Church and State blog

Saturday, April 23, 2011

'Work Boost' at The People's Supermarket? I don't think so!

Arthur Potts Dawson, Co-founder & Executive Chef of The People's Supermarket

Action for Employment (A4E) is a private company that has received £300 million of Government training contracts and controls 25% of the long-term unemployment budget for the Department for Work and Pensions. As I explained in the previous blog Declan back to Lynne Featherstone MP with A4E's 14th breach of contract, we have been on an A4E 'work placement' - 16 hours a week of unpaid work - at The People's Supermarket (TPS), which has been championed by Prime Minister David Cameron as an example of how his "Big Society" can work. A4E are under tremendous pressure to ensure that they send Declan back to our jobcentre with any sort of work experience on the shop floor of TPS so that the jobcentre can then run a number on his jobseeker's agreement: a job in a supermarket such as Tesco, Sainsbury's or Morrisons would be just the ticket to not only have us out of our home and ready to be fired at the drop of a hat, but more significantly, see us back to the street!

So far we have managed not to set foot on the shop floor, and neither of us have any intention of doing our 'work boost' - a mandatory one month of unpaid work at 30 hours per week - at TPS when this placement finishes next week. A4E threaten they will issue a sanction letter against Declan if he doesn't agree to his 'work boost' at TPS, but if our jobcentre, Highgate Jobcentre Plus, take our benefits, they will have to argue at the hearing of Declan's renewed application for permission to apply for Judicial Review (see blog of 14 April Declan's Notice of Renewal of claim for permission to apply for Judicial Review) that they are not discriminating against us and that in fact they regularly force claimants – with similar levels of education, skill and achievement – to undergo a ‘work boost’ at TPS and the like. This is my email to TPS yesterday, in which I flaunt the Metropolitan Police's secretive National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU):

Click to enlarge

Below is a video clip of Tory Employment Minister Chris Grayling talking about a new "revolutionary" work programme to put people who are claiming incapacity benefit back to work with the help of private contractors, the largest of which is A4E. What people should be made aware of is that the only revolution taking place here is that these private companies are not subject to the provisions of Jobseeker's Act 1995, according to John Howell QC (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge), who dismissed Declan's initial application for permission to apply for Judicial Review (the Judge's reasons can be read here). What it means is that for so long as these companies don't issue a sanction letter, they can do just about anything they want and the claimant has no remedy under welfare law - we have had the tampering and altering of documents; the unauthorised and unlawful recording of meetings; the denial of the right to reply to outrageous written statements against us; and much more besides (see previous blog). Grayling's "Back to Work Support" will allow for unimaginable abuses.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Declan back to Lynne Featherstone MP with A4E's 14th breach of contract

Arthur Potts Dawson, centre, meets the Prime Minister at the People's Supermarket last month

Action for Employment (A4E) is a private company that has received £300 million of Government training contracts and controls 25% of the long-term unemployment budget for the Department for Work and Pensions (see the video in last week's blog A4E: David Blunkett MP replies). The DWP must have them under serious pressure because despite Declan now writing to our MP, Lynne Featherstone, who also happens to be a minister in the Home Office, this morning it was the 14th breach of contract by A4E Camden in less than 7 months! So he has been back to Featherstone again this afternoon (Featherstone is quite familiar with Declan and only a couple of weeks ago wrote him another letter regarding the unlawful interception of our emails, see blog of 26 March Interception of emails: Home Office minister advises Declan to find himself a solicitor):

Click to enlarge

As the email shows, Declan and I have been on an A4E 'work placement' since 4 April at The People's Supermarket (TPS), which has been at the centre of David Cameron’s “Big Society” programme. We are there until 29 April to provide long-term volunteering opportunities for clients of Write to Life run by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. TPS is the brainchild of celebrity chef Arthur Potts Dawson, a nephew of Mick Jagger. To keep prices and running costs low, much of what is needed to run TPS is provided by members and volunteers.

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture is a high profile charity. Their chief executive is former Tory MP, Keith Best. According to their 2009-2010 Annual Report, they received 55 legacies from supporters, generating nearly £900,000, as well as "generous support" from a range of Trusts, Foundations and grant-makers. Donations from individuals provide the core income for their work. In 2008, individuals contributed £4,785,167 towards a total income of £7,382,119.

Keith Best, former Tory MP and Chief Executive of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (52 secs)

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

Saturday, April 23, 2011

'Work Boost' at The People's Supermarket? I don't think so!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Declan back to Lynne Featherstone MP with A4E's 14th breach of contract

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