Compulsory 'Employment Pathway Plan' while on DSP?

[newtodsp]

Hi, I need some advice. I was recently granted the DSP, previously I was receiving newstart while the application was being processed. Note that I applied in August 2011 and hence avoided some of the stricter requirements&new impairment tables. After being granted, I got a letter from Centrelink (newstart division) about my partial capacity to work and how I would have to draw up an Employment Pathway Plan. I also got an automatic interview appointment with Job Access (Job Employment Service provider) about this. I thought once on DSP, until July 2012, one did not have any compulsory participation requirements? I'm really confused and getting really worried about this cos after all that I've read about these service providers they scare the hell out of me and I also don't need my DSP cut off. Will be ringing Welfare Rights Centre tomorrow but does anyone know what my rights are here?! PLEASE HELP!!

[Banjo]

I had a letter from Minister Kate Ellis saying no one on the DSP would be forced to take a job which wasn't quite what we had heard from other sources.
Good luck with the PDF files.

dspoverseas.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=work&action=display&thread=682

Welfare Rights should be well up to date with the latest guide lines.

[newtodsp]

I spoke to the welfare rights centre and I thought to share what I learned here so we all can equip ourselves with our rights and feel safe. Basically, I was told that the new requirements where DSP recipients will be made to carry out compulsory activities will commence in July 2012. However, Centrelink may try to preempt you into these requirements verbally prior to this time, in which case, inform them that the policy change occurs in July, and can they please put their requirements of you in writing. If they refuse, insist. They will be unlikely to send you anything in writing as the change doesn't occur until July.

Also, I asked about the new changes in July, re: signing 'employment pathway plans' or documents agreeing to what job prep you will do - and I was told that you normally cannot take these documents home to think about before signing. Which really suxs if you are super tense while dealing with Centrelink, which I am. So basically you are forced to sign on the spot, but you can write next to your signature a proviso 'subject to future medical conditions/health' which is the best you can do.

Also, if you have conflicting letters from Centrelink on/around the same date, for example, your newstart has been cancelled, and your DSP has started, (but there are some confusions, as in my case re: looking for work) if you want to play it super safe, take ALL the letters to Centrelink, ask them which letter predates the others and get them to clarify. Following this get them to STAMP and DATE the letters so later on, they cannot claim that you ignored the letters. This sounds like a time consuming, but handy trick.

Also, I learned that, to figure out what really applies, read the letter carefully (obvious, I know but this confused me). For example, there is only one line on my letter re: participation requirements mentioning that this is 'about your Newstart Allowance' hence, this has nothing to do with DSP. If there were participation requirements for DSP, the letter should mention it is about your DSP pension. So seems I am not required to look for work, at this time. But it gave me such a scare!!!!

If anyone gets any more information about the processes and regulations/requirements re: changes in July (aside from www.humanservices.gov.au/corporate/publications-and-resources/budget/measures/disability-and-illness/ptf20a) would be great to know about these. Welfare rights say things are still quite vague at the moment.

Hope others benefit from what I've written. Let's all play safe and know our rights.

[Banjo]

Excellent report... glad you sorted it out and got a result.

[spaceyone]

Hi Newtodsp

Yes, that's been on the cards for a while now, to have us all attend 'employment' agencies, disability or otherwise.

Yet, as we are beginning to see, those agencies don't want us yet, until they have finished gearing up to be able to claim payment from DEEWR for merely managing our illnesses, since there are no jobs for us and most people.

My 2 year DSP ends mid way through this year, and I will come up for review under the harsher tables. I have not been sent to any employment agency during this time, but think I am one of the exceptions, not the rule.

At first their aim in this was to get us signed up with agencies, so that they could force us to work part-time. As the unemployment numbers grew, and businesses continued to shut down, they had to rethink that.

Now they are claiming we will not be forced to work, but still forced to attend these agencies. They are currently being granted greater powers to 'coerce' us into seeking treatment for our 'barriers' to holding down a job.

My employment agency, On-Q Human Resources, kept false records, pretending that they were doing their job and I was not, and sabotaged my DSP application. DEEWR patted them on the back for this, and protected them at all turns.

