In the doldrums of the dole
Jun. 14th, 2007 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaFun games with the Jobcentre...
On Monday afternoon I trotted down to the Jobcentre to collect forms for the dole. Or whatever one calls it now. Stupid me, one doesn't go to the Jobcentre in person these days, one rings up and talks to them on the phone for half an hour. On the plus side, that means that someone on the phone asks you millions of questions and fills in the damn form for you, which is nice.
At least the bloke I spoke to seemed reasonably human, and apologised for the stupidity before asking questions such as "Who decorated your bedroom?"
However, one of the questions enquired whether I'd claimed benefit before. I said yes, about 8-9 years ago. Oh no, he said, their records didn't go that far back. Which I thought was reasonable; even the tax man only demands 7 years of documentation. So, we went right from the beginning name, date of birth, etc, before we moved on to more exciting areas like why was I out of work and did I have central heating.
Yesterday (commendably speedily) the printed "statement" showed up in the post. Most of its details were correct, except the post office I'd nominated for use in the event of spontaneous bank failure. The statement listed the wrong PO. Instead of the PO on Iffley Road, Oxford, it suggested I use one several hundred miles away.
Which just happens to be West Auckland Road, Darlington - the PO from which I collected incapacity benefity in summer 1998. I'm ruling out coincidence, at this stage. So they do keep records that long and they do tie them together (albeit badly).
I'm not suggesting this is indicative of great government conspiracy, it's just interesting to note that they really do keep information hanging around that long.
On Monday afternoon I trotted down to the Jobcentre to collect forms for the dole. Or whatever one calls it now. Stupid me, one doesn't go to the Jobcentre in person these days, one rings up and talks to them on the phone for half an hour. On the plus side, that means that someone on the phone asks you millions of questions and fills in the damn form for you, which is nice.
At least the bloke I spoke to seemed reasonably human, and apologised for the stupidity before asking questions such as "Who decorated your bedroom?"
However, one of the questions enquired whether I'd claimed benefit before. I said yes, about 8-9 years ago. Oh no, he said, their records didn't go that far back. Which I thought was reasonable; even the tax man only demands 7 years of documentation. So, we went right from the beginning name, date of birth, etc, before we moved on to more exciting areas like why was I out of work and did I have central heating.
Yesterday (commendably speedily) the printed "statement" showed up in the post. Most of its details were correct, except the post office I'd nominated for use in the event of spontaneous bank failure. The statement listed the wrong PO. Instead of the PO on Iffley Road, Oxford, it suggested I use one several hundred miles away.
Which just happens to be West Auckland Road, Darlington - the PO from which I collected incapacity benefity in summer 1998. I'm ruling out coincidence, at this stage. So they do keep records that long and they do tie them together (albeit badly).
I'm not suggesting this is indicative of great government conspiracy, it's just interesting to note that they really do keep information hanging around that long.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 11:48 am (UTC)I know the systems have moved on from when I was there (approaching 15 years ago) but we couldn't even call up a NIno from a previous claim using the ESJ databases then, we had to - in our particular office, anyway - walk 10 mins down the road to the former DHSS office & use a separate database to get it. Both live, both nationally networked - as far as technology allowed, anyway. It was a set of connected regional networks really, the national one came in just before I left. But anyway. Ridiculous levels of antitech going on there.