We know the guidance. We know the DWP think they can dictate the life of an authorisation as opposed to the person authorising. However, when we ring Pension Centres e.g. Warrington we get

a) request for authorisations even when we've sent multiple ones in per case (they often can't see them on the system, which begs a question as to what the point is!).

b) staff suggesting they have discretion as to whether to go down the authorisation route or ask implied consent questions.

c) a chronic lack of consistency or common sense e,.g. one staff member recently advised that they can provide any info. via the implied consent route except info. about payments, which require authorisations.

There seems general discontent with PS liaison arrangements - not enough people to liaise with and not enough time to do so - so the focus is on actual complaints. Anyone have any ideas how to take this forward? Does it remain a national issue or have things moved on?

The DWP have issued their own guide for staff when working with customer representatives. (see below). Maybe you could try quoting an extract from it when you come up against this problem. I normally ask to speak to their manager which can sometimes work.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/repsguide.pdf

When dealing with BDC's (and jobcentres previously) I'm often asked "is the customer there with you"? I always reply "no but I've already sent in a form of authority", and I then intimate that the person gets off his backside and checks the file. This usually does the trick (some sort of feverish activity in the background going on).

The situation is far from acceptable across the board, however (Disability and Carers Service excepted - they tend to be far more savvy). Routine failure to record rep's details on the computer screens for the telephone operators to access is sloppy and just not good enough.

Afraid that we're well beyond both of the above responses. They're aware of the guidance and we know it intimately. We have held liaison meetings about this and they're basically not interested in what the guidance says - not least when calls have been farmed out to private agencies or when there's high staff turnover.

The question is really what do you do when liaison doesn't work/happen; when they're not interested in national guidance and when the people answering the phone don't actually have access to the authorisations?

Generally our staff don't have the time to argue. They either cave and fax another authorisation; put the phone down and ring again (even that works rarely now) or don't bother ringing in the first place!

Fri 03-Apr-09 01:05 PM by shawn

(Edited to shorten link)

- complain, complain, complain;
- enlist the assistance of your MP;
- do everthing in writing;
- ask your client, where possible, to make the phone calls;
- in extremely exceptional circumstances, I might even consider pretending I was the client.

This is an issue for which, I fear, there will never be resolution. In our experience, liaison is fruitless and wasteful of the time we could be spending helping people and we don't do it anymore.

I just keep bunging in those complaints. Eventually the statistics will demand action - although this news story suggests that even these figures could be being knobbled!:

Number of claimants who say they have complained to the DWP is five times the number recorded

Hi Mike , what a shambles the Pension Service is turning into a department supposedly there to look after our senior citizens - never
i have a gentleman and his partner who turned 60 ,End of March 2009 made his application for PC and still waiting . The PS state they have never recived my faxed authority and advised me to get my client to ring them as he has never ever done so ( Utter Lie ) He has no income at all and has tried several times along with myself to make an application for a crisis loan over the telephone but line constantly engaged - a paper claim to be now done but even this route is taking weeks . Directed him to his local MP to intevene . I rang PS again today to be told the faxed authority initially sent is no longer valid even though it stipulates 4 months or longer if necessary ? yes they are making up their own rules now . The staff member i spoke to said i must now send a new signed authority every time i contact them ? logic has now gone out the window considering they admited a 3 month backlog petty things like this is gonna compound their alleged problem . I dont know if anything is being done nationally but we must all pull together to get this bunch to get their act together .

I am gonna now try again wish me luck and will let you know how i get on .

cheers Mike

We had a Customer Liaison Officer come visit us from PS last week with a team leader.

We were told that the PS is taking disciplinary action against data protection breaches and staff turn over is high. In light of this background information, the approach of front-line phone staff in respect of divulging information and certainly when it comes to implied consent, is more understandable. We have probably relatively low paid workers in probably areas of reasonably high unemployment (sorry Wales that's an assumption) who have real concerns about thier job security. This is a knee jerk reaction to recent high profile data loss cases.

It still doesn't explain other problems though, which we put down, largely, to 'institutional judgementalism'.

The implied consent policy was introduced in June 2007 and there has been no change in it since. Therefore the same rules apply now as they did then. We were told yesterday at the JCP/CRG forum however that the guidance had very recently been revised and a copy should be winging it's way to us very shortly, which we will circulate as soon as we see it. .

For the vast majority of the time we don't have this problem with either JCP or the DBU's - it just seems to be Pension service - Burnley as well as Warrington.

Mike - I'll email you the name & contact details of the Customer Services manager at Warrington - if that fails (if he's moved on or whatever) I'll also include the details of his equivalent in Burnley.

Wed 17-Jun-09 07:13 PM by Neil Bateman

Based on a recent incident I had, I think that the Working With Customer Representatives policy hasn't been included in the data protection training for DWP staff. This means that new staff don't know about it.

Thanks Neil , it surely explains why a lot of PS staff are so reluctant to discuss however this should not have be a problem if they have written consent from the claimant which they did twice in my case .

I spoke to a Manager of a JCP Office the other day at a Welfare to Work conference in Liverpool who stated staff were being trained on the job which is not good at all . It is no wonder there are so many fundemenatal errors - again its a knee jerk reaction to the JCP reforms which has come back to bite now we have reached an economic down turn .

regards

Colin

thanks to mike shermer / nawra .... here's an updated version of 'Working with Representatives' ...

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/Working_with_Reps_609_rev_upload_June_2009.doc

....and the day we got the reviswed guidance from the delightful young lady at NAWRA, (who shall remain nameless to preserve her blushes), we got blanked by not one, but two call centre operators who basically said that irrespective of the guidance they wanted us to send in a signed Authorisation - the second, a supervisor had actually phoned us back to say that she wasn't going to disclose any information under the guidance as I had'nt answered the phone with my job title: iwould have to send in an Authorisation. We then asked:-
"could we speak to a manager ?"
"He's not here"
"When will he be in ..can I call back?"
"He's not in today"
"his deputy then?"
"he's not in today either"
"So your'e leaderless then?"
"wer'e being supervised by a Manager from another section"
"Can we speak to him then"
"Hold on and I'll find out"

After five minutes of mind numbing Vivaldi (I think) we were finally given the direct line number of a manager who turned out to be a somewhat older and much more amenial member of staff who clearly had the benefit of many years of experience.....problem sorted in five minutes, which had been preceded by ten to fifteen minutes of fruitless exchanges .....

So wasteful of time and resources for all concerned...

.......That was not the description I would have applied , were I not a gentleman ......