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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

Appointees without personal connection

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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Just been asked a question that I could not answer.

Local authority adult services department provides an appointeeship service for vulnerable adults who are unable to act and who for one reason or another have no appointee in their immediate circle: family died/estranged, safeguarding issues etc.

I am assuming that the gateway conditions mean that the need for an appointee in the “live service” operating in most of the country arises very rarely if ever at all.  If an appointee is needed, the procedure will be largely clerical and much the same as it is for legacy benefits (BF56 and 57 forms for example).  Is that a fair assumption?

But over time as the digital service expands and the client group starts to include disabled people, the council would like to know about certain practical issues including:

- secure credentials when setting up a new claim and logging in at a future date.  Apparently there is an issue with email addresses - they cannot provide a separate email account for everyone they act for, will they need to?

- if DWP wants to contact a claimant in the digital service, will there be an email alert to tell you that you have a message (like when you get a Rightsnet PM)?

- if so, could multiple claimants have alerts sent to the same council officer’s single email account?

What else is it important to know if you are representing multiple claimants through a corporate appointeeship service?

I imagine it is going to be very a long time before this affects any existing legacy benefit claimant on ESA support component with no prospects of being fit for work, but is there any information around at this early stage?  Anyone have any experience of appointeeship in the “live service”?

stevenmcavoy
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Welfare rights officer - Enable Scotland

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we are corporate appointee for several people with learning disabilities across scotland.

so far as i am aware we have had no correspondence about uc and the implications for corporate appointee cases. i doubt any policies exist to be honest but i could be wrong.

I could ask this at the customer representative groups that i attend but im sure local authorities would have their own channels to do the same?

by the time they get around to our client group with appointees i would imagine part of uc will have been devolved to the scottish parliament just to add to the complications up here.

Paul_Treloar_CPAG
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Going on current approach to many issues, I personally would be very surprised if this is something that anyone in DWP has done any serious thinking about, in relation to UC.

The only comparison that I could think of was APA’s which requires DWP to undertake mass client volume engagement with single HA’s for example, and reports are generally flagging up some significant teething problems, to be kind.

Can try to enquire through DWP OSEF and see what/if they come back with anything?

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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Thanks very much for the quick replies.

Peter Turville
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Welfare rights worker - Oxford Community Work Agency

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We used to have regular contact with our LA corporate appointee team who (at one stage) probably acted for several K’s of claimants both pension age and working age. You can imagine the number of issues that arose (particularly with working age claimants - learning disabled, mental health conditions etc) with un-notified changes of circumstances (claimant / other agencies / social workers / family acting without appointee team knowledge etc.), overpayments, failure to request supersessions of DLA awards etc.

I would suggest corporate appointees (and DWP) certainly need to consider how the process might work at a practical level (inc. issues like conditionality requirements and communication with DWP) for UC particulary once the digital service is rolled out. This would include how appointeeship for UC would work alongside it for other benefits like DLA/PIP.

Ali P
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Tenancy sustainment - Hillcrest Homes

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We are about to go Full Service in November and I was wondering if there was any update to this regarding appointees etc. The last I am aware of is that UC will still only accept one email address,

thanks Alison

ClairemHodgson
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Solicitor, SC Law, Harrow

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HB Anorak - 21 October 2015 04:51 PM

I imagine it is going to be very a long time before this affects any existing legacy benefit claimant on ESA support component with no prospects of being fit for work,

I think that might be a fond hope, unless this government is ejected .....

one of the many things they haven’t thought about, and ties in to the debate about actual/implicit consent etc that people are struggling with.

I’ve always thought that the DWP are a bit too anally retentive on data protection, to the exclusion of virtually any other consideration….

Rosie W
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Welfare rights service - Northumberland County Council

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We work closely with our LA Deputyship Team who have already started looking at how they will cope with full service, though we don’t get it till July next year for the first 4 JCs and September for the rest.

I’m going to the Association of Public Authority Deputies meeting in Durham this afternoon with the team manager. We’re hoping there will be a number of people there from full service areas who can share their experiences to date. I can feed back if people are interested?

Dave Coughlan
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Benefits adviser - Springfield Psychiatric Hospital, London

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We have aprox. 200 clients under appointeeship with this Trust currently and I was at a Vulnerable People meeting, organized by DWP last week. After numerous requests, over many months, regarding corporate appointees, multiple claims under a single e-mail address etc. etc., they stated they are now looking ‘hard’ at this. (I do wonder if they will ‘see’ anything)

Daphne
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Newcastle and Durham Councils have been raising issues about appointees in full service. We have raised it via stakeholders and there was a person from the appointee section there last meeting but unfortunately he was unable to deal with any of our concerns.

We were told at the last meeting (in September) that there is no process for corporate appointees – if a manual payment is made a reference number goes with it but if it is a digital payment there is no reference with it which creates problems for corporate appointees as they can’t tell who the payment is for. Consequently all having to be done manually at the moment.

And as far as I know they are still requiring separate email addresses.

Not very helpful I’m afraid

stevenmcavoy
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Welfare rights officer - Enable Scotland

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Daphne - 23 October 2017 01:36 PM

Newcastle and Durham Councils have been raising issues about appointees in full service. We have raised it via stakeholders and there was a person from the appointee section there last meeting but unfortunately he was unable to deal with any of our concerns.

We were told at the last meeting (in September) that there is no process for corporate appointees – if a manual payment is made a reference number goes with it but if it is a digital payment there is no reference with it which creates problems for corporate appointees as they can’t tell who the payment is for. Consequently all having to be done manually at the moment.

And as far as I know they are still requiring separate email addresses.

Not very helpful I’m afraid

interesting as the update I got on this suggested most of the appointee issues had been resolved…we don’t have any live service uc claims yet we are appointee for.

Andrew Dutton
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council

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We can’t get any clear answers about this, but the email problem appears to be quiet a serious one.

My suggestion is that the discretion to refuse to accept claims from certain groups (UC Transitional Provisions Reg 4) should be exercised by DWP until they think this through properly.

Ali P
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Tenancy sustainment - Hillcrest Homes

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Hi all

Thanks for your assistance with this, any update as and when people get it would be appreciated.

Thanks Alison

Rosie W
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Welfare rights service - Northumberland County Council

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Issues which came up at the APAD meeting:

A number of people confirmed that a separate email is required for each client and most are going to their IT sections to get them to set these up. All the emails are then redirected into one account so at least they are all in one place. One LA team uses social care ID numbers as user names and has the same security questions for each client (but presumably not the same answers…).

No progress on identifiers for payments into Deputyship accounts though. 

Seem to be different experiences with DWP visiting teams - some are very helpful; one is refusing to visit a client in res care and has suggested the support worker undertakes the verification process instead.. Also problems with the ID requirements as few clients have passports, driving licences etc. In some areas JC seem to have an expectation there will be a “support worker” to take clients to interviews.

One team mentioned difficulty with a person already on UC moving into their area, they became appointee but UC won’t allow any change to log in details already set up by the client before they were on appointeeship.

In one area an overpayment had been sent to a commercial debt collection company.

Usual problems reporting things via the journal which are then ignored or disappear.