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Top Policy topic #759

Subject: "Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers" First topic | Last topic
jj
                              

welfare rights adviser, saltley & nechells law centre birmingham
Member since
21st Jan 2004

Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Tue 22-Jan-08 12:04 PM

Righsnet new article - Peter Hain spake thusly -

"This is a big step forward for our Department and its customers. The new Agency will help us to give many more of them the services and support they need through one organisation in a joined up way."

http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=346655&NewsAreaID=2

"The two existing Agencies increasingly share many of the same customers - over half of the customers of the Disability and Carers Service are also customers of The Pension Service and the proportion is growing as people live longer. Over time the new Agency will enable a better and more seamless service to be delivered to them."

looks like this Bungle and Zippy rationale is the best they can do at short notice - good to see somebody has explained to the SoS the need to avoid misrepresentation...

jolly hilarious, pete! - is probably not the response of the depleted Pensions Service...

http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/pdf/busplan/2tpsbusplan0708.pdf

...as usual, the real story is in the failure to disclose...

wait...one final thought...where does this leave working age services...? if only half the disabled are over pension age, and are about to be helped into work by Pete and Jim Murphy ( oh, has he gone now?) why have a separate agency at all...? don't tell me... there's a recession coming...

  

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Replies to this topic
RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, andyp4, 22nd Jan 2008, #1
RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, Paul_Treloar_, 22nd Jan 2008, #2
RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, ariadne2, 22nd Jan 2008, #3
      RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, Roy, 23rd Jan 2008, #4
           RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, Tony Bowman, 23rd Jan 2008, #5
                RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, nevip, 23rd Jan 2008, #6
                RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, fkaGerry2, 23rd Jan 2008, #7
                     RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, stevegale, 23rd Jan 2008, #8
                          RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, jj, 25th Jan 2008, #9
                               RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, Ruth_T, 25th Jan 2008, #10
                                    RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, jj, 28th Jan 2008, #11
                                         RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers, Peter Turville, 01st Feb 2008, #12

andyp4
                              

Welfare Benefits Advisor, South Somerset District Council (Yeovil)
Member since
16th Jul 2007

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Tue 22-Jan-08 01:32 PM

'Bungle and Zippy rationale' the 21st century ideology depicting lassiez faire economics, free market, monetarism and reactionary social theories in their true Kami Kazi headbanging insania.

  

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Paul_Treloar_
                              

Director of Policy and Services, Disability Alliance, London
Member since
15th Sep 2006

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Tue 22-Jan-08 02:07 PM

"This is a big step forward for our Department and its customers. The new Agency will help us to give many more of them the services and support they need through one organisation in a joined up way."

I ran this phrase from a government-jargon translation service and it came up with:

"This is a big step forward for our Department and its customers. The new Agency will help us deliver the DWP's significant budget savings, imposed on our organisation under the last Comprehensive Spending Review."

  

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ariadne2
                              

Welfare lawyer and social policy collator, Basingstoke CAB
Member since
13th Mar 2007

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Tue 22-Jan-08 07:14 PM

And we don't need to look for a new Chief Executive for both agencies because good old Terry Moran, who used to be head of DCS and is acting head of PS, can do both jobs easily!

  

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Roy
                              

Welfare Rights & Home Visiting Officer, Disability Solutions Stoke on Trent
Member since
23rd Jan 2004

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Wed 23-Jan-08 11:52 AM

Hang on a mo, how about combining DWP, Jobcentre Plus and the new Pension Service and Disability and Carers into one agency ....and calling it the Dept of Social Security??????

Any comments?

  

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Tony Bowman
                              

Welfare Rights Advisor, Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit
Member since
25th Nov 2004

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Wed 23-Jan-08 12:31 PM

This snippet came from a senior DWP area manager:

"the Jobcentre Plus vision - one customer, one service, one business"

After we had finished repeatedly throwing ourselves to the floor in fits of hystrionics, we got back to work contacting the many different departmental offices for all the different benefits, but only after we'd unravelled which office wasn't based in which town - if you know what I mean...!!!

  

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nevip
                              

welfare rights adviser, sefton metropolitan borough council, liverpool.
Member since
22nd Jan 2004

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Wed 23-Jan-08 01:02 PM

I remember the Monday after I left school. After duly registering with The Careers Service, me and 2 mates spent most of the rest of the day being bounced back and forth across town between, and sitting around for long periods in, the Unemployment Benefit Office and the Supplementary Benefit Office. My view of the DHSS (as then was) crystallised that day so I wont be dancing on the sidelines of this latest initiative.

