Try for course/cert funding from the ADF (Advisors Discretionary Fund). This fund has recently been subject to cut-backs but is there to help you into
work, ie, if you've been offered a job but need the chit, the ADF is there to fund it, travel to interview scheme as well (although I was recently
turned down for the 'discretionary' payment in advance element and so could not attend the interveiw some 300 miles away).
My local job centre staff are mostly fixed term contract workers who were recently advised that their contracts would not be renewed. They have
trouble keeping on top of current work-loads, I dread to think what a shambles the system is poised to become once staffing cuts are complete,
especially when my 'rapid reclaim' took 11 weeks to process and was only, miraculously finalised within two days after I threatened full formal
complaints action!
Over the last couple of years too many non-scroungers have been thrown on the dole-heap. I had it very easy for 15years, high paid temp contract work
that I could take or leave at will. But the down-turn has changed all of that. The temp contracts are few and far between and those most likely to get
them are over qualified for the roles available. In addition to this, pay rates have reduced by an average 30% over what could be earned just last
year! I too have applied for work that is not related to my quals and experience, even went for a 'no experience nec', double-glazing sales job,
cleaning work, bar work, 'seasonal' work, general dogsbody; no joy, no escape the increasing poverty that being on the dole means for singles
(families, quite rightly, have a higher allowance, allowing them to 'juggle' a little more flexibly).
There is also a huge increase in verification actions. Job Centre staff seem more likely to assume that all new claimnants are dishonest and this
shows in attitude and demeanor toward the 'customer'.
The Con-Dems seem to be attempting to reduce living standards across the board. The proposed/promised reductions in housing benefit payments seem
designed to impact on the private rented sector, aimed at reducing market rents. All those people who responded to Labour's pension fund raids with
buy-to-let, skewing the housing market in the process, will have to find otherways to meet their mortgage requirements, they can no longer use
tenants' money to buy their investments for them. This will at the outset, increase levels of homelessness, both recorded and hidden, yet the only
provision I've seen so far to meet the anticipated increase in demand for homeless services is contained within Cameron's 'big society', another
extension of Thatcher's unproven 'trickle down' theories.
But hey, so long as the politicos may keep their allowances, the police may continue to create murder and mayhem on British streets and the bwanksters
permitted to charge unauthorised overdraft interest of up to 3500%, then the countries 'leaders' can sleep well at night knowing that the
proletariat are slowly being bludgeoned into complete destitute obedience. And don't forget to make sure you sort your rubbish into the correct
receptacle, you subversive, you!
There is only one way, in my opinion, to change this and that is to OPT OUT and become a freeman of the Land, a sovereign human being, whilst we still
can.
And laugh in the face of adverstity!
