Advice on contract law re: Universal Credit Claimant Commitments

Hi unfortunately, I've not being able to get much work on here as a provider lately so I've decided to support my income on Universal Credit.

My experience of it for the last 2 weeks has not been ideal so if there's anyone can help me out a bit and give a bit of advice?

I'm interested in the contract aspects of "Claimant Commitments" as I can't really find anything online that explains the legality of what the Department of Work and Pensions expect of Claimants who sign up for benefit entitlement in the Uk.

The items i've marked with an asterix * are what I think are my key thoughts to make reading a bit easier ;)

*I am aware that all contracts are agreements but not all agreements are contracts, so what does that make a "Claimant Commitment"?

My budget's obviously limited on UC but I will pay a fair rate for good advice so the price I've put is just a start.

I can provide a record of the events so far into my claim someone interested enough could look at them. it would probably take about 10 -20 minutes for someone with human resources/contract law experience (and a mug of coffee).

So someone more legally minded than myself to give some honest advice about not being bullied by the Jobcenter really.

Meeting is on wednesday afternoon ie tommorow.

The advice online including CAB chat is useless & says if you take the kings shilling, then they can do with you as they wish and you seem to have no rights whatsoever to decide which types of work you look for as far as I can tell.

Now I don't remember joining the army lately so I think that claimants are probably not expected to sacrifice all their full bodily autonomy during every waking moment of their life to the state just for putting in a new claim for benefits.

*I thought contracts of any kind should be fully disclosed so both parties are aware of their responsibilities and what happens if one party fails to meet their part.

Universal Credit doesn't seem to work like this. They tell you about Sanctions later AFTER you've signed up to them.

*There are no disclosures of what the Sanction methods will be for Universal Credit prior to agreeing to it FIRST.

Is this even legal I guess is my question, are the agencies DWP use breaking the law?

*I am aware of Article 9 Human Rights Act - Right of religion or belief, and as a christian I need Sunday free so that I may attend church.

This would put a limit on my availablity which isn't currently on my commitments because the person who wrote them up (not actually my work coach) didn't really ask me about anything like that. They whizzed through the web forms on their system and skipping a few parts I expect. It didn't seem tailored to me.

*This Article 9 Religious right, is not on my commitments and I'd like it adding, however they are not letting me change anything at all.

*I even told them about transparency in contracts and asked to review what they'd typed into the computer before they clicked a check.tickbox to process my claim further.

She said they couldn't do that and only showed me a "summary page" rather than scrolling back through for full disclosure. Then they gave me nonsense about being busy and needing to see someone else to hurry up, so I think I was coerced into tacitly accepting their commitments before any agreement was signed giving them the authority to do that.

*Were my freedoms hijacked with a click on the computer by someone claiming to represent me prior to me actually giving them permission to represent me?

I've asked for a printed copy of commitments but no

I've asked for full disclosure but no

I've asked for an immediate review of commitments but no joy

I was told though if I didn't accept the current commitments then it "may" which usually means "will" affect payment of benefit

without the commitments being agreed to, it looks like they can cancel your claim. Brilliant.

So it seems when asking questions, I'm being stonewalled at every turn, and while I've been fairly cooperative, they don't even answer simple questions like: How many people are on Universal Credit in the UK? - "it depends" is a typical unhelpful response and suggests to me information flow is one way. I'm being processed and bullied into accepting an unlawful contract I think.

I appear to have to be transparent and open in my arrangement with them, however they seem to be failing to be open and honest from their side of the deal. I guess the only thing they do is the consideration part of the "contract" ie payment

If I didn't need support financially right now I wouldn't do business with someone shady like this and I'm spending too much time reverse engineering the DWP and how they work rather than actually enhancing my CV and looking for work more effectively.

Their policy appears to be stalling my ability to get myself into work and I'd like to resolve this ASAP and move on to more important things like my next project.

Thanks very much I hope someone has some ideas.

Bob