A major homeless charity has slammed the Government’s flagship Work Programme claiming the brutal sanctions regime pushes “individuals further into poverty with little option other than to beg, steal or work for cash in hand in order to find the means to survive.”
SHP (formerly the The Single Homeless Project) have joined the growing number of charities who have pulled out of the Work Programme, although they are the first to directly condemn the sanctions regime. Benefit claimants face sanctions if they fail to carry out any ‘mandated activity’. This can include training courses, job search activity and very often workfare. Chris Grayling lied to the Work and Pensions Committee in Parliament when he said there was no evidence of Work Programme participants being forced to work for private companies. In fact people on Work Programme have been forced to work at firms like Holiday Inn, Poundstretcher and ASDA for no pay.
SHP were one of the charities brought in by the largely private sector contractors of the Work Programme to provide support for those hardest to place in employment. A whole host of charities have allowed themselves to be used in this way including St Mungos, Salvation Army, Addaction and the members of the Disability Works Consortium which includes Mencap, MIND and Scope.
The Disability Works charities have vehemently denied being involved in imposing sanctions. The statement from SHP shows they are being disingenuous, if not dishonest, when they claim they don’t sanction people, they get the DWP to do it for them. Every single one of these charities should hang their heads in shame for conspiring with the Government to harm the most vulnerable of their service users in this way.
It is well documented (and somewhat obvious) that people with mental health conditions, serious disabilities or health conditions, drug and alcohol dependencies or those living in chaotic and insecure conditions are far more likely to face benefit sanctions. These could be for simply missing an appointment or not being able to attend full time workfare. Charities participating in the Work Programme connive with the DWP to have benefits sanctioned by raising Compliance Doubts should someone fail to complete mandated activity. This can include Housing Benefits being stopped , which means it has to be re-applied for. For those in insecure housing or with rent arrears, the delays involved in this could mean homelessness.
Of course the main reason that SHP have pulled out is that they aren’t making enough money. They complain that the Work Programme does not adequately fund the intensive work needed to support the most vulnerable into the workplace.
A surprising number of street homeless people are on Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) and therefore likely to be referred to the Work Programme. With far stricter eligibility for health related benefits now introduced, this group includes long term drinkers, people with heroin or other drug problems and those with mental health conditions.
The first priority for helping someone into work is to get them off the streets. Even this can prove difficult as hostels are increasingly over crowded, have strict entry criteria or are deemed unsafe by many street homeless people who may have had a bad experience of hostel life in the past.
Even if charities are able to house someone in a hostel, they are far from the most ideal environments in which to look for work. In some hostels people may be forced to share a room. There may be strict rules on access to the accommodation, meaning residents are not permitted in the hostel in the day time. Hostels can be noisy and even dangerous at night. Residents may be required to attend ‘key working sessions’, counselling, and resettlement meetings in working hours as part of a condition of their stay. Alcohol is often banned, as are guests and predictably drugs. Any breach of the rules can result in immediate eviction. If someone is attempting to kick a long term drink or drugs habit and they relapse they can find themselves back on the street.
On top of this hostels charge eye-watering rents, which are covered by Housing Benefit payments. This removes any incentive to work, and means that many hostels actively discourage, if not formally but in practice, hostel residents from trying to find a job.
Homeless people can find themselves in hostel accommodation for anything from 12 months to five years before being moved onto more permanent accommodation. Even then some people may require intensive support after entering independent accommodation such as a Housing Association property. Many vulnerable people end up back on the streets even with that support.
Should someone have a dependency on booze or drugs the situation is even more complex. No matter how many outraged Daily Mail headlines the Government incites, no-one is going to give a job to a 24 hour a day drinker, or someone dependent on crack, heroin or both.
For some people just becoming reasonably stable, attending counselling, starting a methadone script, or moderating their drinking may be the best that can be hoped for, even after intensive support. Many of these people have suffered hugely traumatic abuse in their lives. A shocking number are ex-armed forces whilst many younger homeless people grew up in the care system or faced physical, sexual or emotional abuse as children.
These are the people who have fallen through the gaps in society. Despite lurid claims about a life of riley on benefit, no-one would aspire to the lives they lead. The Work Programme appears to have been introduced with barely a thought given to the most vulnerable. Employment Minister and compulsive liar Chris Grayling has dismissed any criticism of the Work Programme claiming that charities have “got people for two years, and they should be able to succeed in that time”.
