Ingeus 'steps to work' programme for ESA WRAG claimant (MH)

[fletch70]

Thanks Mr P

I am using Intraining/ingeus and they do indeed pay travel expenses in cash , if the normal person is working you do not even have to show receipts once they know you. Needless to say they do not offer the repayment you need to ask so I do my best to make sure people know

[fletch70]

I read those two articles and maybe i am wrong but I am not convinced that this is official policy. Sadly once you start to issue league tables etc managers do not (understandably) want to be at the bottom of that table . This is where the lines get blurred . I have seen this happen in the private sector especially when targets are unrealistic so some people bend the rules, then those that stick to the rules fall down the league table and on and on

[will lliw]

Thanks Mr P

I am using Intraining/ingeus and they do indeed pay travel expenses in cash , if the normal person is working you do not even have to show receipts once they know you. Needless to say they do not offer the repayment you need to ask so I do my best to make sure people know

 

Well i got a nice suprise today because Ingeus HCP paid my travel expenses including arrears in cash muller.

[fletch70]

good stuff

[keiko78]

Keiko

Sometimes (but not always) I think it is unfair the way we talk about and treat our WP advisors. Again , sometimes it is worth meeting in the middle.

You are on ESA?

What is the harm in giving them an email address

Play the game up to a certain point

If you only have to go in every few weeks is it the end of the world ?

 

As for the C.V, the one she wrote was IMHO pretty crap and certainly not one that suits me . My sister who is a professional career advisor within higher education helped me do a much better one. I have nodded and taken the C.V. I have filed it on my PC and if I were to apply for a job I would send out the CV i like.

I then apply for the odd job here and there , not because I am fit to do it but because it keeps them off my back.

 

When I see the attitude of some of the jobseekers I wonder how they have not all been sanctioned , for an example, one lad needed his birth certificate to register with an agency. Week after week he didn't try to get it so one week she provided the money for the bus AND the money for the certificate upfront. Two weeks later he still hadn't been

 

I treat anybody with respect who treats me with respect and when they don't I find them difficult to work with because of the imbalance. Unfortunately people who are WP Advisors or in my case a Steps to work Advisor they don't have a very good reputation for being respectful to their clients. When advisors work in underhanded ways, throwing out sanctions to manipulate people in a bullish way and not working in a transparent way they surely have an agenda just to meet targets and keep their jobs and it is not the wellbeing of the client thats the focus.

 

I'm disabled so without going into detail on a public forum, I like to know my rights so that I'm not a push over and don't end up feeling more unwell due to the programme's agenda, I try with the help of my own medical team to manage my condition. So I always appreciate the feedback to my queries about whether I have to provide an email or how often I am mandated to go in.

[keiko78]

Do you work for the DWP?

 

 

I'd begun to wonder the same thing too

[keiko78]

Well i got a nice suprise today because Ingeus HCP paid my travel expenses including arrears in cash muller.

 

Nice result!

[keiko78]

I received a letter this week out of the blue telling me that the usual Employment Advisor will no longer be seeing me. I am now invited to attend an appointment this week at their office but have not been provided with a name or job title for this new mystery person so I'm feeling somewhat left in the dark! So frustrating. A new chapter begins...

[will lliw]

I received a letter this week out of the blue telling me that the usual Employment Advisor will no longer be seeing me. I am now invited to attend an appointment this week at their office but have not been provided with a name or job title for this new mystery person so I'm feeling somewhat left in the dark! So frustrating. A new chapter begins...

 

Could you elaborate, who is the letter from and what does it say exactly?

[will lliw]

It helps to get these people on the ropes anyway you can then they leave you alone when they know your no push over and refuse to give away your rights. This HCP has now ceased asking me to sign the forms although she does bring them into the room lol.

[fletch70]

Just thought I would add to this

Yesterday my In training advisor told me that she had booked me on a course , 5 days 7 hours a day. I told her that I didn't think I would be able to cope with it so she took me off. Maybe I am lucky

 

As it happens I will almost certainly be signing off at the end of september to go to Uni , hopefully once I have the definite offer she will cut me loose

[keiko78]

Could you elaborate, who is the letter from and what does it say exactly?

 

This letter is from the current Employment Advisor. Which tells me that the date of my next appointment is this week not a different week.

 

The Employment Advisor informs me that "my next appointment will be with a lady who will work with me for the last 12 months of the Steps to Work programme." That's all I'm being told.

 

I'm wondering if it's normal for a change of Employment Advisor in the last 12 months of this type of programme? Or whether it is going to be somebody in a different role?

