I’ve always been slightly suspicious of the Jobcentre, the Dole, DHSS, whatever the Government of the day wants to call it. It’s real name is the Welfare State.
Essentially, it’s the welfare state. The bit which props us up when we’re down. At least that’s the job it’s supposed to do. Over the years some complex calculations have been drawn up to pigeon hole you, your circumstances, and those around you; the aim being to decide if you’re eligible for extra income.
I’ve wondered since I was about nine, when I accompanied my older brother to sign on, why a building, a structure, or a Government department designed to be so helpful can appear so austere and alienating from the outside. On the inside, things weren’t much better, the atmosphere was borderline suicidal; the staff a prime example of dereliction of duty.
This was 1980′s Britain. It was Thatcher’s Britain. It was 1987 and I was nine. It may have been grim up north, but the Job Centre was depicted as a shithole, a cesspit, and somewhere only the lowest lifeforms would inhabit. I often wondered how the staff coped working in such boring, grey and depressing conditions.
Fast forward to 1999. Two years into the “New” Labour government. Tony Blair was working his magic, and the country was coming up on a high. This was the inspirational time, just before the dot-com bubble burst (the first time around). Just days before the magical year 2000, just days before the whole world was about to change into a magical wonder-world where the standards suddenly improve because it’s the 21st Century.
Yet in the middle of all this, I was sat at home in the run up to Christmas, broke and jobless. I was given a ‘generous’ payoff. A whole month of cash in lieu. So I didn’t rush to seek help. I let Christmas and the whole year 2000 thing get out of the way, and then popped my head into my local Job Centre.
Over ten years have passed now. I remember it vividly. The smell, the people, the pure lack of imagination in the place. Thatcher’s Britain was still alive and well, in the Walthamstow Job Centre. I explained to the nice lady that I’d lost my job. She told me I’d have to fill out a form, what’s my National Insurance number, and there’d be a two week wait before I’d start seeing any money in my bank account. “You do have a bank account, don’t you?” Yes, I’m not just off the banana boat, I’m from the UK, I tell her.
That’s the first mistake. When the woman in the Job Centre is sarcastic to you, don’t be sarcastic back. It puts the whole process back decades.
The money lady found me on her computer, confirmed the vital aspects of me – my name, address, date of birth.
“Are you male, or female?” she asked, quite fluently, with no sign of embarrassment. “What?” I ask.
“Are you a boy, or a girl?” Oh yes, I remind myself, there’s no conversation, there’s no irony that an obviously rhetorical question in any other setting had been asked. There were questions, and there were answers. I answer the questions, I don’t question the questions.
I remember the date. It was the first Tuesday in 2000. Two weeks later, to the day, my first DHSS income arrived in my bank account. I had to sign on two weeks after that. And Christ, if the actual signing-on was a process from hell, signing on again was enough to leave even Irish twins JEdward depressed.
The lady I saw on day one had told me I needed to apply for three jobs per week, and bring proof with me. Several jobs were suggested to me, too. I really didn’t fancy being a dustman, a dentist receptionist, or working on the checkouts in Netto. Yes, those were my three suggested jobs from the Job Centre. During that month of January I had successfully applied for and received offer of employment. I just couldn’t wait for my last trip to the Job Centre, to thank them for their ‘help’, and to sign-on for that one last time.
Except where I had gone wrong was to assume that by getting a job, I was in the clear. “You’re not due to start until 15th February.” The man said, not even trying to put some inflection or other sign of humanity into his voice. “That’s not allowed, you need to keep applying for jobs to cover those two weeks.”
Remembering the hell I went through for my sarcasm back in January, February was to be different. I apologised, and said I would get on the case. “Don’t bother”, he said, “no-one else ever does. We’ve just got to say it so you’re not breaking the law.”
The people may have been nice enough, but their workplace was typical Central Govt, unmaintained for many years, and barely keeping with the new computer technology the rest of the world was adopting post haste. Nothing much had changed from my first insight into the Welfare State 12 years previous.
This got me wondering, and I’ve wondered ever since. Why are staff in Job Centres quite so anally retentive, humourless drones. Their job was to treat everyone as if a criminal. The Welfare State is the only institution in the UK I know of where it’s okay to be guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. The staff will flatly refute any allegations, but their denial only prompts further questions – if you don’t treat everyone as a cheat, why the attitude problems?
I am speaking from the past experiences I mention, but also from a more recent experience of helping a friend. I’ve never came across any group of people more reluctant to give a friendly and helpful attitude than those who seem to have it ingrained in their mind that everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Successive Governments have chosen this as the face of their Welfare State. Does it help anyone at all get back to work quickly?
We’re coming up to a General Election this year, during this time the Welfare State always comes under immense pressure. Parties promise to tear it apart, to stop benefit cheats, and to reform the system. Each little promise puts more strain on the system, more stress on the employees, and gives the recipient of Welfare more hassle and anxiety.
Will any party dare to veer away from the ‘benefit fraud is bad’ mantra, and promise a root and branch reform of the archaic system which leads to these manic depressive inhabitants of the benefit system? I sincerely doubt it.
Just as the main parties have decided that there is no alternative to cutting public spending to reduce the UK’s debts, the main parties haven’t even bothered to think further than benefit fraud when it comes to the Welfare State. Why should that be at the forefront of your mind when you come to vote? Because as 2009 has shown us, you just don’t know when it will be your turn to come up against these strange, grey humans hiding behind their (now) computerised system.
And if I end up in front of them anytime soon, I’d much rather that the politicians I vote for ensure that the staff in these Job havens are trained to be personable, informative and helpful. Treating people as if they’re guilty before you even know their full situation is so Thatcher. I still can’t believe that the Benefit system relies on it so heavily.
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