I will not sign up with another one. When they try to make me, I will refuse and challenge any suspension of my payments all the way to the AAT.

After my Freedom of Information requests were denied by one of the FOI law makers in the Prime Minister's Office, by deceit, they set about re-writing those laws.

The new FOI laws relating to Disability Employment 'providers' states that they might not have to show you what records they make and keep about you, to you if you make a request for them.

In that circumstance, I also advise anyone not to say a word once you get there. Name, address and centrelink number only.

I had also once read to write on their employment pathway forms, 'signed under duress, under the threat of removal of financial support'.

Keep up the good work. Everyone - know your rights, and demand them! Keep copies of documents and obtain receipt numbers for all of your dealings with them.

Request all of your records, under FOI laws, and see what games they have been playing with you behind your backs.

[newtodsp]

Hi Banjo, thanks for your response. I had a look at the letter from Kate Ellis - though she says we won't be forced into a job, what I'm learning through my brief time in social security/with Centrelink is that things are often a slippery slope. I think its rather alarming they are trying to set compulsory requirements for DSP recipients. Just the way DSPensioners are referred to and treated, in the media, and in society at large, is just shocking. Its beyond me how close minded people are; so many great advances for humanity are made by those with disabilities, for example the amazing physicist Stephen Hawking. Imagine how the world would have lost if he had to spend his life dealing with the baffoons at Centrelink. The fact that most employers need financial incentives to take on disabled workers, speaks volumes. As does the fact that employment participation of disabled workers in Australia are some of the lowest in the OECD. When are attitudes going to change?! Just disgusting.

[Banjo]

The ordinary Australians have a lot of support for us, this forum started as a response to a news article that attacked DSP recipients for living and travelling overseas and there were over 100 public comments on the article which with a few exceptions were overwhelmingly positive.

www.couriermail.com.au/money/welfare-loophole-allows-disability-pensioners-to-go-on-permanent-vacation/story-e6freqoo-1225846381856

The government and the corporate media try to isolate us by barraging the public with endless stories using names like dole bludgers and welfare cheats so they can treat us badly and get away with it.
What we have to do is complain as loudly and publicly as possible when we are subjected to any form of unfairness or abuse, and that's what this forum is for.

Remember.... it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

[newtodsp]

Hi Spaceyone,

Thanks for your very comprehensive response. I was wondering about that, whether Centrelink would be drawing up the "employment pathway plan" or if that is done exclusively by the employment agencies. I am very wary of attending any of those centres as I really don't handle abuse well. The Budget release re: the July 2012 changes does not mention any requirement to attend these agencies, however perhaps that is implied by the compulsory requirements?

Where do you get the sense that the employment agencies do not want us? Will this not play out in our favour in terms of the July 2012 changes? Also, note that the changes are for those who have an assessed capacity for work for over 7 hours per week. So I would think that the obvious first step would be to ask Centrelink what one's assessed capacity is, or do a FOI to get the JCA report to be armed with that information. I would not be surprised if one with a 0-7 assessed capacity is 'accidentally' sent to meet the new requirements.

Its so bizarre that the 'employment agencies' want to manage our illness.Surely they realise they are not doctors, and frankly completely illiterate? I have some of the best specialist(s) in my state, and perhaps the country, managing my condition(s) so why would I want anything else? So crazy.

Also, how do you know that your DSP ends? I thought it was not granted with a specific end date. Do they give you some months notice for your review at least? Cos I would imagine you would want to get new medical evidence which takes time. The new tables are terribly harsh, best of luck to you. Frankly, the fact that the reviews for current DSP recipients will be done under the new tables was not widely debated in the media, much less so than the new impairment tables themselves. I am wondering how we can raise awareness of this change, and I truly believe as a group of 800,000 pensioners, we have political sway. I have been thinking about this issue very deeply lately.

Do you have any links that I can read about regarding the greater powers of the employment service providers re coercing us into treatment? Also about the different FOI laws applying to disability employment providers? (Tried to google this, but could not find anything). This is outrageous. We need more media coverage on these changes. I had a look at the FOI act very briefly, it seems to cover mostly government organisations rather than private. Perhaps this is the loophole they are exploiting. But has there been anything in the media regarding this?

