My company is the same RE allocating holidays.

Company expenses account? Haha thats a funny joke. They barely pay mileage. Although apparently you can claim tax back on this.

Ashley – is she staying in the same line of work?

She might wish to consider joining a union – this is exactly what they exist for.

Are these people involved in caring for people? If so, PLEASE report them to the regulator.

A very valid comment.

Unfortunately, the care 'industry' (I hate calling caring that) is faced with councils etc that are desperate to cut cash, and crappy contracts – including zero hours, no pay while travelling between visits – are as much a result of that as are calls themselves often being limited to just 15 minutes.

The care business (Better Minty?) model is close to collapse. There isn't the money about to sustain them as businesses at the moment, costs are being cut by councils everywhere, the whole idea of closing hospitals for those with LD, although a great idea, is causing huge issues with finding suitable replacements at the same cost.
It can't be done.

Meanwhile, the companies involved are cutting staff numbers, using nul hour contracts and only increasing hourly rates (already low considering what the job entails) and starting to panic as people are looking to leave. Bear in mind that these companies should all be training their staff (which doesn't come cheap), any amount of staff turnover is going to harm the bottom line.

FTR I've just got out of the business, and have gone into a specialist area of education. Guess what's happening there too? To education...?

Something is broken too badly to fix.

They're now attempting to keep the money for her CRB. Her contract states that after 13 weeks employment the company will reimburse this. She enquired, to be told that the terms have changed and it is now 6 months. Nothing to sign, no notification until she asks. Going to take her contract in on Monday and ask them to elaborate.

As for the work, it was £6.20 an hour, days from 6am-11pm with several inconveniant breaks, 15 minute calls and a low milage allowance. Her last call for example, was a 15 minute one which she was not allowed into until 22:45. The call she had before that, 10 minutes travel away was at 21:30-22:00. I think its not only ridiculous but unsafe to ask young girls to park up at that time of night.

In respect to her, she understood all these cons but enjoyed the work and genuinely liked the majority of the clients, hence her working it for a few months until it became too much.

But this is precisely why it's an exploitation of the people who do this incredibly important work. It exploits their caring and their commitment.

Quite seriously she might wish to take on board what I mentioned earlier.

A bit below the belt - unnecessary too.

What else can you expect from a pseudo-lefty who's arrogance is exposed for what it is on such a regular basis that I would be more circumspect when airing my views!!

Whilst this on the face it is a bad carry on - it begs the question why would anyone go and work for such an employer. They can only abuse if they have employees to abuse - if no one will work for them then they might have to change their way?

In "the real world" there is a shortage of jobs, Sal.

And when there is a shortage of jobs, it is much easier for employers to screw their employees.

As was made clear only the other day by Lord Young telling businesses they can profit in a downturn by doing exactly that.

Mind, that's pretty cute to turn bad behaviour by an employer into, in effect, it being the employee's fault for taking a job. What next – rape is the fault of the victim?

Call me a pedant if you want, but the word is "whose".

I suspect it was a typo.