Christ. I come back from a three days and nights of nightmare eye pain and chronic onset of pain to read this.

Interesting though that they say Work Choice will be replaced. I asked the last coach I saw a few weeks ago for some information on the Scottish governments new employability schemes and she got up, walked over to a desk behind her and handed me a leaflet saying, `these are just literally hot off the press`....it was a leaflet which read, "WorkAble, providing your customers with the help they need to move into work". Run by the Wise group. Under this it sais, "Tailored support for people receiving Employment Support Allowance or Universal Credit!.
Now the reason I asked about this was because I knew here in Scotland all these new training schemes are to be voluntary. And indeed, it states inside the leaflet right at the top that Work Able is entirely VOLUNTARY and is designed to support your customer for up to 52 weeks to help them move into work. BUT....you have to be able to commit to at least a minimum is 16 hours a week within a 12 month period.

I can`t do 16 hours a week because my health problem is such that I can have nasty flare up`s for three-four days/nights at a time, so until I am able to have some control over my pain in such a way that I am able to control it well, I can`t sign up for things like this. The coach also said that if I was interested, I would be signed up for it through the job centre.
I instead went along to meet a voluntary sector person and gave some information about myself and they will be contacting me soon about what they have available. It will possibly be befriending of older people or hospital volunteering. But a lot will depend on the commitments.
Interesting too that here in Scotland, a new "Fair Start Scotland" programme will be launched from2018. Again, run by this Wise group. So I`m not sure where this new Work & Health programme will sit alongside these other schemes for people on ESA/UC and have disabilities.
I told the coach I saw that I wasn`t considered disabled, but I DO have a disabling illness. And I will always say that because I won`t allow them to class me as nearer to the workplace when I`m not.
Thanks for all the links guys, good work. x