Also, re: your complaints of fraud against On-Q, did you use a lawyer? Is it legal to sabotage and commit fraud? I am no lawyer. I am keen to follow your refusal to sign up to a centre, and the ensuing battle. I wish you luck, may we all learn from your strength of character.

Re: Not sharing information with the disability employment provider (ie. just giving them name, address and centrelink number) I'm afraid this will lead to more hostility from them.

>I had also once read to write on their employment pathway forms, >'signed under duress, under the threat of removal of financial >support'.

This sounds like a good idea, where did you get this advice from? Surely signing under duress, being forced to sign is some infringement of our human rights? I'm wondering how the Disability Discrimination Act comes into play with all the shit that people have had to face re: abuse and fraud. Are there any lawyers on this board?

Thanks for sharing.

[spaceyone]

Hi Newtodsp

You have so many questions, feel free to pm me about anything. I have told my story on this forum before, you could read some of my earlier posts to see what horrors I was put through, and how I came to understand how totally corrupt these places are, with DEEWR's blessing.

I could never get a lawyer interested in my case. I followed through all of my complaints, including my FOI request to see the file On-Q Human Resources was trying to deny me. They took out an AVO against me, to stop me from serving them with legal documents, and to prevent me from making more requests for the file.

DEEWR has no problem with the AVO. Nor with On-Q HR forging my signature on papers to keep me on their program. Nor with enlisting two staff members of a JCA company to prepare false reports about me, or any of the other false statements/actions made within the file.

After a year of demanding that someone honest look into my case, with no result, I was at a point of being able to take it all to the Federal Court. However, since dwelling on it only kept me ill, I let it drop.

Some of the clues I had about them not wanting people who are too sick to work:

When I applied at On-Q HR I was told their program was full and it might be a couple of months before I heard from them. Instead I was contacted and accepted onto their program within a week. That was when I was still well enough to be working.

They did nothing for me, and as my illness deteriorated, I kept taking cleaning jobs to make ends meet. AFTER I had slipped two dics in my back, and became to ill to work, they then sabotaged my DSP application to have me put on the dole, so they could keep making money off me.

My son, who had a bone tumor in his arm at the same time, had to go and live with my parents, after Centrelink and their AVO had denied my DSP, forcing myself and kids out onto the street. He applied to an employment agency in my parents area, and was rejected.

Recently, he joined another one, so that we could get them to pay for a course he enrolled in. After a hassle with me, when they refused to pay, they kept telling him that he did not have to attend their agency, because of his arm problems.

In December of last year, at a JCA interview, C/L decided to send him to a disability worker. I refused to allow him to be referred to On-Q HR, the only specialist disability agency in our town. We are still waiting for an appointment, with the one we have chosen.

After taking out the AVO on me, On-Q Human Resources kept me on their books. I had applied for a relationship breakdown separation at the time that I had threatened to sue them and requested my file. They never released me, and when I had demanded a new JCA, the C/L computer kept trying to send me back to them to have them organise it!

I finally demanded that Centrelink force them to release me, and the only way to finalise it was to sign up with someone else. I nominated the Salvation Army, and when I arrived at the interview, she would not sign me up because I had a DSP application in progress. She said she would call me after it had been decided. She finally did, several months later.

I had posted to this forum about the change in the FOI laws for employment agencies. When I went back later to get the link, I could not find the document I had copied it from. But yes, it would be the fact that they are privately owned, which these places are planning to use to exempt themselves from the laws governing other public servants.

Giving them greater powers to manage our illness is a crock. They have no real medical knowledge, and their only interest in our health problems is to try to force a GP to say that you can still work around it.

This is only being done, so that they have an excuse to spy on us. They know they cannot put us into jobs, so they will pretend to be assisting us in other ways, so that they don't miss out on the potential earnings off any welfare recipient.

In my case, On-Q Human Resources lied to every government agency assigned to investigate what they did to me, and were exonerated based on provable lies, or by dodging the investigation completely.

