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Corporate appointees - BBC reporter researching issue
Dear All
A BBC reporter is researching the difficulties of corporate bodies applying for appointee status in order to make a claim for UC, making a claim when already appointee and maintaining UC claims.
I have worked with Carolyn on benefit issues on a number of occassions.
She would welcome your / your organisations experiences - contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Dear All
A BBC reporter is researching the difficulties of corporate bodies applying for appointee status in order to make a claim for UC, making a claim when already appointee and maintaining UC claims.
I have worked with Carolyn on benefit issues on a number of occassions.
She would welcome your / your organisations experiences - contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Due to a senior moment I posted the wrong email address (thanks Andrew for spotting this).
correct email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
She is still very interested in the issue and would like some case studies and if possible a corporate appointee willing to be interviewed (radio) about their experience.
Has anyone else had problems with this? Our LA Financial Protection Team has just had to make the first claim for UC in Full Service after a client was released from prison. They were already corporate appointee as he received ESA and PIP (and I think the PIP remained in payment as the period in prison was so short), but UC would not deal with them over the phone to arrange a ID verification interview without him actually being present at the time of the call (although they said they accepted that our caller was LA appointee).
Have other corporate appointees made opened email accounts for their UC clients or found some other solution?
Has anyone come across other problems or solutions that may be useful for us here?
We have issues with UC claims because we cannot generate the unique email address. IT wont allow us to do this. When we query this with the DWP we get no response or told Somerset are managing to do it. Unfortunately Somerset are not sharing the information of how they are getting around this issue. Other corporate appointees have stated that they are expected to attend meetings at the JCP which in a county council could mean travelling up to 60 miles to attend with the claimant.
I maintain that this is a problem of such gravity that DWP should apply their discretion under Reg 4 UC (Transitional Provisions) Regs 2014 to refuse a UC claim and accept a legacy benefit claim until a solution is found.
In each case I have suggested this, DWP has either simply not replied to me, or refused the request because it is for ‘an individual’.
The Reg does refer to ‘categories’ of person - this seems a fairly well-defined ‘category’ of person.
Any use trying JR on the grounds that DWP is refusing to exercise/fettering its discretion?
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is still interested in the issue. However it would require corporate appointees to break with their apparent reluctance to discuss the issue with anyone other than the DWP to move it forward and break the policy impass via media attention, JR etc.
carolyn.anderson@bbc.co.uk is still interested in the issue. However it would require corporate appointees to break with their apparent reluctance to discuss the issue with anyone other than the DWP to move it forward and break the polict impass via media attention, JR etc.
I agree.
I will raise this again with our powers that be. We have been trying to get answers from DWP since about 2015, but we get nothing.
The interesting thing is that it is going to cost LAs money - ours is already having to pay the costs of people who are caught in this trap, as they have no benefit claims because they are in limbo until the problems are resolved, and DWP will not agree to use Reg 4.
If you detect frustration in this post*, well…...yes.
(*Ok, and in others)
The reporter might want to consider contacting the Association for Public Appointed Deputies (APAD) they are representative of the national corporate appointees and may be more willing as an association to explain the difficulties being felt by local authorities.