Once again the toff Government are hugely out of touch with the reality of many people’s lives. Grayling has said that charities are simply incompetent if they can’t make money out of his flawed scheme. He recently claimed that “I will be very surprised if we do not see a significant number of organisations fall away (as work programme providers) because they are not good enough at what they do.”
Charities receive barely any funding for Work Programme participants unless they manage to get them into work. Few charities have the reserves to fund intensive two year programmes in the hope someone might get a job out of it. The private companies who run the show are already creaming off the most ‘job ready’ participants to claim fat fees themselves for doing virtually nothing. There is no real money in the Work Programme for charities.
The likes of St Mungos, Salvation Army and Disability Works have sold out their most vulnerable users for a pittance and yet they still remain on board. It is truly a pathetic sight. The Government does little more than insult them if they complain, whilst private sector sharks cream off the money and use charities as a PR front for their shady and often fraudulent operations. Yet still grasping charity bosses cling onto these contracts, in the hope one day a few pounds may trickle down into their sweaty palms. They continue to suck up to a Government that clearly holds them in contempt, in the hope of an OBE or lunch with the Queen one day. They jump through endless moral hoops to justify their activities when actually they are nothing more than cowards, afraid to rock the boat in case the Government is horrid to them. Their users and their workers alike know this whole set up stinks. Cossetted charity bosses are far more concerned with their own dirty little ambitions than they are with the people who’s lives are being torn apart by this Government.
None of the private sector companies involved in the Work Programme have any interest in working with homeless people, disabled people or those who are hardest to place into employment. They know there’s no money to be made there. The charitable sector is propping up this brutal regime, where benefit sanctions and homelessness are more likely outcomes for participants than ever actually finding work. Charities could bring the whole scheme crashing down any time they choose. That they haven’t shows where their true priorities lie.
Tell them what you think: @salvationarmyuk @stmungos @addactionuk @broadwaycharity @scope @mindcharity @mencap_charity @LCDisability @action4blind @plussaddtolife @unitedresponse
The WP fun and games have already started for me:
Jobfit (who aren’t fit for theirs) didn’t pass on my details, specifically to make them aware that I have mental health/stress/anxiety issues. This was info I made sure the JC passed on to them (they have to know these things ffs).
Jobfit also seem to have double booked my appointment and the subcontractor in question (the salvation army ffs) seem to think that either I have to deal with the rigmarole and the stress of going back into the booking phase again (it’s taken all my courage to wait for this appointment, not that they seem to care) or be seen for a ‘double assessment’ somehow with a complete stranger in the same boat! How on earth can that work?
Considering these #WPs are only supposed to be paid by result they are still creaming millions every month from the DWP. Fenruarys DWP spends still has Matalan and Arcadia. claiming for those slaving for them although I realise it may take however long for their withdrawal from these schemes to come into effect. Most of these #workfare payments seem to be going through the big #EPs though. A4e raking in a cool £5.5m.
Links to the DWP spend transparancies below.
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/supplying-dwp/transparency-in-procurement/what-we-spend/
Febs DWP billing.. > http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dwp-payments-february2012.csv
I am livid at the destruction of our vulnerable people it is an utter disgrace how they are being treated. What the hell can people do when even the likes of the sally army and disabled peoples charities are selling them out in this way.
Charities will never recover from this as people wake up to their mistreatment of vulnerable people in this way.
Wishface do you have a carer? or someone who helps you in other ways that could assist you with this?
I don’t. Such a thing has never come up. GPs in fact dont like writing sick notes, and generally mine thinks such things would be a crutch and thus the idea of a carer/adviser would be out the question. But what he doesn’t understand is how the system works against you. How it’s so lacking in granularity there’s no way it can work. The whole setup here sounds totally unsuitable so I’m going to have to back to my GP and explain all this and that the only way forward, ironically, is a sick note. It’s insanity. The WP is totally useless; the salvation army know that i have issues as i’ve had it confirmed from their Prime, jobfit, and i know that for a fact (because jobfit read back the referral notes to me). So this is the Sally Army playing games here with people’s well being!
Though I’m sure they’ll have another side to explain…
‘But what he doesn’t understand is how the system works against you’
The system is complex & byzantine enough, for those of us who have to deal with it 24/7, what chance does a GP have?