Furthermore, I spoke to a DWP officer in our local jobcentreplus appeals section yesterday which, by the way is an efficiently run and helpful office (in my experience). He informed me that their office is closing and the work is being done elsewhere. There were redundancies and early retirements. He said the place was “like the Titanic”. Nevertheless he was friendly and helpful.

As Paul quoted above, recent and proposed changes are " a big step forward for our Department and its customers. The new Agency will help us deliver the DWP's significant budget savings, imposed on our organisation under the last Comprehensive Spending Review."

Shameful!

  

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fkaGerry2
                              

Deputy Manager, Sheffield Advice Link
Member since
20th Dec 2005

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Wed 23-Jan-08 06:58 PM

Cor... all those clerks and only one customer...gizza job...

  

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stevegale
                              

Co-ordinator, Disability Information Service (Torbay)
Member since
03rd Feb 2004

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Wed 23-Jan-08 09:36 PM

Big step forward? Big step forward to privatisation more like. Then it will cost twice as much to run and be half as efficient, just like the railways. I can just see the press release: "there will be significant savings for the taxpayer in contracting out these key services for vulnerable people".

When it all goes hopelessly wrong they will come looking to the public to bail them out of the resulting mess. I don't remember anyone asking permission from taxpayers to prop up Northern Rock either.

  

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jj
                              

welfare rights adviser, saltley & nechells law centre birmingham
Member since
21st Jan 2004

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Fri 25-Jan-08 03:11 PM

i was thinking a bit of a step backwards... we do the hokey cokey and we all turn round... : )
but yes...Northern Rock...compare and contrast with the Government's shameful refusals to compensate pension victims...

http://business.scotsman.com/pensions/Victory--at-last-in.3616141.jp

unfathomable karma?...
its fairly obvious that the intervention to underwrite northern Rock was not made to protect savers, but to prevent the loss of confidence in the banking system. the sight of pensioners camping out to get their money before somebody steals it, being the stuff of panic ...panic being possibly the scariest word in tne banking lexicon...

in all the excitement, there seems to be no reporting in the mainstream press of Stephen Timms, Minister of State (Competitiveness), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (!!!) giving evidence to the former DTi select committee on 22/1/08 in which it is reliably rumoured (i haven't been able to confirm as yet) that he has pooh poohed allegations that bogus self-employment in the construction industry is costing tax-payers up to £5 billion a year in lost tax and NI revenues. for a change the unions and the Industry are united in seeing this as a problem...incorrect categorisation for NI results in loss of benefits, pensions and in exploitation of vulnerable workers, and poor health & safety, and unfair competition for big boys ( i don't have to worry about them!) but Mr. Timms says £3-400 million more like, and he has no intentions of burdening business with enforcement. Unfortunately, government still cannot produce reliable figures - no change from 10 years ago (see link below - it's starting to look deliberate! : ) I'm not sure why it's his business at all...NI categorisation used to be for National Insurance Inspectors to investigate, now it's with HMRC...and it's a matter of law...
actually no, its a matter of policy if you control the purse strings and pick and choose which laws you resource to enforce and how...

http://www.nao.org.uk/pn/9899130a.htm

  

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Ruth_T
                              

Volunteer adviser, Corby Welfare Rights Advice Bureau
Member since
03rd May 2005

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Fri 25-Jan-08 06:45 PM

The uncorrected transcript for the Select Committee of 22 January taking evidence on the construction industry is available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmberr/uc127-v/uc12702.htm The questioning on bogus self-employment starts at Q660.

  

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jj
                              

welfare rights adviser, saltley & nechells law centre birmingham
Member since
21st Jan 2004

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Mon 28-Jan-08 09:12 AM

Thanks very much for this Ruth. Looks like my information was close, though not spot on, and answers some questions. very interesting to look outside of welf world, and quite a shift in the welfare state...

  

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Peter Turville
                              

welfare rights worker, Oxfordshire Welfare Rights
Member since
03rd Feb 2004

RE: Re: News - Pensions Service in Crisis Merger with Disability and Carers
Fri 01-Feb-08 03:34 PM

Ahhh - but just think of all the job creation involved in continual re-organisation of DWP - people to think up new names for the new agencies, design and produce new sationary, logos and colour schemes, screwing new name plates outside office entrances etc etc.

Of course they may not provide secure long term employment for the 100,000 (ex)civil servants but at least they won't all appear in the unemployment stats at the same time.

And don't forget the government are doing there bit by creating vacancies at the very top level!

  

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