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Wolverhampton mail handling

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ASH
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Welfare officer - St Christopher's Hospice, SE London

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We are noticing that the DWP post handling has deteriorated to the point that it is almost pointless writing to try solve any problem (including the sending of DS1500 forms).  This is especially worrying as another batch of addresses have recently moved over including DLA and AA. 

We have been advised during phone calls that the only way to guarantee post is received is to go to a jobcentre to ask them to scan it in.  This is not acceptable or practical - if nothing else we deal with several benefit delivery centres.  Has anyone taken this up as a lobbying issue?

Benny Fitzpatrick
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Welfare Rights Officer, Southway Housing Trust, Manchester

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I agree that it is totally unacceptable that the black hole of Wolverhampton, (paid for by taxpayers money, don’t forget), appears incapable of providing any form of meaningful service, and that NO ATTEMPT is apparently being made to rectify the obvious problems. A disgraceful level of complacency and maladministration even for the DWP.

Trying to get an AJACs appointment to scan documents is not always easy, either for clients or WROs, and the inconvenience is all too often compounded by rude and unhelpful staff at JCP.

IMHO, DWP channels of communication, either inbound or outbound, are a joke.

I suppose expecting accountability from DWP is unreasonable!

1964
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Deputy Manager, Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit

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Another thing is that it takes a seemingly inordinate amount of time for mail to be scanned onto the system. I rang today to check if MR sent 1st class on 5/7 had been received and it had been scanned on system only yesterday (25th). How can it take the best part of three weeks?

Mike Hughes
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Is it possible for mail handling to “deteriorate”? I don’t recall Wolverhampton reaching a level of competence from which it could then fall. It’s been dreadful from day 1. An absolute shambles.

Benny Fitzpatrick
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Going on anecdotal evidence from other WROs and from our own experience, there must be so much “lost” post at Wolverhampton that it must occupy most of the building and constitute a major Health and Safety issue.

How strange that nobody has actually thought of delivering it!

Mike Hughes
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Benny Fitzpatrick - 28 July 2016 03:34 PM

Going on anecdotal evidence from other WROs and from our own experience, there must be so much “lost” post at Wolverhampton that it must occupy most of the building and constitute a major Health and Safety issue.

How strange that nobody has actually thought of delivering it!

“Outraged comedy face”. Post isn’t “lost” at Wolverhampton don’t you know? It’s lost on the way there. And that’s a fact cos DWP said so.

Benny Fitzpatrick
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That’s one hell of a lot of letters falling down the back of desks, falling out of vans etc! How the country hasn’t ground to a halt under the weight of stray DWP post is a mystery?

Mike Hughes
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My understanding is that this is the reason Hinkley Point has been delayed. We’re going the fossil fuel route. Wolverhampton will be burning anything in a brown envelope.

NAI
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Mike Hughes - 29 July 2016 09:46 AM

My understanding is that this is the reason Hinkley Point has been delayed. We’re going the fossil fuel route. Wolverhampton will be burning anything in a brown envelope.

:-) Thanks for brightening my morning

Dan_Manville
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Mike Hughes - 29 July 2016 09:46 AM

My understanding is that this is the reason Hinkley Point has been delayed. We’re going the fossil fuel route. Wolverhampton will be burning anything in a brown envelope.

They don’t need to burn it; the pile’s that heavy it’ll reach critical mass within weeks.

I often drive past the post handling site; you can see the walls bulging!

Mike Hughes
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Dan Manville - 29 July 2016 11:34 AM
Mike Hughes - 29 July 2016 09:46 AM

My understanding is that this is the reason Hinkley Point has been delayed. We’re going the fossil fuel route. Wolverhampton will be burning anything in a brown envelope.

They don’t need to burn it; the pile’s that heavy it’ll reach critical mass within weeks.

I often drive past the post handling site; you can see the walls bulging!

Not credible Dan. I can’t believe DWP could organise post into a pile!

1964
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Does it actually exist? I think of it in much the same way as I imagine Avalon or Brigadoon. A bit like the days when RTR decisions were allegedly made in Wick. I never quite believed there really was an office in Wick either.

Mike Hughes
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1964 - 29 July 2016 12:53 PM

Does it actually exist? I think of it in much the same way as I imagine Avalon or Brigadoon. A bit like the days when RTR decisions were allegedly made in Wick. I never quite believed there really was an office in Wick either.

I never believed Warbreck was a place and then I had to do a tribunal there and found myself trapped there for half a day in something resembling a community centre. Never saw anyone from the DWP bar a Presenting Officer who’d bizarrely come in from Preston. Had the sense I was in a Paper Town.

I now have this vision of there being two places in Wolverhampton. Big anonymous buildings with bulging walls and a 60 foot high letter A on one with a B on the other. Some wag will come along and rub the bottom bar of the B out one night and that… might explain everything.

1964
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Deputy Manager, Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit

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That really made me laugh Mike….

Yes, the A & B worry me too. I’d like to imagine that there’s a droid or a Minion or a Pokemon or even a real person who would scurry from one part of Area 51 to the other with all the mail incorrectly sent to A rather than B (or vice versa) but I bet there isn’t. They probably just chuck it over the perimeter fence.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Information and advice resources - Age UK

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If you search for most of the Mail Handling post codes on google, it says they don’t exist.

However, search for WV99 1BY (DLA for children) and you find this https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Telford+WV99+1BY/@52.6713197,-2.4208087,276m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48707ff118f5e451:0xe9331f17aef90ee1!8m2!3d52.6713555!4d-2.4202723

Telford Compressed Air Services??? #raiseseyebrow

Oldestrocker
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The big question of what is happening to this missing post was solved many years ago when HMRC had an identical problem.
It was suggested at the time that there was this ‘huge warehouse full of unopened post’.

Strangely it never existed!!

Then, as in the years before, if post that had been doing the rounds and/or had not been dealt within a reasonable time frame it was simply destroyed without trace. This left the poor taxpayer (in the case of HMRC) having to issue a duplicate when they found out that it had been ‘lost’.

This not only happened at HMRC, but other government departments including those with off site scanning contracts
who carried out the same cleansing activities.

How do I know? It was common practice in our office and with my team - the confidential waste sacks were strangely full at certain times of the month!