He/she will have read the summary and be ‘signing’ what ever he\she signs, in good faith 😦
Wishface my GP admitted that she did not understand some of the questions she was being asked regards how my illnesses effected my everyday life because they simply do not know it all yet are receiving forms designed to trick them. I wrote a letter to my GP at her behest explaining everything and she scanned it into the computer saying if they try this on again by approaching a different GP who knows nothing about you they will be able to fill in the correct info from your letter.
We really need our GP’s assistance because they are using our own GP’s against us in any way they can. My advice to anyone without a caring GP is go and get on who is because without a good one it is difficult.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! Ths Fascist Parliament Has Got To Go!!
MiKi: you have 3 years to find someone who can go toe to toe with Cameron, Milliband is a waste of oxygen, who at best will be seen as a laughable buffoon and at worst, will drive Scotland [with its 50 Labour MPs away]
Hey Ho!
Turns out that the Salvation Army Employment Plus aren’t remotely trained or experience in mental health/advice. Also if you’re a JSA claimant and you are referred your health issues are completely ignored!
Thanks Chris, you fucking bald cunt!
Not that i have a problem with people being bald, just a problem with tory wankers like Grayling.
The problem I have with all this is that people are going to get seriously hurt when pushed into these positions and possibly hurt others in the process.
I doubt health and safety in the workplace would cover some of these issues and when it is proved the DWP sent ill people on these schemes they could not cope with and had major medical problems they better have a large amount of money stashed away in the compensation purse for the backlash unless they are going to pay off everyone’s GP to agree nothing is wrong with that person.
They appear to be flouting so many laws against citizen rights I cannot understand how the bloody hell they are getting away with it.
I am going to have to go back to my GP, which is difficult enough, and he is going to have to be made to understand. If we can’t even count on the likes of the Salvation Army, then what hope do we have?
WISHFACE
Often GP’s do not understand the new ATOS/DWP process themselves and that’s why they are being tricked as DWP are wording GP request forms in a such a way to confuse GP’s and deny benefits.
My GP told me as far as she is concerned she recognises who is too ill to work and believes that her say should be all that is necessary so she works from that prospective for her patients.
A lot of GP’s are lazy or just do not care they fill in the forms when they arrive about a patient whether they understand what is being asked or not.
Its the same when asking for a letter from your GP as most will not provide them to patients directly because they do not get paid unless ATOS/DWP ask for them, thankfully my GP does not think like that and does everything in her power to make the process easier, she will also not be told who is fit to work and who is not by anyone because like she says she already knows that……
Everyone needs a good GP to stand up for patient rights which would go a long way to proving what lying bastard’s ATOS/DWP are and the tricks they try and use to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.
That’s what really frightens me – the way they seem able to flout the law with impunity.
Public Interest Lawyers anyone?
The problem is no solicitors are coming forward and offering this sort of service for some reason. Many will be afraid of working against an already corrupt legal system but until someone takes the plunge in this area nothing will change until the government are faced with legal proceedings.
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We need to get the GPs on the case. They need to understand this is as bad as the NHS changes, that it’s all part of the same pitiful agenda.
The likes of the Salvation Army acting as nothing more than ‘job brokers’. The lack of the tailored support that Grayling has promised explicitly time and time again.
The swamp of public money going into the whole primes/subcontracting marketplace.
It’s just a grotesque circus the public is paying for that benefits noone.
WISHFACE
Some GP’d are on the case and are extremely upset as what they see as the dismantling of the NHS, I think the problem is that GP’s are divided and need to decide where they stand with all this as no fence sitting can be allowed.
They are an authority on illness and disability or they are not and if they wish to retain professionalism then they need to band together and kick arse because if we cannot trust our GP’s in matters of our health who can we turn to? And more importantly when I die on someone’s workfare premises because I have been forced to work against my GP’s advice you can bet my legacy will be to make my family peruse the highest court in the land because they killed me.
Forget the charities they have sold their souls and proved where they stand in all this and that is with the government and sanctions for a government pittance rather than stand with the people they were set up to help in the first place.
