In a former business as a director I guaranteed the lease for the business, as did the other directors. I have not been involved with the business for a good number of years. Due to various reasons the business owner has accumulated delinquent rent and the way the lease is set out means all guarantors are jointly liable for the outstanding rent + the rent for the remaining period of the lease. We cannot terminate the lease without the landlord agreeing, and in this economy she will unlikely agree to. In addition, my fellow guarantors: the business owner has already transferred his assets a few years back preemptively; the other former-director actually had his wife as a guarantor, where he may likely control most of the family assets. I currently co-own a property (fully paid), and potentially even with my share in selling the property I cannot pay the outstanding rent + rent thereafter. A schedule of inhibition has been placed on all THREE guarantors. Presuming the other two guarantors default and have nothing. Is it even worthwhile retaining legal advice from expensive sources(small firms do not want to touch this)? And should I advise the person whom I co-own property with to take action protect her interests. She has a mortgage on another property, the sale of our property would more than cover her mortgage with her half. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

yeah takes ages to load. w2w providers need to commission real client feedback studies rather this this type of intelligence move.

Yeah that seems to be the case I found in some of the previous posts on this thread. There may be some learning funds you can access. I applied for like £200 for a course awhile ago, and I had a friend who had support for courses from a recruitment agency.

I have had similar experience. As a graduate with several years of customer service experience, I was given a Domino's application for more experience. IMO, you just have to press them on the support you want. If you treat it passively, its just like signing on but more frequent. If its your advisor that is unable to support you, then explain your concerns, and even suggest the process of getting a new advisor with less of a workload. Admin roles are tough, I applied for a receptionist post last year part time for a quiet uni building, and as a part of essential was either a qualification in admin or typing. I'd look see if you can get a course paid for. What you realise straight away, is they aren't a careers advice organisation or anything. It is just get into employment. So what you can get out from the assistance from them, really depends on the advisor/workload/and how you push it. They aren't going to treat a 24k or a £6.08/hr application different in priority, in fact the more likely the job, the more the focus.

Btw does Scotland not do any of these mandatory schemes?

I read ages on Prospects, that these vacancies are pretty much continuous. I just checked the Ingues one, they are running it till December. Its like with banks when they advertise, I've been on hold for several roles before, it seems to be a way for them to prepare for temporary contracts ending etc. Another industry that seems to recruit all the time is recruitment, now I seriously doubt they have that many vacancies, but people just leave for better quite regularly.

Absolutely, I personally do not expect myself to stay in the long run (pressure and job security). I do think there are positives from the role, I think the right people can provide appropriate support. Sounds bad, but A4e staff should have had more integrity (or a plan B in their own career path) than to have allegedly done what they did. I don't think the role is for everyone, but as someone in their 20's, its valuable experience. Also, if I get the post, nothing stops me from withdrawing my consent with DPA. Personally, I hate what I do now, so applying for a better paid role just makes sense.

I actually just applied for one of the providers, obviously not A4e! Money is actually good, I actually doubt there is that many vacancies, its likely to have continuous recruitment to preempt growing demand, or mainly turn over of staff. My advisor actually brought up the vacancies with me. Its worth considering.

hmm, never knew much about that. That's very disappointing. I presume they justify it with getting another type of work, then save up for CSCS.

Just a personal take, I'm not convinced that being antagonistic towards WP providers are the way to go. I'd just concentrate on employment and not use their services. Though they have things like circuit classes and sleep classes etc, you're not really encouraged to use them. Unless you aren't at the effective job search phase yet, you will never really give it another thought. My advisor got me to GET funding for courses, they won't likely pay for courses beyond their affiliates. It would be pretty hard for an independent organisation to survive on courses like CV building, and its not really substantial enough to really be taught on. One of the first thing they get you to do will be a CV, its not a course, in my case it was a fairly poor template. The only benefit is, I now think about the appearance of a CVs for different jobs more. For me the WP is signing on but a lot longer and a lot more regular. Personally, I think the effectiveness of WP is down to the advisor. My advisor is very rigid in her approach, I'm doing better on my own, as in I found my own employment, and not via her CV template etc. But then I had an awesome interview skills session with another advisor. I've challenged my own advisor on a few things before, it just consumes my time more. I've actually had the opportunity to try a free local service like a WP provider, but more assisting on skills/experiences/searches. The quality is different, in many ways it was very disappointing in terms of what they could do for me, and they did steer me wrong on something. But it is nice to get feedback, rather than just be pushed into things.

