Job Centre Appointments to move online 2020

Anyone see today about them removing job centre appointments. No need for face to face. I am thinking it's just because of covid 19 rather than any other common sense mentality. Keeping them buildings open for people to be bullied and talking about nothing is a huge waste. If this is true, will be the best budget ever!

Online appointments could be worse.

You will be forced to upload your CV, how else will you be able to show it online to someone? They can then put you forward for any job without you even knowing about it.

Same with your job search, you will have to put it in your journal all for display. Your work coach will be able to go through all of it before, during and after your appointment. And it will be saved in your journal until some time after your claim closes.

It's easier to sort out an misunderstanding face to face by seeing their expression, hearing their tone of voice and such. Online you have no idea if they actually understood you fully. That could lead to errors or sanctions.

Face to face you can covertly record them and use that as a evidence. Online not so much. They can delete online records (messages and such) and claim they never existed. A saved HTML-file of your journal will most likely not be admissible in a tribunal as it's very easy to edit one to your liking.

They could book you in for a months long full time work placement in one of these online appointments.. and before you finished typing your reply the appointment might be over as they have left the chat.

Even with these downsides I have no doubt it will work for most people able to use computers, but there are risks with them. And I am not sure how to mitigate all of them.

Every other jobcentre appointment I have is done by telephone, so surely that'd be the sensible way forward if they put a stop to face to face appointments. Surely you'd be given the option of either online or telephone appointments? Also, how would this work for those still on JSA, they don't have a journal like those on UC?

I'd certainly prefer telephone appointments, they're usually much quicker and you don't have the hassle of going into their crappy office, which for me is a tedious 2 hours bus journey there and back.

I was wondering is this the 'general plan' of the DWP, to have all service online. As you won't see large queue's outside the Dole.  

Also how does this arrangement break down? Is it like a chat-room, or is it more like an email/journal entry with the JCP?