Edited June 25, 2014 by keiko78
I waffle sometimes and at others I repeat myself! :P

[keiko78]

Well I attended my appointment this week, to find out at reception that I wasn't on their list to see anyone today. Great, so I had a stressful day for nothing. Grrr! The receptionist then went away and came back to tell me that my next appointment date is in 6 weeks time, didn't I get the letter? Err no I didn't! They just confuse me.

The letter arrived this morning from Ingeus, 10 days after the letter date, stating my activities for the next appointment will be "to attend appointment with new advisor (full name) and start 2nd year".

 

Anyway, it was good to learn that I can now be Ingeus stress free for 6 weeks, phew!

 

 

[keiko78]

With summer and one thing or another I've been unable to get online to add my last appointment to this thread. So here is a short version of what I remember.

 

The new woman arrives in the private waiting room, she says who she is but not what she does (This seems to be the norm).

 

She goes straight into asking me ''How are things with you?'' and ''Has anything changed since attending my last appointment with xxxxxx (the previous Employment Advisor)?''

I said that I was looking at courses and will start a new one in September when I've decided.

 

Then she asked ''And have your meds changed?'' to which I responded ''Errr no.'' (I haven't told her I do or don't take meds)

So she came back with ''What no they haven't? Or no you're not taking any?''

It was very awkward because I do take meds but I didn't want to talk to her about it.

 

Towards the end of the appointment she offered me 'my' travel expenses of £xx.xx (saying it like I always receive travel expenses) to which I told her I don't travel by public transport and I've never received any travel expenses.

 

A few days later I received the follow-up standard Ingeus letter through the post telling me the date of the next appointment, which also included the 'agreed action' at my last appointment which has now become mandatory! There was no agreement in it, I was going to do a course before I went to the appointment and that didn't change while I was there or when I left.

 

My next appointment is coming up soon.

[Mr.P]

Then she asked ''And have your meds changed?'' to which I responded ''Errr no.'' (I haven't told her I do or don't take meds)

 

If you get asked this question again, the correct response should be "That is not any of your business - You are not qualified or authorised to discuss matters of that nature."

 

Had a similar exchange with one of these "advisers" and got a grudging apology after giving her a long, hard stare.

[essexmat]

When I went from JSA to ESA for stress, anxiety and depression my 'adviser' at the time said to me "what have they given you?" I simply replied "that is between me and my GP" Who do they think they are?

[fletch70]

I have to say i am rapidly loosing patience with in training . This week the advisor was on about how many people they had found a job for as a company this year . Spin spin spin, or lies, damn lies and statistics.

I am also suspecting that the minority who play the system get a job just as their 2 years are up, do it for a few months then conveniently become unemployed again and so the cycle continues. Of course in training get their bonus for that and anotrher person into work.

 

It really is all BS

I really do refuse to play the game anyore. Two weeks left

[jasta11]

I'm wondering if it's normal for a change of Employment Advisor in the last 12 months of this type of programme? Or whether it is going to be somebody in a different role?

 

Well, I had 4 different ones while I was with Ingeus. They apparently have the two years divided up into sections so at the end of each one you move on to someone else, so basically if the first adviser can't do anything with you then they give someone else a try at making your life miserable

 

First adviser I had - for one interview only - spent her time looking over my shoulder at something which was obviously more interesting and produced a very childish, rubbish CV for me which I never used.

 

Second adviser I had was decent enough to deal with, but did nothing for me apart from finding a whole 2 jobs to apply for during a 6 month period. Wonderful.

 

Third adviser was a miserable ^&*%6 and I took great pleasure in pulling her up for every infraction of the guidelines - and she made many too

 

Last one was a car salesman in a previous job and produced literature full of spelling mistakes. 'Fish out of water' summed him up totally.

 

Expect anything from these people - even they don't know what's coming next half the time.

[wanton]

Well i got a nice suprise today because Ingeus HCP paid my travel expenses including arrears in cash muller.

 

I claimed ESA in Sept 09. I was eventually put into the Support Group for 3 years. I was 60 in June 2009.

 

 

Yet I had to go to weekly meetings at the local office of the Royal British Legion to set goals to get me back to work and to show the following week that I had made headway into meeting those goals. This went on for over 6 months until I found out that I should have been left alone because (a) I was over 60 and (b) I was in the Support Group. It was voluntary for me to attend but no one told me!

On top of that I had to fund the fuel costs for those visits out of my ESA payments!! No one told me that I could reclaim them!

 

 

Seems that nothing has changed.

[RebeccaPidgeon]

Well, I had 4 different ones while I was with Ingeus. They apparently have the two years divided up into sections so at the end of each one you move on to someone else, so basically if the first adviser can't do anything with you then they give someone else a try at making your life miserable

 

First adviser I had - for one interview only - spent her time looking over my shoulder at something which was obviously more interesting and produced a very childish, rubbish CV for me which I never used.