Yes, these charities are risking a dire legacy. I rang up the sally army employment plus hq last week. They are a christian group, just like the parent organisation. I asked them how they square this with a scheme that can lead to people being sanctioned and they said that only in the most extreme circumstances would that happen. There is no justification for pushing someone into poverty, least of all from the salvation army.
When i spoke to them today they didn’t identify themselves as the salvation army, instead just Employment Plus. I’m inclined to think that this particular branch is a rather new outfit cobbled together by the parent group to cash in on the WP locally. They obviously won the subcontract from the prime, Jobfit.
Even an issue such as privacy for appointments with advisers seemed to be something they felt was unreasonable. They told me that this was a small office – as if expecting more was unreasonable. I wonder what my rights are in this situation. That if they can’t provuide the facilities I shouldn’t be coerced into discussing personal issues, particularly health issues, in a small open office in earshot of everyone.
WISHFACE
you said they said that only in the most extreme circumstances would that happen. (re sanctions) They are either living in cloud cookoo land or liars, I choose the latter explanation.
you said
Even an issue such as privacy for appointments with advisers seemed to be something they felt was unreasonable. They told me that this was a small office – as if expecting more was unreasonable.
Yes because the whole system has been shunted together with little thought other then what they can make of other people’s backs without a thought about these other people who will be involved…..and being a small office is not an excuse not to operate efficiently.
I would talk to your GP about what is likely to occur given your own health issues and the health and safety of where you may be forced to work.
but we also have vto remember that the line in the sand has been moved, currently, we are\were signed off as being to ill for any work of any type, soon we will only be signed off for being unfit for certain types of work
AXEL
I believe it will become the only way but unfortunately people will have to get hurt first and then find a shining star of a solicitor.
Johnny – you have never written a truer word. It’s a disgrace that charities were ever involved in this in the first place – but it’s indicative of where the sector is at the moment.
Well done for telling it like it is.
I just had my first WP appointment. Complete waste of time. They offer nothing, have nothing and can’t do anything more than the average claimant (barring personal uissues such as illiteracy or perhaps things like a criminal record – and whether they can help with that is another matter) can at home if he has a PC. That’s it. There is none of the ‘customised’ or ‘tailored’ approach that archcunt grayling has claimed consistently for the past year. Nothing of the kind.
WISHFACE
How can they help you when they are not set up to be able to and don’t have any experience of what is exactly required. It’s sheer lunacy for the government to pretend that it is.
So what are they going to do with you then?
They actually became somewjhat benign in the end. It became clear to tjhe adviser that my needs warranted a rethink. He gave me the assessment forms to fuill in at my own leisure and said he’d take it up with his boss.
Who knows, basically. However, once you are on the programme (and i haven’t yet signed anythoing because we didn’t get that far, other than a bus ticket refund and a proof of id form) you don’t leave it for 2 years. Even if i find a job, i’m still on the fucking scheme! If i lose that job, if i claim ESA instead, whatever, I’m still under the purivew of the provider!
wishface
so if you are oh WRAG I thought you did not have to sign up to anything because of WRAG?
The two years you mention reminds me of the forced entry in JSA workfare from JSA job seekers allowance claim?
you said
Even if i find a job, i’m still on the fucking scheme! If i lose that job, if i claim ESA instead, whatever, I’m still under the purivew of the provider!
So you are under a provider for them to do with you what they want without DWP input despite your health issues?
Someone I know suffered terribly in WRAG and he wrote something on all there forms to the effect that if any injury or a decline in his present illnesses arose by disregarding his GP/Medical team advice he would seek legal advice and they backed right off.
‘disregarding his GP/Medical team advice he would seek legal advice and they backed right off’
This is probably the best option, it will scare off, most of the providers and will eventually generate a precedent, that can be used by all
re: “So you are under a provider for them to do with you what they want without DWP input despite your health issues?”
Hea;th issues or not this is the case (apparently – I can only go on what I’m told). Once you’re on the programme that’s it. I don’t think even the DWP can do anything, for example if you wanted to change providers (as you are assigned at random in the first place – i had no choice but to see the salvation army in their musty old church hall surrounded by religious paraphenalia!).
If i get a job I’m still on the WP for two years! Even if I stick at that job, so there’s no incentive to sign that form for them to interfere with your new job (YMMV – maybe there are some genuinely decent providers out there that do actually have resouirces, I don’t know but that’s not what i’ve been told). If i lose that job then i’m straight back round to the provider or my subsequent claim for benefits again will be affected.
