Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Mary Ward Centre

On 23 April, I enrolled on two courses at one of London's premier adult education colleges, The Mary Ward Centre, whose aim it is “to promote public education and social service for the benefit of the community”. I attended the first part of the course in May and I even got a nice certificate but then I received an email telling me that the second part, Access Advanced, had been cancelled and that I would be receiving my refund in the post.

Enrolment for 2010/2011 began yesterday (my course was scheduled to start yesterday too), and so I was there. The cancellation took place, I was told, because almost no one had enrolled for the Advanced Access course. And the reason why I hadn’t received my refund is because the Centre mailed the cheque to the wrong address and it had been returned to them. It also so happens that they typed my surname wrong on the cheque, and the typo would only be rectified by hand.



Although I have now paid for an additional two courses, I couldn’t get confirmation of my enrolment. That will be sent to me in a couple of weeks, I was told. In the meantime, we continue to battle Jobcentre Plus of the Department for Work and Pensions to do training courses of our choosing. Declan’s battle on this front has in fact made its way all the way to the Independent Case Examiner. Jobcentre Plus is refusing him access to a Starting a Business course that would enable him register NAC as a company limited by guarantee (see blog of 30 April “Declan's complaint against Jobcentre Plus goes to the Independent Case Examiner”).

On a more positive note, yesterday Declan finally found a solicitor to represent us. Declan has informed our solicitor that he will continue to build our case this side of suspension or termination of benefits (see yesterday's blog “Department for Work and Pension’s double breaches the Data Protection Act: Letter to the Information Commissioner”), but at least now we know we have a solicitor who is willing and able to act for us. This is huge!