is this parliamentary dem0cracy in action?

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2008-03-07a.188525.h&s=speaker%3A10596+section%3Awrans#g188525.r0

the best we can do...?

Such complacency! This morning I spoke to an 18 year old single mother with a 15 month old child with no money to buy baby milk who is still waiting for her IS and CTC claims to be processed. Some hero at JC+ told her that she couldn't have a crisis loan while her claim for IS was being sorted. Effin' wonderful!!

and this one is specially for mike shermer... : )

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2008-03-04b.185873.h&s=speaker%3A10596+section%3Awrans#g185873.r0

"......For those vulnerable customers who are unable to make contact by telephone, the claim will be taken at a face-to-face interview......"

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand the regs, a person still has the legal right to make a clerical claim irrespective of whether they can or can't use a telephone - the word vulnerable was not in the regs the last time I looked - but is still emphasised whenever this subject is raised, giving the impression that JCP are doing claimants a favour. If they have changed the appropriate regs then I stand to be corrected.

The point that JCP also keep missing is that making the claim is the easy bit in comparision to trying to subsequently get through to try and chase up the claim, and to actually get the claim paid within a reasonable period. They keep giving out average processing times - but for ever claim that gets paid out in two weeks there some that don't get paid out for six - average four weeks - not quite creative accounting but ........

That's at least the third time that a Secretary of State has gotten Ms Straithe to answer a parliamentary question in this manner -

you're right mike - i happened to read the regs this week, claims have to be in writing.....

...Agreed. So...

"We do not have a postal claim scheme for these three benefits"

is an questionable claim, isn't it? but then i don't know the rules for this parliamentary debating game...maybe it's like dungeons and dragons, and she had a magic potion card...?

The most frustrating part of all is that we should have to be having this dicussion - at the very start of telephone claiming, they should have had an official policy in place together with written guidance setting out what course of action local offices should take when asked to take a claim across the counter: they didn't, and most local offices were telling claimants that they couldn't use any other method to claim other than the telephone - to further complicate matters their telephony in most areas was woefully out of date.

It's taken two to three years for them to admit that clerical claims are permissable - albeit throwing the word vulnerable into the equation - and even longer than that to get telephone systems in place that belong in the modern world.

Not that I'm against telephone claiming as such - in the majority of cases it is more efficient - whether the same can be said of the processing is another matter. What has been lost is the relationships we all had with local JCP staff which more often than not resulted in minor problems being resolved before they got out of hand.

Ms Straithe said that they had taken on another 700 staff to ease the demand - for an organisation desperate to shed staff for cost reasons, that's a huge retrograde step, reflecting perhaps a slight miscalculation at the original planning stage ..................

............"The modernisation of our telephone service means it is easier for customers to call and speak to the right person or department without having to be transferred, and to receive a more efficient and professional service."...............


The Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus, eh? That must make me Acting Air Vice Chief Marshall Supreme to the USAF!!

Never have I seen such utter cr*p in print! The CMS procedures just make a mockery of the DMA changes in 1999 and actually, in our experience, it is virtually impossible to get to the speak to the right person or department and the service is far less efficient and professional than it has been in a long while - at least five years I'd say...