Calling all Corporate Appointees

Dear All

I manage a small Welfare Rights Team for an independent care provider, we care for extremely vulnerable adults.  We are also a large registered Corporate Appointee and deal with probably most BDCs and Pension Services in the country.

Virtually everyday we are subjected to obstructive and extremely rude Telephone Staff at the various BDCs, this seems to be especially dealing with ESA Telephone Operatives. 

I would like to say that this only applies to ESA but yesterday one of my team was told by a so called Telephone Section Operative for Incapacity Benefit ‘To stop watching TV and to do his job’, totally uncalled for and has really upset my team member, as throughout the conversation he remained calm and professional. 

We have made various complaints to Darra Singh but nothing seems to be happening.  I am sure that we are not the only Corporate Appointee that faces this appalling level of Customer Service only a daily basis and quite frankly we have come to the end of our tether.

I am therefore planning for us Corporate Appointees or anyone else that cares to join us, to get together and ask for us to meet with Darra Singh and Terry Moran so that we can collectively have a voice about the poor level of service that their Departments offer.

Please feel free to email me .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with your experiences and whether you are willing to offer your support on this matter.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I was a bit confused by the bit where it said the “Telephone Section Operative for Incapacity Benefit ‘To stop watching TV and to do his job’ “

Was he watching TV?

No the Operative told a member of my staff to stop watching TV! Totally uncalled for! I have been told that this Operative has now been taken off the Telephone Section and will be going on a 6 week Customer Service training course.

I’m still confused.  Was anyone watching TV?

Are TV the initials of someone?

Like Terry Venables?

That’s a very good point Joanna.  Knowledge and the confidence to be persistent are products of experience and are not personal characteristics.  It also helps if you get through to someone who has a smattering of what public service is actually about and whose default position is to be a help rather than a hindrance.  Yesterday was a perfect example. 

I had to ring one of the BDC’s on an ESA appeal I was repping on and had previously sent a signed FOA to.  The person I spoke to was pleasant and polite but couldn’t locate me as recorded on the system (a perennial problem of the appeals section not logging reps details on to the IT system – but that’s another story).  I know they had received my letter because they had replied to it.  He therefore told me that he couldn’t give me the info I required but would arrange a call back within 3 hours. 

As I was about to knock off for the day I drew his attention to the doctrine of implied consent and mentioned that the DWP had written guidance on it.  He said that he had never heard of the doctrine and repeated the offer of a call back.  I politely asked him if there was a line manager on the floor and if so could he give her a shout and ask her.  To his credit he did and came back a few minutes later and after a few security questions gave me the info I was after.  I thanked him and came away hopeful that he would have met the next caller better informed.  Actually, I’m thinking of billing the DWP a training invoice – only joking).

However, I soon came crashing down to earth when I remembered that all my knowledge and persistence would have cut no ice whatsoever with the rude woman my colleague had spoken to earlier in the day who said she couldn’t (wouldn’t ?) even talk to the appeal section.  My colleague’s sarcasm to her would have been withering if she had had the intelligence to recognize it.  And this is the problem.  It is not the competence of the adviser calling them but the complete shambolic state of affairs within the Department that determines the level of service we receive.

“... the complete shambolic state of affairs within the Department that determines the level of service we receive. “

I believe they speak highly of our services too.