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exactly xxx
They'll have to be prepared for more people living on the streets with all this being thrown at people - who after all are claiming for a reason.
Then again, would the government care?
I know its all very scarey isnt it xxx
This happened to me last year, I was renting somewhere. The council were rehousing me privately, so they knew my movements step by step, I had told them over the phone countless times that I had moved as well as 1-2-1, they even helped me with my deposit for my new flat, paperwork the lot, like I say, they were rehousing me, I was in their hands! Last year I got a letter saying that I failed to inform them and had recieved £xxxx,xx amount of money for the previous property.
My error was not looking at my bank statements and going through it properly to notice they were still paying me rent for the place in error. Idiot yes. I only use what I am expected, income support etc. I'm probably the only person I know who refuses to look at their bank statements from the sheer fear!
Either way, I got the blame and treated like a benefit cheat. They recorded me and gave me that 'anything I do say maybe given in evidence'. I was APPAULED!
Anyway they said that they only take note of things in writing..... OK.
Hi Lala, Tiredmum and Sparkletime,
Yes, since this article there has been an investigation into sanctions. I started a thread on sanctions so you can see more details. Apparently Jobcentre Plus had targets on the number of people they were going to sanction each week and were going to catch out more vulnerable people as they were easier! Imposing of sanctions is something the Single Parent Action Network are concerned about, especially when people are not given warning beforehand. Thank you for the example given. Please do let me know of other examples. It is much easier to lobby for change with MP's when I can give examples.
Many thanks
Laura 
Interesting how they draw the parallel with the Human Rights Bill. It needs a legal precedent before anything can be set in stone. There is a good point about it being hard to apply fopr jobs anyway when you are on a low income. Job Clubs were grisly places in the 80s but at least you got access to a phone and to stamps.
Like the avatar, by the way, glad you got the guitar in
Hi all. I know this is your thread tiredmum, but hope you don't mind me sticking this here.
I had a letter this morning from IS. Currently they are taking, and have been, £5 weekly to pay off existing loans. I was assured two years ago, or thereabouts, that this amount would always be the case. Anyhow, today a letter arrives, informing me as from next Monday (due date) £35.58 will be deducted every fortnight. I nearly fell through the floor. I rang the crisis loan people, told them I couldn't possibly pay that, and that I'd been assured before over the phone. Apparantely they no longer do this, but send out a kind of finance paper, and then a decision maker decides. So, even before this decision is made, the £35.58 will be deducted anyway next week. I can just about manage to juggle money now, so I honestly don't know what I shall do if this amount isn't overturned.
Louise, I wondering if you could perhaps come up with a letter that I could attach to this finance paper (when it arrives), giving me at least a fighting corner. I've heard your letters are brilliant!!
My head is all over the place right now.
Just realised, the above post is in the completely wrong thread, sorry!!!
Hi hazeleyes, no worries that you have put this here! Ok first things first, don't panic...easier said than done, but it is not going to change anything.
Your message made my jaw drop to the floor, letters like the should come with health warnings like "have a paper bag ready, you might start hyperventilating!" But try not to let it scare you hazeleyes, one way or another you will get through. It sounds absolutely shocking though, I have not heard of this new finance paper.
I hope Louise comes up with another of her amazing letters!!
Remember if you need any more support or info, contact jean on our 1-2-1.
Thankyou Anna. xx
Hi hazeleyes, thats awful but you CAN and should appeal this as soon as possible, if they havent sent you the information on how to do this call them, they usually put in with any letters a small booklet which does tell you what to do if you dont aggree with their decision and please do try not to worry xxx
Hi tiredmum. I rang them first thing this morning, after receiving the letter. They are sending me some sort of finance letter, in which I have to state what comes out of my IS, ie, catalogues etc. They aren't interested in my bills!!!! I will however write down everything that comes out of the money, and then they shall see that I cannot possibly afford this amount.
I am honestly trying not to worry, but I can't help it. We account for every penny don't we, and I can't juggle next weeks money with this loss. Last week I managed to 'knock' my gas bill down (I pay this fortnightly). I thought it was worth the asking, and it was. Only by a few pounds mind you, but those few pounds were then accounted for, toward the payment on my bed. You know how it is tiredmum, one fortnight you miss a bill, in order to cover something else (that always crops up), well last Monday I missed something, and there is no way I can make that up next Monday now.
Does all this make sense, seems a bit like a waffly thing, but I know what I mean, hehehe.
xxx
Hello
Leave it with me
Thankyou Louise.
Letter in your Inbox, hazeleyes
Wow, its brilliant, thankyou so very much Louise. What would we do without you
Wow, that is incredible.
In a magazine I buy, I often read stories on the people that commit disability fraud. They are filmed and watched etc, and I find it disgusting that these people are taking what other people are denied. One man's wife filled out all sorts of forms, claiming he had this, that and the other, and this man actually had parts in a soap, and a series. They had also won the lottery, a big amount, but didn't declare it. It sickens me, it honestly does.
Loads of hugs Hazeleyes. It's why I haven't applied for a budget loan. Louise does write such a good letter xxx
The article is interesting - as are the comments.
We have seen before from pie charts etc that the benefits bill is such a small fraction of the overall expenditure. The new scheme to help longer term umemployed people into work seems laudable in some respects, in that they are employing private firms to do this and paying them on long term results BUT!!!! the saving achieved over a period of several years is estimated to be only £5,000 per person, a drop in the ocean compared to the bail-outs for the banks and the MP's expenses.
Now if they were using civil servants and not these private firms who'll get even wealthier, then perhaps it would be viewed in a less hostile way...
Remember that documentary showing a firm getting lone-mother's back into work? The girl running it seemed to be a bully (in my opinion), even though it did do some of the women on it some good.
Great until you saw the house of the director... sorry, did I say house? Mansion.
I do beleive the woman that you are talking about now has her own programme called the Fairy Jobmother - I might be mistaken, but I saw a picture of her in the Radio Times and thought 'oh no'!
In that programme did anyone notice that it was a christmas time and they all got a job in poundstretchers, I wonder if they all continue to work there, or whether if was just for holiday cover?
Yes, it is The Fairy Jobmother and there is a new series on. Last night she was shouting at them all about a 30-hour a week community job scheme if they did not get work
Hmmm, unsurprising. Did you watch it all? I don't think I could bear to!
There was a lot of humour in it too and as the programme developed it did seem as if she was on their "side" rather than the "side" of the authorities, there was a lad on there who was homeless and (allegedly) she helped him get an apprenticeship and then he got a flat, I always feel a bit sceptical...for example how come there are these magical "vacancies" when they make these programmes when you open my local paper and there are TWO vacancies in the whole of the town???
The one where they had the Christmas jobs, I believe, were just temporary. I think one may have been kept on.
It definitely did some of them good though, but then I don't believe that people who seem vulnerable should be bullied into a situation either.
Especially when the system is making someone rich richer (sorry 
).
Hmph, I agree. It is a very odd system this Work Programme.
Good grief!