The Story so Far: Grand Finale

Final chunk I promise.

With the battle lost I sat there and waited for the wheels to spin and final letters to be sent.  I realized that the past few years had been an absolute waste of time; at no point did the DWP as an organization have any intention of living up to its end of the deal it'd made.  So despite reassurances that there would be careers advice looking at my skills & industries I could move to, training, support and various other promises being put on the table the only thing they actually cared about was fiddling their JSA stats for a few months then fiddling their IB stats after that.

I'm reasonably sure if I hadn't of kicked up a fuss I'd have been ping-ponged between the two benefits never actually receiving any money from them.    Then a final letter arrived from the DWP.  All of the things they'd promised me were on the table if I signed on for Jobseekers... so I did.

But think about where we are at this point in time.  In order to stop paying me £62 a week (and instead put me on the £40 a week contingency which they didn't always pay) for two years whilst I sort everything out and cover up for the manager overstepping her authority they did the following:

1. Sent me off to a private health care firm
2. Broke a verbal contract
3. Lied to a court
4. Had private investigators parked outside the place I live
5. Sent literally a ream of paperwork through the postal service.
6. Had ME send about the same amount back (using stamps brought with tax payers money).
7. Made someone take several days off work.
8. Tied up a room at the magistrates court for several hours.
9. Took up several hours of a solicitors/magistrates time.
10. Took up several hours of a GP's time.
11. Made my skin condition far worse as it doesn't respond well to high levels of stress (I pretty much spent the whole time bleeding from every major joint). 
12. Declared, possibly legally, that a psychiatric condition is a life style choice. 
13. Declared that an auto-immune condition is a simple hormone imbalance induced acne.

Are you getting value for your tax money here folks?  Because frankly I don't think you are.  I know I feel decidedly ripped off by getting this level of support from the safety net I've helped fund.