If you work for the jobcentre, you are blocked from looking up pub and brewery websites. Good thing, most people might say, civil servants should be working, not planning their next pub crawl. Fair enough, but what if you are helping a job seeker find work in, say, Wetherspoons, and they want to know more about the company? Still blocked, as are the websites of many other beer-related companies, including Greene King, Revolution Bars, Charles Wells, Youngs and Timothy Taylors. Some companies have signed local Employer Partnerships with jobcentres, or in the case of the bookies Ladbrokes (also blocked), a national Employer Partnership. These are obviously not partnerships of equals as it is impossible for jobcentre staff to access the recruitment pages of these companies' websites, even though PubCos and (in some towns) breweries can provide a significant number of jobs. At a time of rising unemployment too. Beer may tend to corrupt the tender morals of DWP management, but their ethical prudishness does not extend to weapons: if your job seeker wants to work for BAE Systems creating weapons of mass destruction, you can log straight on.
Info from "PCS Voice" ~ thanks.
That's interesting, not to mention annoying. Desperately seeking employment daughter of mine, 19, qualified chef, willing waitress, and even, needs must, keen kitchen porter, is struggling to find a job. No wonder then. Crappity crap policy.
ReplyDeleteBack to walking the streets, or should that be crawling the pubs, in search of work for her. Humph.
Oh and ahem, one quarter of folkapella - our male member (ouch sorry!) works for BAE. LOL.
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Yes, well, my rhetorical flourish shouldn't be taken too literally. I was making a point about the nonsense of DWP blocking some websites, rather than condemning anyone who works for BAE.
ReplyDeleteInnuendo, Eleanor? I'm shocked!
A few years ago when I was still enslaved in the DWP I tried to use the internet to find directions to church in Morley, to attend the funeral of a colleague who died while at work in Quarry House. I discovered the site was blocked and my attempt to access the forbidden site noted!
ReplyDeleteSometimes the broad brush appraoch causes more trouble than its worth.
Problem is that the software used is a bit broad brush in its design and relies on a database of exceptions being built up. That relies on users who by and large don't want to draw attention to themselves or just can't be botherered and it all falls apart.
ReplyDelete