Church and State blog: Jobcentre confirms A4E broke the law

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Jobcentre confirms A4E broke the law

Action for Employment (A4E) is a private sector company that has £300 million of Government training contracts and controls 25% of the long-term unemployment budget for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). In the previous blog, I published Declan's appeal against A4E for unfair treatment. Well, we now have a letter to hand from the manager of our jobcentre, Highgate Jobcentre Plus, confirming that A4E broke the law.

On 16 August, Declan requested both verbally and in writing that A4E refer a proposed jobseeker's agreement of theirs to the Decision Maker (the Secretary of State) under section 9(6) of the Jobseekers Act 1995. This section states quite clearly that "The employment officer may, and if asked to do so by the claimant shall forthwith, refer a proposed jobseeker’s agreement to the Secretary of State". According to the Jobcentre, this referral was never made by A4E:

In fact, A4E's flouting of the law took place right under the nose of this manager (see blog of 9 September Highgate Jobcentre Plus doesn't disappoint), as well as A4E chairman and owner, Emma Harrison CBE. Declan has also been writing to new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith (see blog of 8 September Letter to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions). Of course, it was the DWP that forced us to live rough on the streets of London for more than 2 1/2 years because Declan did not "sign on" TWO DAYS BEFORE he was due to do so on 29 September 2006 (see blog of 21 June Department for Work and Pensions double breaches the Data Protection Act: Letter to the Information Commissioner). This letter also arrived from the Jobcentre in yesterday's post (you wouldn't know what they have cooking):

By the way, in the video contained in the blog of 3 September Declan's case against A4E on YouTube video I explain that we came to England from Dublin in 2003 and for two years attempted to start a network of those abused by church with our own money and how the opposition we encountered was so great that we had no choice but to go on benefits in 2005. Oh, and if you want to know what kind of opposition we encountered, the blog of 11 September City of London Police in the spotlight contains some photos of our flooded kitchen and bathroom in August 2004. Talking about freedom of expression, check this one-minute clip for a British Catholic priest saying, with an straight face, "Thank goodness we live in a country where we can protest freely. And I think it's important that people can do that. And it's important for the church to be listening to people's concerns and issues. I think that is very important."

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

Church and State blog

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Jobcentre confirms A4E broke the law

About me

My Picks

Church and State

Blog Archive