Bognor Regis Herald — Universal Credit claimant with injured wrist told get someone else to keyboard for him in Job Search
by Jan Cosgrove
You couldn’t make it up but they just did. This story follows that in this week’s Observer ‘Flawed’ Universal Credit leaving Bognor and Chichester residents’ finances ‘in tatters’. It is based on personal experience. My son Matthew (46) who lives with my wife and I because he can’t afford a place of his own, a good degree, hard-working, has been taking all job opportunities, none of them taking advantage of his education and job skills anywhere near to the full. Even a day’s work here and there.
His JSA claim became Universal Credit and he has faithfully fulfilled the onerous Job Search requirements of UC, spending many hours a week chasing jobs, filling in UC forms, sending off his CV, attending interviews (no fares paid by UC). He did one day’s work recently and damaged his wrist or more accurately re-ignited a previous injury. He has been in serious pain, ibubrofen and codeine, and as he is left-handed and it’s his left wrist, his ability to use a keyboard very much compromised, only possible with great pain and difficulty.
Yet he is so fearful of being sanctioned for not doing enough re his Job Search and losing benefit, he has insisted that he cannot miss it. Told by his doctor he has to come back in a week before any possible help, to see how the injury fares in that time, and to rest it, he has to wait for any chance of a medical certificate. My wife speaking with a resident she met with his wrist fully strapped and disabled, was told that rest is essential.
I went along with him to Gloucester House recently as he had fixed an interview about a query he had re his UC claim. He didn’t want to mention this issue but I did to the very nice lady whom he saw. I asked what he should do as he can’t keyboard at this time. The answer was that maybe he could get someone to do this for him. That would mean someone being there hours a day. With best will, what a suggestion …..
We have a climate of fear for those motivated to get a job, who accept anything and everything offered, people putting their health at risk. It is intolerable in a country with such unfair divide and mocks and puts in its true perspective the crowing of this heartless Tory government about employment figures — which come with no job security, lousy benefits and low wages when prices continue to rise.
Six week periods of wait until you get a first UC payment is only the start of the problems. People suffering terminal cancel sanctioned and other cases. This is part of the welfare state Labour built and which these venal Tories have undermined and half-destroyed. The basic idea of UC, a single benefit, is not new and can be effective. For example, it now can include a housing cost element (replacing housing benefit applied for through your council) but that obtained back in the early 1970s when I was an Executive Officer for the then Ministry of Social Security at its Shorditch office serving the poorest part of London including Hoxton. The wheel comes full circle.
Labour has a huge job of National Repair when it comes back to government, and tackling the abuses of this awful situation, which harass and harm claimants, must be an early priority.