it is currently taking our local office 3 months (minimum) to process crisis loan appeals, that is despite having taken on new staff to rtry to deal with backlog. i am very very tempted to JR in relation to a specific appeal whcih remains unprocessed, and wondered if anyone has been down that route previously?

i have had overwhelming and very helpful emails off forum about this and am very grateful to all those who contacted me.
i'm also pleased to say that as a direct result of those responses, scarily enough i had a call today from a reviewing officer and an extremely positive outcome for our client....

very many thanks
Caroline

Hi Caroline

It would be helpful if you could share some of the info as I'm sure most of us will be having similar problems

Sue

Yes please! I have a case with an outstanding review from 2007! I'm considering referring for JR on other grounds but would really be interested to see what you've got on the delay side of things.

Tony

Blimey Tony - two thousand and seven ?!?!

Manchester (Chorlton) told me today they're 8 weeks behind on CCG reviews and I thought that was bad enough.

Its not usually that bad, Nicky. Variable between 2-4 months (though that's bad enough of course!!) - but for some reason, this one just seems to have got stuck. It's also been met with a rather bizarre attitude by the RO regarding our authority form that is more reminiscent of the child benefit centre's unhelpful approach to these things.

hi! sorry for the delay in responding, i just needed to check what details I was able to give out on this site.

Someone kindly referred my post on to the Independant Review Service Commissioners business team, who I must humbly admit I I had never heard of!
www.irs-review.org.uk

They have useful information on our website about the Social Fund generally, and a link anyone can use to feed back to them about their Social Fund experiences.

The person who contacted me, has agreed i can pass on their details and so......I quote...!

"If you wish to pass on the numbers of the Commissioner’s Business Team here (0121 606 2222 or 0121 606 2204) then we are happy to speak to anyone about any issues they have. Where appropriate, we can pass on the special contact numbers for the appropriate districts, but I’d prefer these to come directly from us rather than be passed on.

I’m sure I don’t need to reiterate this, but the Independent Review Service is independent of Jobcentre Plus, both by statute and ethos, and I’d be glad if you’d make that clear to anyone who may not “get it”. The point is that we are not an inspectorate, and have no powers over the administration of Jobcentre Plus, although the Social Fund Commissioner does feed back to senior officials and ministers any information we come across about how the Social Fund is operating."

happy days! it certainly worked for our cleint, so i hope that this information can help some others...
best wishes

Caroline