If i change my benefit to ESA, which seems to be what I need to do as being on JSA means that what health issues I do have are completely ignored (even though the DWP have told the provider what they are because I sat and watched them send the info off). It’s the most rigid, unhelpful and under resourced system they could create.
I doubt that, even if I signed off completely, I’d be removed from the WP. It may even be that they refer me for sanctions that, if i subsequently sign on later, I get affected.
It’s absolutely fucking insane.
WISHFACE
apologies I thought you were in WRAG and not JSA so if you are ill you need to be on ESA instead??
I’m not in the WRAG. I don’t claim ESA. My GP doens’t like writing sick notes, which I can understand. But the system struggles with people that are between esa and jsa which is where I am: with the right help i could do something. Unfortunately the right help isn’t remotely what the WP is about.
wishface
have you got a medically defined illness that your GP agrees with and any other medical consultants?
You mentioned mental health issues I know for sure Framework if you have one in your area would help you with forms and any other help but you have to be referred through your GP. Honestly if your GP is so bad please find one that isn’t because a good sympathetic GP is the first step of being able to follow the process.
What i’ve learned is that if you have any health issue, no matter how light it might seem, you have to claim esa if you want the right kind of support from the WP.
WISHFACE,
yes of course as otherwise on JSA you have rules and regs to abide by to receive your benefit such as looking looking for work but if you are considered too ill to be able to do that then its ESA you need.
I shall tell these Sally Army folks that if they aren’t properly resourced to provide for the needs of people with stress/anxiety/learning disabilites and whatnot (the barriers to work they are meant to be helping with because that’s the poin of the WP) then they WILL be liable for any situation they create that exacerbates these problems. And if they don’t like it they can take it up with my GP.
WISHFACE
what you say is a good idea as long as your GP is in agreement should they chose to check.
A major homeless charity has slammed the Government’s flagship Work Programme claiming the brutal sanctions regime pushes “individuals further into poverty with little option other than to beg, steal or work for cash in hand in order to find the means to survive.”
From:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/917/pdfs/uksiem_20110917_en.pdf
7.9 The level of penalty imposed will escalate with each successive failure, and will work as follows: 2 weeks loss of benefit for the first failure to
participate, 4 weeks loss of benefit for the second failure to participate no more than 12 months after the first, and 26 weeks loss of benefit for a third – and any subsequent failure to participate within 12 months of a previous failure determination.
Customers subject to a benefit sanction will not be eligible for hardship
payments unless they, or a member of their family are a vulnerable person – for example:
x A person who is responsible for a child who would experience hardship
if no payment were made;
x A person or their partner who is pregnant would experience hardship if
no payment were made; and
x The person’s Jobseeker’s Allowance includes a disability premium and
person for whom that is paid would experience hardship is no payment
were made.
Customers always retain the opportunity to re-engage with the required activity at any time. If they do so during a 26 week sanction, that sanction will be shortened (provided a minimum of four weeks has been served) and benefit payments will resume.
I think that particular piece of brutality could be made to seriously backfire. It takes about 2 months to starve to death, but at 4 weeks you would certainly need hospitalisation. I suggest anyone facing such a prospect would be well advised to seek medical help. The outcry from the media at the return of 19th century style starvation to Britain or the headline ‘Arbeit Macht Frei – Is This The New Work Programme?’ above an image of a victim of the sanctions looking like a Belsen concentration camp victim, would have Grayling and IDS back-peddling and lying like mad to reduce the political fall out. Cutting off all hardship payments is dangerous strategy, it could only come from a government who imagines that ‘if the poor are short of money they could always borrow a tenner from their butlers’.
ANTON
you state
Cutting off all hardship payments is dangerous strategy, it could only come from a government who imagines that ‘if the poor are short of money they could always borrow a tenner from their butlers’.
I completely agree and when the term vulnerable is used I believe starving someone and making them homeless is more than vulnerable it is torture on their own citizens and could amount to assisted suicide if a person has no other means at all of eating. The HR acts states citizens have a right to life and those actions are taking that away.
Hell the same HR act states you cannot even starve immigrants in this manner but yet they can do this to their own who have probably paid into the system all their lives???
