The Jobcentre at Broadlands House in Newport has been chosen to take part in a pilot scheme that encourages Universal Credit claimants to spend more face-to-face time with their coaches.
The plan could see claimants attend up to 10 meetings over the 2-week trial with the aim being to allow them access to more intense work search support, including looking into opportunities to increase their earnings, how their skills are developing, reviewing how they are progressing in their current sector, or starting a new role.
It is hoped that the scheme will help up to 120,000 people who need support.
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride has said:
“Evidence shows that the longer a person is out of work the harder it is for them to return.
“A claimant’s likelihood of securing employment declines after 13 weeks, so we will focus this support on those who remain unemployed or with low earnings after 13 and 26-weeks of claiming Universal Credit.”




























































































The longer out of work!, Many have never had work,get UC,PIP ( more than can earn in most jobs on the Island) and free housing – some just sit around all day doing little and can’t even clean off mould in own home . All for people working but has to be insentive to be much better off than benefits.
They need to call in the ‘muvers’ who think they are ABOVE other unemployed, JUST becasue they have burdened society with another millstone to be funded forever more.
Gaining a free home, c.tax and hundreds per week just because you empty a womb need to be ended.
Your not any better off on benefits you can’t even afford fresh food.it dosent cover. Those who criticise need to experience it.they won’t beable to go everyday they wont have the money for bus fare. Those of us have more than one health issue I am going out of town to visit other specialised clinics at least twice and now with jobcentre it will be three times.then I will have 2 hospitals to go to.i don’t drive and one hospital is hard to get to.
They should spend 37 hours a week in the job centre imo till they realise that they’re better off getting a part time job.
Rather than that why not make them work 37 hours a week doing work to benefit the community such as street cleaning.
Slavery was abolished a long time ago Reg. You can’t make someone work without paying them.
but is ok for us working people to have to pay these leeches who never work and whose sole contribution to society is to give midwives more practice, you also have conveniently missed the point that they are being paid so how does “slavery” come into it as they would be earning their money.
They ARE being paid.
But you can stop giving them benefits if they wont work
But they are paying them? I mean the tax payers paying them!
Why don’t you street clean reg do you good. Get you out of easy street.there are genuine sick people out there. I hate people who think it’s easy typical tory.
I work hard for 40 hours a week plus on-call hours and i pay my taxes and recieve no benefits whatsoever, i appreciate my lifestyle is not one you would have any concept of.
Do you remember the YOP (Youth Opportunity Programme) scheme in the early ’80s?
I left Isle of Wight College with qualifications but no prospects of getting a job; there weren’t any. To receive an unemployment benefit of £25 a week, I had to work a 40-hour week at an Island company to ‘gain skills’. I would lose the £25 dole if I didn’t attend the assigned work. I didn’t get any additional money for transport, so I used the £25 a week to purchase a Rover Ticket for travel.
On reflection, it did me well; the experience got me an interview with a building society, and the rest is history; I gained a career.
Why doesn’t DWP/JCP implement such schemes again?
And as for part time job what a laugh your still haveing benefits. We don’t have a jobcentre in my town.they are a waste of time.you go in and they look to see if you have been looking for a job in your journal.gone are the days you go in and look at a board.you should taste some of it.
I’ve been made redundant several times in the last forty years. I’ve experienced the Job Centre Plus experience; you are a number, not a person, and they treat everyone as if you are a benefit scrounger.
Each meeting with ‘your coach’ is ten minutes. If the coach goes over the ten minutes, their Nazi manager looks to discipline the coach for failing to achieve within the rules set by DWP.
These work coaches have a target to meet. Sod the feelings of the candidate, and shove them off their to-do list so they achieve their monthly stats.
You are forced to experience this even though DWP doesn’t pay you a penny because you have savings above the threshold. All expected to get your NI stamp paid by DWP.
Horrendous experience.
stop their benefits completely and the likelihood of finding work will increase dramatically!
As it would if nil-hour contracts were banned and minimum wage were paid – would you accept a job where you can’t budget because your hours were so irregular? Or where you work your socks off for so little return you can’t feed your family?
Bosses exploite people rather have foreigners. The times they told me I was permenant and I wasn’t didn’t tell me it was zero hours.now I am going to clinics and hospitals. The years I have worked since I was 16 I am now 63. I think I have paid enough in. After this year I have only got 2 years to go. I am trying to get a part-time job. But the discrimination I get from bosses and shopfloor is disscusting. Because I am older..
Or crime will increase dramatically!
It’s just a ploy to ensure bus drivers jobs are safe.
I will not attend it gets harder to get your cash each year.it’s not fair.
Dread to think of the clones produced from the intermingling of that social club, more than likely a ploy to keep job centre staff’s positions safe.
