New unemployment figures came out last week, and they did not make pretty reading.

The figure for the long term unemployed in Devon, those who have been out of work for more than a year, hit the 2,675 mark, a figure that has more then doubled over the past five years.

In both Devon and Cornwall those claiming Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) increased by 7 per cent, leaving around 32,500 people looking for work.

So with statistics like these, it is no wonder that Jobcentre Plus has become the place to be seen over the past few years. In fact Jobcentre Plus must be the only business in Devon and Cornwall that is facing an upturn in its growth statistics.

There has also been over the past five years a growth in the use of government contractors, such as Working Links, whose job has been to help those who are long term unemployed back into work.

It is normally through both of these organisations, Job Centre Plus and then the contractor, that those who are in receipt of JSA have to deal and negotiate with in their bid to find work.

Every two weeks a JSA claimant has to go in to their local Jobcentre Plus. Here they then have to prove that they have been looking for work and that there has been no change in their claim, such as they have not found or done any work over the past two weeks. Once this has been proved the claimant is then allowed to sign on, and payment of benefit is made.

Admittedly Jobcentre Plus does offer a website and a database of vacancies for job seekers to use, and the JSA claimant should be applying for at least two jobs a week. This is the main tool that Jobcentre Plus has to offer, and it is also the same tool used by the contractors in their bid to find people work.

However the contractors have a few more tricks up their sleeve. They will offer CV writing workshops, and classes on how to dress for a interview. But in the end almost all of the contactors have nothing more then access to the same database which Jobcentre Plus uses on a daily basis, and which any of us can access from our own computers at direct.gov.uk.

My view is that the reality of the situation is that a job seeker is really on his or her own. The system, as represented by both Jobcentre Plus and the contractors, is nothing other than an inflexible system to get the JSA claimant back in to work, and nothing more.

In my opinion, Jobcentre Plus is nothing more than a trap; a two-weekly loop through which the JSA claimant must jump or loose benefits. The only way the claimant can leave the system is by gaining employment. Within the system there is no other option because the system is inherently inflexible.

If say, for the sake of argument, the JSA claimant wants to go back in to education while unemployed, then the claimant has to sign off. Because of this, the claimant is then cut out of one of the major alternatives that could lead him or her back in work.

Surely it would be better to have a JSA claimant, regardless of age, doing something constructive in education, to improve their prospects, rather then just letting the individual sit around on JSA and becoming idle?

One of the biggest dangers of being unemployed is becoming idle. It leads to a devaluation of self worth and can lead to a point where the individual feels helpless in the face of life.

This cannot and should not happen. All of us has the right to be a full member of society. A society which all of us should be investing in, including those who are claiming JSA.

But I believe the system used by Jobcentre Plus does not allow this to happen. Instead it isolates the claimant from society through its inflexibility. Holding the claimant in place so there is no other choice other then to apply for jobs that the claimant, may or may not get.

And due to this the claimant may well lose hope. The loss of hope must not be allowed to happen.

In the end hope can be restored if Jobcentre Plus was to introduce a system that is more flexible and open then the present one.

In other words, offering JSA claimants a lot more then the soul-destroying, two-weekly loop which represents Jobcentre Plus’s present inflexibility.