Policy in Practice

In 2009 I worked for an organisation that I will name Inglorious and use the pseudonym DirectWorking or DW when discussing them, I hope this short experience gives a picture of why I decided to share my views. DW provided health related benefit contracts (Pathways to Work) for the Government and supplied support for the hardest to help. I joined DW as I had experienced a fragmented level of service support while working at a residential mental health organisation and felt hugely enthused by an organisation whose motto was ‘Helping the Hardest to Help’ So I set about to do exactly that; having had good experience in a range of services including mental health I was particularly happy to take on any difficult and outstanding clients with mental health barriers. In my first full week I was assigned a catatonic client who at first refused to divulge any information apart from letting me know I was making her health worse; unfortunately for her I revelled in th...

Within a few months Mr Jones attends four mandatory appointments, three workshops and has two sessions with the physiotherapist, all of these are invoiced and when he is shipped to work in a factory has a physical breakdown and re-enters the benefit system for another 6 months. Cynics would perhaps call him a benefit cheat, and many do take this option in returning to benefits but either way he has simply returned back to the system in which we are trying to encourage him to escape from. In some cases it is because the person doesn’t want to return to work but in many cases it is because advisors simply push clients into any employment as soon as possible; failure to do so could see targets missed and pressure mounted. So Mr Jones is pushed into work he doesn’t want to do in a company who only employs temporary staff anyway; Mr Jones could have been better suited to finding a less strenuous job or waiting for his NHS appointment about his back. Mr Jones is very able ...

Future Jobs Fund Future Jobs Fun or FJF was a great example of policy in theory and not in practice which once again looked at tackling short term statistics and not long term issues. Basic FJF eligibility from the part of the employer and employee included: The job must be new and additional to current staffing Be expected to last at least 26 weeks, a minimum of 25hrs per week and pay at least the National Minimum Wage Be of a benefit to the Community Clients need to be 18-24 yrs of age, have been unemployed and claiming JSA for between 39-52 weeks or be long term claimants who are in areas selected for support due to high unemployment Once again on the surface we can assume that this scheme gives young people, or those in areas of high unemployment, an opportunity to find a job however the drawback to the programme more or less undermines the reason for its creation. When the scheme was first announced it worked with a particular slice of our unemploye...