DEEWR never investigated, they merely harassed myself and my family to try to make me back down. Centrelink officers broke many Social Security laws in their attempts to cover up for On-Q Human Resources, without any regard to myself or circumstances, and did not try to rectify the circumstances created in my life by On-Q HR's greed.

This is a facebook page I made about my experiences there. It has documents which show how sick I was when attending their program and how they sabotaged my JCA interview and DSP application. Since the posts are set out in the order of which they were posted, you would have to scroll down to the first post, to be able to read events in order.

www.facebook.com/pages/On-Q-Human-Resources-Corruption/156739494385423

I applied for a two year DSP because I was not sure what my illness was at the time. My doctor had been unable to diagnose me, but had failed to do any tests.

I was relying on other circumstances to get me across the line, being that I was a single mother with two teenagers, one of whom was also sick and unable to work. I asked for DSP to give me financial stability, after 18 months of illness, until my youngest had finished school.

Once I had changed doctors, against the advice of On-Q Human Resources, the results meant that I should have been granted DSP based on my health alone. It was shown that I had RSI in both shoulder muscles, a torn tendon, degenerative disc disease in my spine, severe arthritis in my neck, a twisted pelvis which caused me to limp, and migraine headaches caused by a nerve being pinched in my neck.

Even after producing evidence of all of the above conditions, C/L would write to me telling me that I would have to pay back all of my Newstart Allowance, if I did not start looking for work. This was while my DSP denial was going through the motion of their appeals process.

[spaceyone]

I do also advise that you get a copy of your JCA report, to see what hours you have been assessed as being able to work. I have had Centrelink trying to force myself and son into seeking work and threatening to cut off our payments if we did not, when our JCA's had stated that we were exempt from doing so.

On the last two ocassions that we obtained same, we did not even have to lodge an FOI form. We merely had to make the request at our local C/L office, and the JCA report was printed out and handed to us immediately.


Below is the wording I had copied from the new FOI statement from the Disability Employment Agency's Service Standards guidelines (I think it was).

What happens to what I tell you?

We will collect information about you for the purpose of providing disability employment related services to you.

We will keep all information about you in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

If you ask, we will usually be able to show you the information we hold about you. If you have any concerns about the way in which information about you is being managed, you can discuss your concerns with us.


When I lodged a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner about On-Q HR, they claimed that they were exempted from handling my information properly, by the National Privacy Principles, which protect them for being prosecuted for making false records. I then cited them for about 20 breaches of those same laws, with again, no result.


We had been keeping abreast of new developments through this website:

disabilityemployment.org.au/

or

www.humanservices.gov.au/

[spaceyone]

I forgot to add, Newtodsp, that these disability employment agencies are being given these new powers over us, just so that they have a reason to bill DEEWR for some services.

They will be granted the ability to arrange treatments for us, through a plan which is easy to organise for ourselves. This will give them access to our therapists, who will be unaware that anything they say about us, can and will be used against us.

DEEWR sees this as an opportunity to ensure that people do address their illnesses, and try to recover. I think most people would want to get well.

It is the state of the medical profession in Australia, and our hospitals, which makes addressing your illness difficult.

These places don't want us now, but once all of their new powers over us have been granted, then they will be wanting us, as cash cows.


In relation to FOI requests. On-Q HR's solicitor fought the Commonwealth Ombudsman's Office all the way to the Prime Minister's Office in their attempt to deny me the file they kept on me.

The Prime Minister's Office then emailed me to tell me that my request had been denied, and that they had only just realised that employment agencies seem to be exempt from FOI laws. I asked if that applied to all employment agencies, or just disability ones, as I intended to post his information to the internet. He quickly replied that he was mistaken again, and it seemed that I might be allowed to get a copy, if I went through the Privacy Commissioner's Office.

On-Q HR fought them hard too, but in the end, the law was on my side. Now that law has been changed.

Don't know why they bothered, when after I had pointed out all of the false entries to DEEWR, including forgeries of my signature, they responded by giving an award to the owner of the company, for 'services to the disabled'.

