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Jobcentre Plus (Welsh: Canolfan Byd Gwaith) is the government-funded employment agency facility and the social security office for working-age people in Great Britain. The agency was formed when the Employment Service, which operated Jobcentres and existed alongside separate social security benefits offices, merged with the Benefits Agency to become re-branded as Jobcentre Plus on 1 April 2002. It is an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and reports directly to the Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform. The current Minister is Jim Knight MP. The current Chief Executive of the agency is Darra Singh.
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Role of Jobcentre Plus
Jobcentre Plus typically provides resources to enable the unemployed to find work and a system to advertise job vacancies for employers by using a computer system called LMS (Labour Market System) which can be accessed by customers through Jobpoints (touch-screen computer terminals) and via the Jobcentre Plus website and the telephone service Jobseeker Direct (0845 60 60 234). It also provides jobsearch help and information about training opportunities for those who have been registered as unemployed for some time. Part of the organisation is engaged in administering claims for benefits such as Jobseeker's Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Employment and Support Allowance and Income Support.
History
The forerunners of the Jobcentre Plus were the government-run Employment Exchanges, originally the vision of Winston Churchill, President of the Board of Trade and William Beveridge, who had worked for a more efficient labour system in the early years of the 20th century. This was intended to address the chaos of the labour market and the problems of casual employment.
In 1908 Beveridge was commissioned to devise a scheme which would combine labour exchanges with a new government-funded unemployment benefit. The Labour Exchanges Bill was rushed through Parliament and passed in September 1909 and, after months of planning and recruitment of clerks, 62 Labour Exchanges were opened on February 1, 1910. The number of offices rose to 430 within four years. At the suggestion of the Prime Minister David Lloyd-George, from January 1917 the Labour Exchanges came under the new Ministry of Labour and were renamed Employment Exchanges, so as to more accurately reflect their purpose and function.
The National Insurance Act was passed in 1911 and the first payments were made at Exchanges in January 1913. Initially this covered only elected trades, such as building, engineering and shipbuilding. Weekly contributions were paid by workers, employers and the State in the form of stamps which were affixed to an Unemployment Book (later called the National Insurance card). When no work was available, benefit was payable.
The basic rules and administration regarding claims and the disallowance of benefit remain unaltered today. From 1918, payments were also made to unemployed ex-soldiers and their dependants, as well as to civilians who found themselves unemployed due to the decline of war production industries. The out-of-work donation scheme (the original "Dole") was originally only a temporary measure.
As Unemployment benefit was payable only for those with a contributions record, and even then for only 12 months for each claim, there remained a group of long-term claimants on low incomes, without access to benefit. That was relieved after the enactment of the National Assistance Act 1946, when payments began to be made to jobseekers on low incomes regardless of contributions.
Initially benefits were paid weekly, in cash, at the Employment Exchange. From 1973, a new network of Jobcentres began to be opened throughout Britain, situated on high streets. These new, forward-looking outlets provided an environment with dedicated advisers focused on getting claimants back to work, without having to resolve benefit claims. This situation has reverted in recent years, as advisers once again deal with benefit payments.
Changes to the service
Private organisations are now under contract with the government to provide services to benefit claimants through initiatives such as Employment Zones and Pathways to Work. Staff of the Department for Work and Pensions give help only to those in so-called "high priority groups", that is, those who are long-term claimants of Jobseekers Allowance, lone parents or those receiving other benefits such as Income Support or Incapacity Benefit.
However, jobsearch facilities are available to anyone via the Jobcentre Plus website, through touch screen interactive jobpoints in local Jobcentres and over the phone via Jobseeker Direct (0845 60 60 234). The Jobcentre Plus website is the UK's most visited recruitment website with over a million visitors each week. Vacancy information is also available through the UK government's direct.gov.uk portal.
Jobcentre Plus also offers services to employers and employment agencies - who can register their vacancies online through the Direct online serviceor by calling Employer Direct. Vacancies are available immediately through the channels above - (online, phone, and interactive jobpoints).
Alongside these changes, Jobcentre Plus has also changed the way in which claims to benefits are processed. In the past, claimants contacted their local benefits office, were asked to manually complete the appropriate forms, and then booked an interview with an adviser in order to discuss work related issues (as appropriate) and submit the benefits claim for processing. The new system instead asks individuals to call a Jobcentre Plus call centre, where claim details are taken over the phone and entered directly to the computer system by the call agent. Customers are then asked to attend an interview at their local jobcentre to discuss work issues with an adviser, and finalise their claim, provide relevant signatures and proof of ID and address.
In addition, the actual processing of claims to benefit is also changing, with benefits claim being processed at a smaller number of larger Benefit Delivery Centres rather than local benefit offices and jobcentres.
Popular culture
The Jobcentre Plus service (and its forerunners the Social Security office, Unemployment Benefit office and Jobcentre/Labour Exchange) have featured in all forms of popular culture, often depicted in a general way to suggest poverty or unemployment. In the 1980s in particular, the Social Security office was frequently used as shorthand for the British recession.
Dramatic representations have included the sitcoms Hancock's Half Hour, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Shelley, Bread, Rab C. Nesbitt, the drama series Boys from the Blackstuff and the films Made in Britain and The Full Monty.
In the black comedy series The League of Gentlemen, a recurring character is Pauline Campbell-Jones (played by Steve Pemberton), the demented leader of a Restart course for a group of unemployed (and unemployable) people.
Love on the Dole is a novel by Walter Greenwood, about working class poverty in 1930s northern England. It has been made into both a play and film.[2]
In music, the reggae group UB40 took their name from the form used to 'sign on' at the Unemployment Benefit office (the form is now designanted ES40JP). The initials "DHSS" are recited several times by singer George Michael in Wham!'s 1983 hit single Wham Rap!, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of wilful unemployment. The first album by Half Man Half Biscuit was called Back in the DHSS, a play on the Beatles song Back in the USSR (which ironically was itself a parody of a Chuck Berry song). The Joy Division song She's Lost Control is was inspired by a girl singer Ian Curtis met at the DHSS, where he worked at one time.
The dystopian novel Lanark by Alasdair Gray features various versions of a Jobcentre/social security establishment, expanded to grotesque proportions.
Poet Attila the Stockbroker performed a poem entitled Russians in the DHSS in 1981.
Notes
External links
- Official Jobcentre Plus site - for job searches
- Direct Gov jobs and training search
- Public and Commercial Services Union
- The Guardian
- BBC report into the Work and Pensions Select Committee report into job cuts and poor services at Jobcentre Plus
- March 2006 Select Committee report into Efficiency Savings Programme in Jobcentre Plus
- Written and Oral evidence submitted to the Work and Pensions Select Committee into the failure of the Efficiency Savings Programme in Jobcentre Plus
- Varney Report (Pre Budget 2006) - transforming the delivery of public services. The review looks at how the channels through which services are delivered can be made more efficient and responsive to the needs of citizens and businesses.
- Employer Direct online - allows employers and agencies to register their vacancies on the national job bank
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