Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

I was thinking of a card of condolence.

Suppose I will have to send it to myself.

8-(

away for a couple of days biz, so happily missed the usual blizzard of political handbag swinging here

One for Hays.......I said they were fiddling at ATOS earlier today I didnt realise they were fiddling at the DSS aswel.........................

Iain Duncan Smith confronts claims DWP staff given targets to stop benefits
Created on Thursday, 12 December 2013 08:55

IDS was confronted at the work and pensions select committee with claims that job centre staff are being handed targets to reduce the number of claimants by moving them off the register or ensuring that they have their benefit removed.

An anonymous whistleblower, a former job centre worker who was employed in the Greater Manchester area, told local Labour MP Debbie Abrahams and the Guardian that on one occasion the entire staff at a job centre were warned they would be disciplined unless they increased the number of claimants coming off the register, or raised the number threatened with the loss of their benefit entitlement.

The complainant's concerns were subsequently aired at the select committee by Abrahams, but in an interview before the work and pensions secretary's appearance, the former employee told the Guardian that the system of benefit sanctions is very subtle.

"They say to you that not enough people are coming off the claimant register and that if you do not get more people off the register you may be subject to an internal disciplinary assessment – a personal improvement plan.

"If you ask managers how many people you are supposed to get off the register, they say more and more continuously. It is your job to make the claimant's life difficult, they say. It creates a target culture."
The former employee also says that a Department of Work and Pensions internal whistleblowers system is not working.

Speaking to the Guardian, the whistleblower said: "I tried to raise these matters on many occasions both face-to-face and in writing with management, but each time I was rebuffed and my concerns ignored.

"But the truth is that benefit claimants are being deliberately set up to fail in order to achieve sanction quotas without regard for natural justice or their welfare. Staff are being asked to behave in a manner that is against the department's values of integrity and honesty."

The complainant also alleged that senior managers electronically altered a claimant's file to make it appear they had been told to attend the job centre the following day when no such notification had been given. Failure to attend a job centre interview is grounds for sanction.

The DWP has consistently denied that it gives job centres targets for applying sanctions to jobseekers, or discontinuing benefit.

After the whistleblower's concerns were raised at the hearing, Duncan Smith said he was prepared to look at any complaints, but accused his critics of moaning.

He said: "There are always one or two people operating in an organisation that have a different view." He said staff apply benefit sanctions within the rules and Neil Couling (DWP work services director) has looked at complaints in the past and on every occasion had no reason to doubt that people were operating properly.

He added that he was happy to meet the whistleblower, but that the complainant should meet Couling first.

Cyners ohhhh you know you love it here.

some bits are interesting or even fun, but totally numbed by the nonsense perpetuated by you guys and hays

"away for a couple of days biz" Oh yeah realy?... So which sunny climbs this time then -):

Aberdeen!

HAYS........ PASSED.

WOW petition hits target... and is now heading for parliament
Created on Monday, 09 December 2013 10:21

MPs are set to debate the combined impact of the government's cuts to disability benefits and services early in the new year, after a petition led by disabled campaigners hit its 100,000 target with just days to spare.


Supporters now face a battle to persuade MPs to back the petition publicly, in order to persuade a committee that there is enough support for the debate to take place in the main Commons chamber, rather than the smaller, lower-profile Westminster Hall.
The WOW petition, spearheaded by the disabled comedian and activist Francesca Martinez, reached its target on 30 November, just 12 days before the cut-off point.

This meant the petition could be put before the Commons backbench committee, which hears bids every week from MPs keen for debates on certain subjects to take place in parliamentary time put aside for backbenchers.

The focus of the WOW petition is the need for a cumulative impact assessment on the cuts and other reforms affecting disabled people, an immediate end to the much-criticised work capability assessment, and an independent inquiry into welfare reform.

"Rick B", one of the originators of the petition, said: “In July 2012, I almost died because of how the government treated me. Many have not been as fortunate.

"Another founder of the campaign, John Dyer, sadly passed away in November before we reached 100,000 signatures.

"So we are resolute to take this democratic mandate and pursue the cause of making justice for sick and disabled people and carers a reality.”

Michelle Maher, another originator of the petition, added: “I became involved because of my cousin, who had been living with Parkinson's for five years, with osteoarthritis and diabetes.

"Her claim for DLA [disability living allowance] took 18 months to settle and she was in sheltered accommodation when she had to attend a tribunal. She was frightened, stressed and confused by the process. Inhumane.”

The Labour MP John McDonnell, backed by party colleague Grahame Morris, appeared before the backbench committee this week to put the case for a debate on the WOW petition.

Although the committee's chair, Natascha Engel, confirmed that a debate would take place, she said they would need to provide "quite a long list" of cross-party MPs to justify holding it in the main chamber.

Earlier, McDonnell had attended a meeting in a parliamentary committee room, held by WOW petition organisers and attended by several other Labour MPs.

McDonnell had told the disabled activists attending the meeting that he wanted the debate to be held in January, and in the main Commons chamber, and that he was hoping to gain cross-party support.

He said that the government's refusal to carry out a cumulative impact assessment "beggars belief", and added: "We are trying to shape the debate from here on in so no political party can avoid addressing the issue."

McDonnell told the meeting that direct action and lobbying of MPs would have to continue, despite the petition's success.

Kate Green, Labour's shadow minister for disabled people, said the government did not want to carry out a cumulative impact assessment because it would expose the pressure every public service was under and "show an absolutely disastrous situation for disabled people".

Green said that Labour might not agree with every one of the demands in the petition but she said there was "a lot of ground for a... conversation".

She said the petition was a "really strong statement" on the UN's International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and showed there were a lot of disabled people who will "just not tolerate being the whipping boys of this government".

Paula Peters, a disabled activist, said campaigners needed to pressure Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs to attend the debate, perhaps by attending their constituency surgeries.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

I always thought Aberdeen's luck was going to run out sometime!

It just means it will be considered for debate. I guess it won't be debated.

Aberdeen, its a right s-it hole (wink). Thats where Chris Carson lives.

READ IT. Its been passed and for the commons although its no quite up to date on that memo.

hardly an architectural gem, that's for sure

Aberdeen is granite and because of that it has a background radiation level above the World Health Max level.

"Aberdeen!" What this time of the year? Long Johns to be packed then.

Lead lined if H/S's is right.

try cornwall for excess radiation too
in fact, not too cold in aberdeen at all

lol this thread. Waterloo Bridge and the Terraces of the Houses of Parliament are built of Aberdeen granite.

Star Trek's Scotty proudly proclaims himself as "an old Aberdeen Pub Crawler" in the episode titled "The Wolf in the Fold".
The actor who played him, James Doohan, has also been quoted as saying he based the character's accent on an Aberdonian he met whilst training in Catterick, Yorkshire, with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War

Patrick Gordon from Aberdeen was the principal military instructor of Peter the Great of Russia.:-))