As instructed by the JobCentre in St Andrews, I phoned the national jobseeker-helpline today so they could begin transferring my claim to Worcester’s JobCentre.

The helpline worker told me that they only arranged new appointments and could not help with this transfer, no matter what my local JobCentre had told me.

I then googled for the JobCentre in Worcester and found their number on a Worcester Students’ Union page. Why on earth was the top-ranking page not the govenment’s own?

I phoned the number on this page and was politely told to phone their new claims section. I did so and was invited to leave a voicemail with my name, contact number and a brief outline of my issue. The outgoing message said that one of the two ‘fresh claims’ staff would get back to me in 3 or 4 days’ time because they were snowed under.

Both of these calls were at national standard rate. I can afford the costs of these calls and frankly don’t care too much whether or not I get the dole at this point, so long as my NI records are kept up to date. However, I’m irate on behalf of the poor sods who are unemployed and need state assistance: the costs of calls and the wait involved in making a fresh claim may be more than can be born.