 

Second adviser I had was decent enough to deal with, but did nothing for me apart from finding a whole 2 jobs to apply for during a 6 month period. Wonderful.

 

Third adviser was a miserable ^&*%6 and I took great pleasure in pulling her up for every infraction of the guidelines - and she made many too

 

Last one was a car salesman in a previous job and produced literature full of spelling mistakes. 'Fish out of water' summed him up totally.

 

Expect anything from these people - even they don't know what's coming next half the time.

Deloitte-Ingeus used to deploy a 4 Phase Programme, entitled the "Every Day Counts" Service Delivery Model, with a different Welfare To Work Clerk assigned to each candidate as they entered each Phase.. Of course, this was before Deloitte- offloaded its stake in Ingeus, and before Ingeus were sold to a Private Equity Business in the US.

Phase 1 : Insight (Weeks 1-4)

Phase 2 : Intensive Support (Weeks 5-16)

Phase 3 : Skills Plus (Weeks 17-52)

Phase 3.1 Vocational Routeway (13 weeks)

Phase 3.2 Personal Routeway (13 weeks)

Phase 4 Breakthrough (Weeks 53-104)

http://ingeusstaff.co.uk/diagram

 

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[keiko78]

If you get asked this question again, the correct response should be "That is not any of your business - You are not qualified or authorised to discuss matters of that nature."

 

Thanks Mr. P that's a damn fine response to give them, I wish I could have thought of something like that at the time. This has to be my new mantra if (or should I say when) she tries it again. *Goes off to scribble it down on memo pad* I didn't expect to get asked such personal questions, it's so intrusive.

[worried33]

Keiko

Sometimes (but not always) I think it is unfair the way we talk about and treat our WP advisors. Again , sometimes it is worth meeting in the middle.

You are on ESA?

What is the harm in giving them an email address

Play the game up to a certain point

If you only have to go in every few weeks is it the end of the world ?

 

As for the C.V, the one she wrote was IMHO pretty crap and certainly not one that suits me . My sister who is a professional career advisor within higher education helped me do a much better one. I have nodded and taken the C.V. I have filed it on my PC and if I were to apply for a job I would send out the CV i like.

I then apply for the odd job here and there , not because I am fit to do it but because it keeps them off my back.

 

When I see the attitude of some of the jobseekers I wonder how they have not all been sanctioned , for an example, one lad needed his birth certificate to register with an agency. Week after week he didn't try to get it so one week she provided the money for the bus AND the money for the certificate upfront. Two weeks later he still hadn't been

 

why does an agency need a birth certificate, that's excessive and also I wouldn't provide as allows id fraud.

[sillygirl1]

Sadly in this day and age you do need ID for most jobs, otherwise the company employing you could be done for £1000 for not providing proof of eligibility to work in the UK....

 

The more difficult you make it for the work providers the worse they come down on you.

 

I turned the tables on my work provider many times by outsmarting them with documentary evidence - and they eventually had to drop their 're-engagement' phase when I temporarily ended up on ESA, went straight back into work after that!

 

They are using a 'one size fits all' method which the system was NOT set up for, it was set up for long-term claimants rather than short term ones, but sadly everyone gets shoved on to them sooner now.

 

The work provider did however pay part of the cost of me getting my passport renewed as it had run out and I could prove I would not be interviewed for a couple of posts (one of which I am still working in now) without a valid passport - I don't drive so I didn't have 'photographic' evidence either.

 

If they had not sent me to the work provider I could have got funding to set up my own business, but because I was with a work provider who was not recognised by the funding provider it was dropped. That was one lot of documentary evidence I used against them.

[fletch70]

why does an agency need a birth certificate, that's excessive and also I wouldn't provide as allows id fraud.

 

I am assuming he didn't have a passport and they were covering their back about work permits etc. To be honest he was not one of the cooperative ones, and if I had been his advisor I would have sanctioned him ( After 4 weeks of asking he had not even applied for his BC and that was in-spite of them offering to give him the money their and then to pay for it and catch the bus to collect it...he never had time! ) One of a tiny minority I know but we need to accept that they exist.

 

I have already had one argument today with someone who is blaming it all on fraudulent claims and sited an example from 20 years ago

[will lliw]

If you get asked this question again, the correct response should be "That is not any of your business - You are not qualified or authorised to discuss matters of that nature."

 

Had a similar exchange with one of these "advisers" and got a grudging apology after giving her a long, hard stare.

 

Noted with thanks, i will update in my thread shortly as had an interesting experience last week.