Reporting the death of your partner

We have started to get claims where this is necessary because we have full service here.  Basically the change of circs screens do not have this as an option - you have to report that your relationship has ended instead.  As you can imagine this has caused some upset.  Especially as they then contact the dead partner to confirm they have left.

ASH - 23 November 2016 12:25 PM

We have started to get claims where this is necessary because we have full service here.  Basically the change of circs screens do not have this as an option - you have to report that your relationship has ended instead.  As you can imagine this has caused some upset.  Especially as they then contact the dead partner to confirm they have left.

another “there are no words” moment….

it’s not rocket science, is it?

Another one I will feed back to our UC contact through operational stakeholders…will let you know when I hear anything back…

ASH - 23 November 2016 12:25 PM

We have started to get claims where this is necessary because we have full service here.  Basically the change of circs screens do not have this as an option - you have to report that your relationship has ended instead.  As you can imagine this has caused some upset.  Especially as they then contact the dead partner to confirm they have left.

If you can’t report the death, then how do you get the 2 month run on?

1) I’m sure I have memory of being at a DWP OSEF meeting where this was raised previously but I can’t find any notes to that effect.

2) Can’t you use the Tell Us Once service who should be able to take care of notifying all relevant bodies?

The surviving partner is usually very anxious to ensure they have continuing benefit without fear of an overpayment and usually wants to sort this out immediately - not wait for Tell Us Once to sort.  But also -not everywhere has Tell Us Once and only one of the full service areas in our patch has.

We have not had any experience yet of whether the Tell us Once route works or how.  It does make me wonder what sort of message will be put on the journal.  I expect we find out sooner or later.  Going on the hash-ups so far I am rather apprehensive.

This is the response I have had via operational stakeholders -

Reporting the death of a partner has not been automated yet.  If a claimant tries to do it online, the service tells the claimant to telephone (as it does for all changes that are not automated) and the agent then takes the details over the phone.

Let me know if you want me to go back with any further response

Any news on whether the online journal allows reporting of the death of a partner yet?

I’ll chase it up…

response from UC -

It’s not automated yet and is not currently in the backlog. So will still be the phone I am afraid for come considerable time.

We leave the claimants joined together for the 3 month run on and then manually separate the claims apart afterwards.

Nice one Daphne, thanks for prompt response.

Daphne - 20 June 2017 12:22 PM

and is not currently in the backlog.

Do you know what that means?

I kind of think that’s the list of stuff they’re planning to do and this hasn’t even made it in there which is while it won’t change for a while.