes, to complain is the way forward, but those complaints have to be to district level, complaining to the Job Centre manager is a waste of time, unless he/she is a decent human being.

I was at the CDG detention camp two years ago. The liar CDG centre manager fabricated false allegations against me and I was physically removed from the building. I went straight to the Job Centre and complained, this was on top of the complaints I had been lodging since day one, which was why CDG were so keen to get me out of the building as I was encouraging others to complain and not put up with the bullying and intimidation.

A few days later I had a meeting with the then Job Centre manager (he is no longer there). He said I was exempt and did not have to go back.

Two years on, this summer I was put back on New Deal, to be told I had to return to CDG. I refused, stating I was exempt. They lied, claimed I was not exempt.

I tracked down the previous manager and three weeks ago I had a a meeting with him. His response when I told him they were trying to send me back to CDG was 'you are exempt, there is a letter on file that says you are exempt.' A letter that had vanished from the files!

Back to Job Centre. I tell New Deal adviser that I have had a meeting with the previous manager. I watch her chin hit the floor. She is then rapidly rattling on her keyboard. Asked what she was doing, she has the gall to tell me she is e-mailing the previous manager to check whether what I am telling her is the truth. Up until then she had repeatedly told me she did not know where the previous manager was, did not know how to contact him!

I should now be on my third week at CDG. I refused to go. I avoided going by changing Job Centres (not an option available to most people), but even though I said I was changing Job Centres the Job Centre still said I had to go to CDG (and that my benefits would be stopped if I refused).

There is no benefit in going to CDG or any of these other scam fraudulent New Deal training providers. Anyone who attends is worse off than paying a visit to their local library. If the detention centre is not in their home town then the situation is made even worse as they are away from the central loci of their job search.

If, on the other hand, you ask the Job Centre to pay for real training, that will improve your prospects of finding work, they refuse.

Government money would be better spent on providing better resourced local libraries!

Other than massaging the unemployment figures and lining the pockets of slime bags, what is the point of New Deal?

Job Centre manager and New Deal adviser asked what was the benefit of going to a CDG detention camp. They did not know! Asked what the success rate was, ie how many got a full time job for six months, again they did not know. They also blatantly lied claiming they had receive no complaints!

Next time you sign on, ask around, has anyone been on the scam training courses, what was their experience, encourage them to complain, to check out what is being written on the net. If they have not been on a scam training course, warn them what to expect and tell them they do not have to put up with being treated like shit.

It needs more and more people to complain, to raise in the media, to get this scam exposed and these prison camps shut down.

Keith,

Similar story to my own, and to a lot of folk I've witnessed who don't have the wit or ability to publicise this. Your blog is great but what would also be useful is a 'Lonely Planet Guide to New Deal' to review different offices, individuals and tactics.
I postponed my first New Deal for a year by constantly moving offices every week but like you say, few people can do that or would want to. If you've moved around a lot then you'll have noticed that some forms of this 'day prison for poor people' are better than others, depending on the decency of the 'kapo's.

After threatening to report one New Deal subcontractor who skimmed our expenses, he physically attacked me when we were alone, then threatened to call the cops and say I had attacked him because 'Who will they believe?'

I've also tried a variety of tactics with them, from attending but refusing to do anything that I wasn't politely requested to do, to facilitating others complaints. Most of the prisoners are so beaten down by poverty that they will oppose any dissent as 'showing-off', they have forgotten that they can always say 'no', but the ones that do respond make it worthwhile. I'll always remember one elderly woman saying to me in absolute wonder 'Why are you allowed to sit here when the rest of us have to sit around there? If I did that then they'd shout at me'. I told her to the trick is to shout back louder.

See, these private contractors can and do crucify individuals, but most of them don't want to be seen as bastards becuase they don't see themselves that way and none of them can stop the benefits of a large number of their prisoners or they know they will have their contract investigated. The rational contractors therefore try to isolate and placate opposition by appearing to be reasonable.

I signed on in a new dole office again today, and I've went from weekly signing to normal signing for no apparent reason, the system isn't rational and you can use that.

I think there are a few basic rules for newbies.

1) If you can move, you should move, both for yourself and for the others who can't.

2) Don't cooperate without reward if you are working alone. It sets an example.

3) Don't cooperate without a group reward if you are working in a group.

4) Small offices tend to be better than bigger offices, but the very worst offices are also small because there is less staff to dissent.

If you are intelligent, socially connected, just out for your own benefit and aren't principled, or are extremely poor, lonely and complaint, then being on the New Deal can be better than just being on the dole. For the vast majority though, and for society in general, this is a nonsense. There are wider issues involved too that should be challenged - 'compulsary' army recruitment sessions for example ("Not you, Danny").

Number 1 Travel- you are wrong, It is not fraud the £4 deduction in manditary and DWP contratual requirment- there to teach money managment.

Number 2, If you lot spent half the amount of time finding work as ypu do trying to skam the system there would be no issue. Im sure there have been bad experiences, but there is one clear answer, go out and get job, and be a tax paying member of society instead of living off the hard work of others... where do you think your benefit comes from?

some magic pot at the end of a rainbow??? NO FROM ME and every hard working person in this country, and every month our hard earned money is taken and given to you, instead of going to schools to help the kids, the NHS to save lives. and the armed forces to protect us, it is going on you lot. So i am sorry but you have no right to complain, you are putting nothing but a burdan onto society and expect symapthy?!! PAH not going to happen, untill you put in you have no right to complain, and if you dont like it go out and get a job, then you have a voice that has a right to be heard. Untill then you must suffer and it will be in silence, because no matter how much you complain, to the masses, of working people, your opinion is on a par with a sewer rat, there, but means nothing, There are jobs, so take them...and if you dont want to work, then accept the misery of the unemployment courses and the humiliation that comes with....but think about it, if you all were working these companys wouldnt exist and no one would have to suffer the traetment you have descibed, so no matter how you argue this, all roads lead to the same conclusion..GET A JOB!

I saw my friend a few weeks ago, and today. She was looking much better, not yet back to her normal self but looking far better than the last time I saw her.

She had taken my advice, and although it had nearly killed her, she had taken her case to a Tribunal and won.

She is now seeking compensation from the Job Centre for what they did to her and is raising the matter with her Member of Parliament.