Jobcentre Plus Stupidity

Below are snippets of complete stupidity on the Department for Work and Pensions or Jobcentre Plus’ part. Feel free to suggest examples on the below form.

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PV: Potentially Violent (person) notifications

The DWP is legally required to inform customers of their PV status, unless there is a
situation where managers decide that revealing the PV decision to the customer
might put staff at risk of further violent incidents.

PV is DWP terminology meaning Potentially Violent – it is a safeguard measure for dealing with people.

1. Customer must have assaulted a member of staff, tried to or been involved in an “incident” to be considered for PV marking therefore an IF1 form(s) must be filled in
2. If DWP/Jobcentre Plus management deem the customer could be a danger to staff, a PV marking is made on file
3. Jobcentre Plus must notify customer that s/he has been marked as PV (“Potentially Violent”) unless it is expected that staff might be at risk

In reality the legal requirement (their words) to notify the customer is annulled via such policy. Not everyone being involved in an incident will be marked as PV (Potentially Violent) thus the only people who will obtain PV status is those that might re-offend (i.e. “[be] expected that staff might be at risk“). The dynamics is Jobcentre Plus chooses to ignore the law and not give such customer notification as they are required to.

The DWP regards the classification of a customer as PV to be an important control
measure. It is designed to ensure that staff are aware of the risks involved in dealing
with the customer, and are thus able to take necessary precautions.

It is an important safety control measure. However, such policy (which isn’t law) has overridden the law! As of rule legislation is absolute, far above contractual agreements and above policy; thus in a court of law or in the eyes of the law, the legislation stands but the policy has no basis and not worth the paper its written (printed) on.

Because Jobcentre Plus exercising its powers delegated from the Secretary of State is in the authoritative position which conflicts (some may go as far to argue to say its infringes the law – neither here or there as there is no penalty for it) with the legislation, for Jobcentre Plus to have a 7 year old+ policy that isn’t compatible with the law by not notifying such persons of the PV status, means such decisions is unlawful and requires reform.

Of course most customers who get PV status are over incidents that they are largely unaware of or perhaps didn’t exist and lack of notification allows harassment, intimidating and bullying including the random termination of benefit claims, more chance of getting a sanction and less opportunity to get “good cause” by a decision maker as means of prejudice.

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Before suggesting, read some of the above as a benchmark. We are sure you had a experience of staff being stupid (lets face it… pretty much guaranteed) but it must be due to silly, stupid or pointless policies or procedures, such as those lacking common sense, and not be on a specific individuals interpretation.