Not before time. They don’t want to work lazy gits
They shouldn’t be “encouraged” to attend, it should be mandatory and if they fail or refuse to attend then stop all benefits and the same should apply if they fail to take up job offers, we are the laughing stock of the world for paying people to sit at home and just breed and this is the main reason we have mass illegal immigration as the country is seen as a soft touch and after they arrive they are given more than they have ever had in their own countries.
Agreed about our own,but immigrants can’t and don’t get universal credit or child benefit or housing until they have right to stay through often a two year process- yes our government pays dodgy hotels 10x what would cost me and you to stay the night. Our lot wouldn’t walk a mile to job centre to claim, immigrants have endured often thousands of miles, starving, violence, torture and high risk of death to improve their lives – they come here and to other countries because they want to work,they are not lazy benefit scroungers.. our lot couldn’t and wouldn’t make that much effort!.
They should bring back the old labour exchanges where people claiming dole money were given a card and told where to go and work. If they refused the work they got no money, simple as that. They had to put up with work they might not have liked, but it incentivised them to find a job they were prepared to put up with. Too many wasters are getting away with simply living off benefits these days.
they only need to say
why aren’t you supporting yourself financially – why are you here, leeching off the state – your benefits will be cut and cut again, until you make an effort and if that means you end up homeless, penniless and hungry, then so be it
Employers should pay their employees a fair wage, hence many persons
not wanting to work.
I will go and get a job. I hope this sounds like a great plan.
Would anybody employ you though?
I have skills.in country pies
There would be more work out there if the Isle of wight Council stopped trying over tax everything and everybody
Agreed,look at business rates in Newport,if they cut them by a third and would allow some of the 30plus empty shops to open then would have more income. At rate things are going if another 20 close the council expects the remaining to pay shortfall !. Why are business rates so high, with costs of rent and energy and then owner’s also paying Council Tax on own homes there ain’t enough to pay employees etc so more out of work.
People that have been out of work a long period of time don’t need more hoops to jump through, they need routine to their week. It’s hard for working people to understand that what they have conditioned themselves into doing every day is actually hard to retrain as you get older, your daily routine is on auto-pilot.
Instead of pointless meetings, make groups, give them a team leader and some community projects to tackle. Give them some agency and room to develop skill sets. Have people interested in gardening assigned to maintaining parish allotments, people with Web Design and English skills make content for the island websites.
This would be a win-win, They develop skills and the community benefits from their labour.
That Matt is fine for those who really want to work, but many more LIKE their lifestyle so don’t want to work.
They get used to waking up in cold wet windy days, not having to go out in it, or going to the beach on a Summers day, or getting drunk mid week without having to worry about getting up early.
They don’t have to wear uniforms or ‘be told’ what to do. Many never had discipline from a father figure as often absent, schools are so weak and soft, that they can’t ‘handle’ being instructed by others.
IMO there is help IF people want it, and those who dont should be given the very minimum to give them a ‘reason’ to work, as it is, with kids they are better off with no misery of work. So blame the Gov for making easy option
‘develop skill sets’…’maintaining parish allotments’…’people with Web Design and English skills’…’make content for the island websites’
Matt, I think you might be misjudging the average Jobcentre client.
The majority of attendees at Broadlands House are trying to AVOID anything to do with work, let alone use English skills or create websites.
It’s simple, 9 to 5 at the job centre ‘getting’ a job. give them minimum wadge. Can’t be out on the streets dealing drugs.
you cant treat a jobless individual as an employee of the benefit agency, with a job description of “job seeker” –as they would be entitled to holiday allowance, sick pay etc
One of the many problems with benefits is that they are open ended, you qualify and do nothing for the next how ever long and just sit and collect, all benefits shall be time sensitive, 12 months maximum , then three months at a time thereafter, if you are caught fiddling even by omission then no benefits for five years,
Benefits are considered by many as a life choice, an entitlement why should I work if I can sit at home doing nothing.
As an addition the police should have a presence at the job centre checking people that arrive by car and seeing if they have any warrants out, that would put many off claiming.
I think it’s terrible.
I think there’s 2 groups of people here; those that have been made redundant or have genuine illnesses, but would like to gain employment and those (the usual scumbags) that are allergic to graft. I’d rather do anything than nothing if I’d been unemployed for longer than a few months. If someone is unemployed that long, you know damn well they’d don’t want to work. Bring back the workhouse for those types…
Might be easier to go to work.
WORK what’s that?
Brilliant idea, but f they get this money they need to show they are actively looking for work, if not stop the benefits? Simple?
Some people are unemployable ie thieves and drug users.would you give them a job?stop their benefits to force them to steal to and other crime to survive.
Yes, just wish I was on UC & PIP its a joke. Maybe the Doctors need to look into the reason’s they give out PIP so easy. I am P-ssed off paying for this lot.
From Easter there is no excuse to get work ,everywhere is short staffed,even if u don’t like the work it gets a little something on your CV