Does the DWP not regulate it, in a very remote way? The government more than likely views it as teething problems, its very easy for them to say they are learning from mistakes, the programme does work, and it will be improved. The whole WP is an odd system, the customer of the providers is actually the DWP, and somehow we are just caught in the system.

It basically feels like what the JCP would have done if it had resources. My advisor usually sends me demotivating recommendations

I actually just joined the forum to talk about Ingeus. I have an odd relationship with Ingeus, I am currently their client, not actually too happy about their approach, but I actually want to join them (mainly due to their salary and because I think I have ideas to offer, and DWP isn't employing in my area) Now first off, I totally agree that a lot of the BS type recommendations come from Ingeus staff. I've been told to become a waiter to gain more customer service experience, when I already have 3 years of customer facing and phone handling experience! Anyway, its getting to a point I'm getting recommended to apply for kitchen porter jobs etc, the problem with Ingeus I think a lot of us are having is, we are expecting it to be a lot better than it is. My experience of it, is that it is really just what the JCP is if it had more time for me. In the sense that I have NO expectations of JCP to find my dream vocation/area to work towards. Its mainly my fault for not knowing. But its what I expected of Ingeus to an extent, as it is a business that has more resources, and actually what I wanted from them was more guidance on applications/finding opportunities suitable for someone like me, who is geographically very mobile, reasonably smart, and just generally sucking at life right now. In reality, my advisor probably isn't as smart as me, not a personal thing. Just I've noticed I can read faster than her, type faster than her, and spell better than her. Its not a big deal, but I basically realised, and many on this thread has, is just take ownership of your job search. As for applying for super crap jobs, I'm working part time as a telephone interviewer right now (found it all by myself), the work actually makes me ill, I know Ingeus is going to try and take credit for it, and I don't really care. The truth about all the awful suggestions they have given me like interview for Premier Inn as a KP, when I had no catering experience and I had no real inclination to be in catering (I come from a food background, but in a customer service POV), if you had ZERO money, you'd probably try to get the job. I was thinking this recently when I was on the bus to work, and I saw several Big Issue folk on the street, no one wants to do that. Same as the street fundraisers, who are paid £10+ if they do well, no one aspires to that kinda work. Anyway, I've learnt being less adversarial with Ingeus has made it easier for me (stop wasting my time trying to one up some massive company). I think there are folk who can benefit from Ingeus, and not how I've "benefited" from their advice, but people who can benefit from resources they seem to have on offer. I actually had decent feedback for a mock interview, the advisor for that was great, and she probably had more experience. The issue I have with Ingeus is perhaps, due to the target driven goals of advisors, and the independence they possess: mistakes, not well written cover letters etc, lack of planning or progression plagues their service. I actually set a few CV traps for my advisor to test her (it wasn't meant to be adversarial), and she just saved it and sent it to some jobs I wasn't going to cry over, I even gave her a day before to glance at it. Now my experience with the JCP has been complicated, but it boils down to when I gave them my CV ages ago, they simply said they aren't qualified to handle it, and that was that. I've personally used a free service in my area, from a college in my city, and its just been slow and painful. Great feedback, but slow and painful, and we both knew its more of an issue that the service he provides is more to improve IT, reading etc, while I'm just hitting the wrong jobs/being crap. So in many ways, I'm almost pleased to have a service that can print my CVs on demand, get free hot drinks, and may even provide facilities I can benefit from. Obviously, I'm not actually happy going there as a client, being treated as a product to drive their targets (while just not being open about that). On the other hand, that's why they are 50% owned by one of the big 4! They have 2 measures of output, the amount of people in work after having "used" their service, and the length of time these people are in work for. Satisfaction is absolutely not a measure, but then again nor is it used by the Government (any government really) or most organisations to gauge the economy. To be very honest, a lot of the negative feedback I have read really concerns me. I want to work for Ingeus for a period, its not my end goal, I don't believe its a business I would stay in, but there's valuable experiences it can give me. And I do believe I have some ideas that aren't awful. I'm not sure if there's a regional difference, as in Scotland there's basically NO feedback about it. But I totally can see where the views are coming from, the keeping in contact with employer concerns me, luckily I'm not too concerned with my current post knowing.