Jobcentre Staff ‘Bullying’ Benefit Claimants To Tears | Welfare Weekly

Last Updated: November 5, 2015By


Some of you are probably thinking, “So what? So they made some people cry. What’s the big deal?”

The big deal is, if they pushed some people to tears, what else could they push people into doing?

One witness, “Donna,” who had been made redundant after working all of her life gave evidence to the Committee, she said that Jobcentre advisers had bullied her, making her ill and stressed. She was a former Church of Scotland development worker from Glasgow.

She said of her first interview with the Jobcentre: “He made me feel like I was imagining my problems and I didn’t have any problems,”

“I would have been in a mental institution if I had stayed with that first adviser.”

“He was saying to me: ‘It’s not like you’ve got a leg missing.’ Each time he made me cry.

“I would have been in a mental institution if I had stayed with that first adviser – or I would have shot him.”

Source: Jobcentre Staff ‘Bullying’ Benefit Claimants To Tears | Welfare Weekly

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13 Comments

  1. ian725 November 5, 2015 at 1:44 am - Reply

    Depression in Society is unfortunately increasing at an alarming rate amongst all age groups. As is the increase in self harm and suicide attempts….. some of which are becoming increasingly more successful tragically. Crisis teams are at full stretch and overworked. It also hits Poor and Rich alike however this arrogant government seem to be totally oblivious and are completely out of touch with society. We really do need to change the whole system and the faster the better.

  2. Joanna November 5, 2015 at 6:46 am - Reply

    When I signed on about 20 years ago I was reduced to tears by a job centre woman saying I wouldn’t get a job because I was too fat! I was 18 stone at the time, I comfort ate because I was twice nearly starved to death, once by my mother, I was a baby, and once by Thatcher’s government when I was 16. I had just been kicked out of care with zero support from social services. I did every YTS that I could, but Thatcher said that under 18’s could not get housing benefit, I have never had any family.
    It never occurred to me to steal anything, at least that could be one thing to feel good about I think?

  3. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) November 5, 2015 at 7:01 am - Reply

    I do not know all the “ins and outs” of that interview but if any interviewer treated an applicant in such a disgraceful and humiliating manner surely he or she should be dismissed as any shop assistant would be. Where was the manager or was that IDS!

    • jonathansharpe November 5, 2015 at 12:13 pm - Reply

      Careful. Some people who have never been in a Jobcentre might not understand your sarcasm.

    • allan j November 6, 2015 at 10:52 pm - Reply

      my experiences of JC managers says they are no better

  4. Maria November 5, 2015 at 8:18 am - Reply

    This government is getting sicker everyday.

  5. Dez November 5, 2015 at 8:45 am - Reply

    Not a good idea telling the storm troopers that they are suceeding in driving the claimants to tears, suicidal and murderous thoughts……that will just encourage them to issue every Job Centre office interviewer with black snappy uniforms, caps and shiney boots. The good news is that they are even cutting back on their own job centre staff numbers so these same cretins will be enjoying the same treatment they have been dishing out to the rest of the population……enjoy. Apologies to those good guys that do work in the job centres, and do care….. they cannot all be bad eggs.

    • Mike Sivier November 5, 2015 at 11:56 am - Reply

      I appreciate your point, but the wider population needs to be told what’s going on and the tactics that are being used.

  6. jonathansharpe November 5, 2015 at 12:03 pm - Reply

    Little people, failures. Drunk on power.
    Successful people want others to succeed. Unsuccessful people want others to fail.

  7. Helen Jackson November 5, 2015 at 2:40 pm - Reply

    Last night I watched a news item about the civil servants who work at the jobcentres. Apparently, a great many of them only work part-time, and will therefore be subjected to the new rules about looking for full-time work (if working part-time and claiming benefits). It seems they will soon be interrogating each other about their search for work!

    This is surely the final proof that this government has completely lost the plot!

  8. Sarah Davis November 6, 2015 at 11:19 am - Reply

    I had to go to the job centre after my ESA was stopped and whilst waiting for my appeal date. This was my only option if I wanted any money. I suffer from severe depression and anxiety and don’t usually leave my house. I struggled to get there but took my daughter, as if I do go out I always need someone with me. The staff told me she couldn’t come in to the interview with me (I’ve since heard that it’s my right to have someone with me) and I was told “now is the time to pull yourself together”. I cried through most of the interview and was told I’d need to go back again 2 days later. When I asked how I’d get there as I had no money and Job Centre is over 10 miles away she just shrugged and turned away. I fled in tears and never went back so had to live on nothing for 8 weeks until my appeal was accepted

    • Helen Jackson November 12, 2015 at 3:35 pm - Reply

      The interviewer who treated the claimant so badly should have been liable to instant dismissal. That would have been one redundancy that the unemployed would have welcomed!

      We have just commemorated those who gave their lives in the cause of freedom. The fact that innocent, unemployed people are treated in this way is an insult to their memory. What kind of freedom is this?

  9. mrmarcpc November 9, 2015 at 2:43 pm - Reply

    Similar thing happened to me too Helen, doesn’t surprise reading what they’re getting away with, this is the way it is now under Herr IDS and his bitch sidekick, break you down until you (hopefully in their minds) kill yourself so that way they don’t have to pay out any more money to you and one more pleb dead, doesn’t it make you feel proud to be British!

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