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Absolutely disgusting.Charity bosses are just as corrupt as the rest.They pretend to care but they’re all in it for themselves.
Cont..my regular advisor at the job centre wants me to attend so the provider can help me with my uni application…um ive already got into uni?! They can also help with finding work whilst im at uni…um I won’t be looking to work while at uni and ive told you that?! My degree goes up to PhD so 6 years from now ill only be leaving uni. My advisor says the provider can prepare me for work 6 yrs in advance…bizzare?! Im doing a medical degree and plan on leaving the country afterwards…the provider can help you find work abroad…really? Do the likes of a4e supply clinicians to other countries? No! Wasting taxpayers money is what dwp do best. My friend found himself a job whilst on the work programme via a friend. Nowt to do with the provider and job centre. They knew nowt about the job until he started it and stopped signing on. Weeks later the provider kept ringing him asking how the job was and if he was doing ok? the provider claimed THEY got him the job hence why they were phoning! No doubt they got payment from dwp for ‘apparently’ getting someone into work. Fraud anyone! Clearly seen here. Nuff said!
The work programme is riddled with fraud and so is dwp. Here is my story and my friends. I got into uni for this autumn. Nowt to do with the job centre. It was off my own back I did that. Dwp want me to attend the work programme even though ive told them once uni starts thanks to my student loans and 39 hrs of study I wont be seeking work. Im due to start the work programme 1-2 mnths before uni. Should I get a job, I wont be able to stay in it. It’s either work or fail uni. Which would you choose? A job via a degree where you’ll be on £21000-£30000 034 per year or a job earning less. Oh! And when I start uni, ill be off benefits. The job centre at first tried to get me off the college course ive been doing that got me into uni! Why? It was vital I attend the work programme they said. Uni was not that impo
I was on the old’ New Deal’ and had to go to A4e for 12 weeks ( Following a 2 week ‘Induction’ Course)
I found the threat of sancions to be the stick used to make ‘Clients’ toe the line.
I wont list all the health and safty issues and all the ‘dodgy things i saw going on, The main point is i tried to raise these issues with my ‘advisor’
and was told i would have to talk to the advisors team leader.
When i did so He shook the stick ‘SANCTIONS’ and i said i would do nothing to incur sanctions, But that he must agree with some of my points?
He said that it was irrelevant what he thought and that hundreds of people
had complained and all were labelled as the disgruntled ‘Few’ trouble
makers and i should not want to join that group, and anyway what can you
do to a huge national company on your own.!
i next tried to get my point across to the manager of the office, Ha! he
just body swerved saying he was too busy for me.
So out of desperation i wrote to my local labour MP outlying all the points
i thought were disgracefull / imoral / or outright illigal.
I recieved a reply after some time telling me that my concerns had been forworded to the Governments Comptroler and Auditor Generals office.
Then i recieved an update containing a copy of the 3 page reply from
the National Audit Offices Comptroller and Auditor General outlining the
initial investigation and the ongoing intent.
My MP brought this to the floor of Parliament during question time, the
investigation is still ongoing, Although five A4e ‘Advisors’ so far have been arrested for suspected fraud.
And after sending the first letter to my MP i suffered a near fatal heart attack ( I believe thanks to all the stress brought on by my time with A4e)
And now DWP are about to send me on the ‘New Work Programme’.!
I will threaten lawsuits to try to avoid another session with these type of
‘Providers’ Lol, Some hope.!
But if you believe you have a genuine reason to complain about your
personal situation or health and safty issues, Even fraud PLEASE contact
your local MP and at least let them hear the dissapointment and digust
that these impersonal schemes make you feel.
P.S Prior to this i have never been unemployed in my life, I am a 55 year old male.
i was sent on a ‘works programme’ but was 13 minutes late to my initial appointment, explained why ( looked for the office and then discovered it up a small side street at completly opposite end to where it was stated, my fault i know should have google mapped!.) although i gave statement to the works programme giving a reason,dwp ignored this and stopped my claim for 2 weeks? Made a claim to review the decision but still didn’t contact me for over 2 weeks. I got in contact, as i now owe bank money. They made a decision (didn;t bother to notify me of course) they have decided to take 2 weeks money away!! Are these people serious? they are in effect fining me the equivilent of over £150 pound for being 13 minutes late! all i can say is arrgghh they wonder why people get so irate.
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