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Wolverhampton mail handling
From past contact with DWP officials responsible for this latest fiasco by the high performing organisation, I think that it’s a combination of scanned documents getting lost in cyberspace and also being misdirected (and DWP staff not having the gumption or caring enough to forward on to the right office) rather than post deliberately going straight into the shredder (though we know that also happens).
Some of this is resources but a lot of it comes across as DWP employing incredibly stupid people who don’t give a funk about claimants. Indeed, some have such sad lives they revel in being difficult.
[ Edited: 1 Aug 2016 at 03:28 pm by neilbateman ]One of the significant problems of having a mail (do you think they mean “post” or is it really in the USA?) handling centre is that the mere fact of its creation removes essential knowledge.
IS 10s are a fine example. An IS 10 is absolutely the correct document to trigger means-tested ESA but who would know that at Wolverhampton if the bare form is received without further instruction? Not unnaturally they’ll be forwarded to IS teams who think “Nope, not us!” and who have no obligation (in practical not moral terms) to redirect said post. That’s but one example.
My brain has now moved on to the idea of creating a Pokemon Go app for DWP staff which features scanned post rather than small colourful things. This would simultaneously find post mislaid after scanning and allow for the less bright staff to have the kind of “hilarious” incidents being described every day in the meejah.
I’ve found in 90% of cases when the contact centre tell me that post hasn’t been received and I request a call back, I get a phone call from the benefit office saying “We’ve found it now.”
Appreciating the humour - but this is OUTRAGEOUS. This is only one of a thousand problems with DWP administration but the bottom line is it is now almost impossible to communicate with the JCP at all on behalf of our clients.
By phone we have to go via a call centre (15 - 20 minutes plus listening to the same part of Vivaldi) and depend on the ‘call back’ . This may or may not come anytime in 3 hours - as if we have nothing else to do except sit by the phone. I am also finding that they often insist on arranging the ‘call back’ to the client which is not helpful.
What is even worse is that this is what was predicted when the idea of the mail handing site came up and we were assured it would not be the case.
Frustrating is not the word. This should be unacceptable.
Ash. Are you on the mailing list for escalation contacts? Might save you the Vivaldi
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/9756/
I do see this kind of thing as part of an agenda to remove advice work as a profession. Started with ex WROs progressing in the LGA and making the point that you shouldn’t need advice or representation if things are done right first time but has ended with shutting down of advice and active exclusion from many processes. It also feeds into benefit “simplification” etc.
I must say that switching to another part of the Vivaldi makes no difference whatsoever though. There is a whole campaign to be run around the idea that if you need to be on hold long enough for holding music then you are simply under resourced for the task at hand.
Agreed. The whole Wolverhampton process is designed to slow down communication, and the last few years have seen funding for advice work pared back relentlessly. Despite the demand for our services, very few organisations now have the funding to provide an advice service, and the relentless anti-welfare propaganda means few organisations now have the will to provide an advice service either.
It’s quite deliberate I think. Why be accountable if it serves your purpose not to be? After all, the difficulties faced by benefit claimants is never going to be a vote winner. Makes me very, very angry indeed.
Different subject but this won’t improve your mood any 1964…
I’d say thanks for sharing Billy, but….
If you search for most of the Mail Handling post codes on google, it says they don’t exist.
However, search for WV99 1BY (DLA for children) and you find this https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Telford+WV99+1BY/@52.6713197,-2.4208087,276m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48707ff118f5e451:0xe9331f17aef90ee1!8m2!3d52.6713555!4d-2.4202723
Telford Compressed Air Services??? #raiseseyebrow
Coming to this late in the day as been on leave but I’m sure they told as at stakeholders that the sorting sites aren’t in Wolverhampton at all but Kidderminster and Telford - at one point we were offered a visit there but it never materialised - I was keen to go…
If you search for most of the Mail Handling post codes on google, it says they don’t exist.
However, search for WV99 1BY (DLA for children) and you find this https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Telford+WV99+1BY/@52.6713197,-2.4208087,276m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48707ff118f5e451:0xe9331f17aef90ee1!8m2!3d52.6713555!4d-2.4202723
Telford Compressed Air Services??? #raiseseyebrow
Coming to this late in the day as been on leave but I’m sure they told as at stakeholders that the sorting sites aren’t in Wolverhampton at all but Kidderminster and Telford - at one point we were offered a visit there but it never materialised - I was keen to go…
Oh, where to start. The phrase “it never materialised” perhaps. The concept of Telford being near Wolverhampton? Eek.
I once visited Sutton (in the days when DLA claims were dealt with there as well as Blackpool). All I remember is being shown around by a rather bossy adjudiction officer (as they were called in those days) who I later enountered as a PO at a series of tribunals.
I liked the term ‘adjuctation officer’ much more than ‘decision maker’ because clients came out with the most wonderful malapropisms when trying to pronounce it. My two favorites were ‘aggitation officer’ and (inevitably) ‘ejeculation officer’.