However, I had threatened to sue my disability employment agency, and all the evidence I needed was in that file. I believe the PM's office was aware of that, when they tried to deny me the information, and for that very reason.

I noticed in last year's Commonwealth Ombudsman's report, that he advised Centrelink to put some compensation processes in place, for people who had been stuffed around by these companies. That suggests I am not the only one who has had their life deliberately ruined by a disability employment agency, or have suffered an injury through being forced into a labour intensive job by them.

Instead, DEEWR conspire against the victim, to cover up for the guilty parties.

[newtodsp]

Hi Spaceyone,

Thanks for your very comprehensive response and apologies for my delayed reply. I really appreciate all that you've shared. This group is fantastic. I was wondering why there was limited discussion on the choice of employment service providers until I read that we don't really have much choice (I read we only get 2 days to choose a provider) which the national welfare rights centre is working on.

I strongly feel there should be much more public awareness of the craziness of the system. For instance, lots of people in the community are unaware of the fact that a decision to work or volunteer will trigger a JCA, which is a huge disincentive (especially under the new impairment ratings) to get involved in the work place. I haven't figured out a means to raise the awareness. Unfortunately get up does not take campaign suggestions (how undemocratic!).

I think choice of employment service provider is very important such that those which are the most fraudelent/abusive recieve less services and will therefore die,which is what happens in the competitive private sector. After all, they are private companies which should not be sheltered by the government. I'm not sure if you are aware of the government inquiry into these providers at the moment? I think it was announced earlier this month. However, will the government truly hold them accountable - ie. legally responsible just as they hold pensioners/newstart recipients accountable if there is any fraud? I don't think so!!

Thanks once again, for being so helpful!!

[spaceyone]

Feb 19, 2012 10:28:29 GMT 7 newtodsp said:

Hi Spaceyone,

Thanks for your very comprehensive response and apologies for my delayed reply. I really appreciate all that you've shared. This group is fantastic. I was wondering why there was limited discussion on the choice of employment service providers until I read that we don't really have much choice (I read we only get 2 days to choose a provider) which the national welfare rights centre is working on.

I strongly feel there should be much more public awareness of the craziness of the system. For instance, lots of people in the community are unaware of the fact that a decision to work or volunteer will trigger a JCA, which is a huge disincentive (especially under the new impairment ratings) to get involved in the work place. I haven't figured out a means to raise the awareness. Unfortunately get up does not take campaign suggestions (how undemocratic!).

I think choice of employment service provider is very important such that those which are the most fraudelent/abusive recieve less services and will therefore die,which is what happens in the competitive private sector. After all, they are private companies which should not be sheltered by the government. I'm not sure if you are aware of the government inquiry into these providers at the moment? I think it was announced earlier this month. However, will the government truly hold them accountable - ie. legally responsible just as they hold pensioners/newstart recipients accountable if there is any fraud? I don't think so!!

Thanks once again, for being so helpful!!

We are usually put on the spot to nominate a provider, but then it can take months before Centrelink completes the referral and we hear back from the place. Useless when you are desperate for a job.

Yes, there needs to be public awareness of how much funding is being pumped into these places, especially since the government has known for a long time it is full of rorting, with very few results to show for their investment. Apart from several thousand complaints to DEEWR.

It is also crazy that they do not have to perform to a satisfactory standard. They are privately owned and operated, and therefore should not just be handed the money, in advance, for services poorly delivered.

If people were not legislated to attend, they would have to keep their clients though doing a their jobs properly, and for having positions on their books. They have us over a barrel, and exploit it to their best advantage.

DEEWR's own literature confirms that if you lodge a complaint about a job agency breaking a law or procedure, they are simply asked to stop doing it. DEEWR check again a couple of months later, and if they are still doing it, they are asked again to stop. The 'client' has already been told to 'stop complaining and move on to another agency'.

As the numbers of people being retrenched rise, there will be less and less hope for those of us who have been out of the workforce for some time because an of impairment. Soon we will be of so little value to these places, that we will receive less real help than we do now. If this is to be the case, we should be released from them now, except voluntarily.