my son turned 12 in July and was quite poorly yesterday, my usual sign on day. So I rang the job centre to tell them and was informed that it was fine and my benefit would be delayed by however many days I was late signing on ! Great, so to avoid getting into debit with the bank I bundle him up in a sleeping bag and leave him in a cold car while completing the obligatory signature with a member of staff who is completely untrained in lone parent advising. I ask her if my review in 13 weeks will be with a New Deal advisor and am reassured with the reply that ‘it is just the 13 week review that everybody gets; everyone is on New Deal now really …’. Ah, O.K. then should I not be seeing a lone parent advisor, that is what I was told on my ‘compulsory’ back to work session (1/2 an hour of babble)? “I really don’t know anything about that” came the vague reply.

So where is all this extra support for lone parents as they struggle to compete with their work deprived redundant counterparts? How do we fulfil these obligations if no one is able to tell us what they are supposed to be doing themselves?

It’s just another royal mash up with the Government saying “do something, do something, do something … or else!”. Because they don’t have a clue how to really solve the problems so they are just burying ‘problem groups’.