I was told by my work coach that I’d been placed on something called the Restart scheme. The tacit implication was that I’d been claiming Universal Credit for too long. Fair enough. I did a bit of googling and found that three months earlier Restart had been given a kicking by the Guardian, which revealed that the scheme had only found a job for 7% of the participants enrolled on it. So my interest was piqued.
My first meeting at the local Restart centre would be Wednesday week. So, time-rich, I started poring over the relevant literature, instantly finding the aforementioned article and a stream of slaggings-off in darkened tributaries of the internet.
Why? Why exactly is Restart so rubbish? I was going to find out, as a mandatory condition of my Universal Credit claim, but also in exchange for money earned by writing about it for The Fence.
‘The Restart scheme is a shambles,’ says Nick*, a straight-talking work coach from the West Country and the first to cough up in my quest for comment. ‘I’ve been referring claimants to it, after constant, pushy direction from management, for over a year now.’
Some clarity: work coaches are employed directly by the state, specifically the Department for Work and Pensions (dwp). They are civil servants and work in Jobcentres, where they have caseloads of people, like me, who are in receipt of Universal Credit, a monthly payment from the government. We are claimants – people over 18 but below state pension age who are either on a low income or out of work entirely. We have regular meetings or phone calls with our work coaches, whose ultimate goal is to get us in full-time, well-paid jobs. For many claimants, this involves undertaking various mandatory ‘work-related activities’.
As Nick tells me: ‘Of the 40 or so claimants I’ve referred to Restart, none have ever found work. Over the same timeframe, many of my claimants who are not on the Restart scheme have found work.’
Does Nick have any idea what Restart actually does in order to help referrals?
‘From what my claimants tell me, it’s a load of pointless online questionnaires and a fortnightly telephone call, when their employment advisor does little more than ask how the job search is going.’
