Journal entries not necessarily accurate

Hi all

I’ve just spotted something I thought worth flagging up.

We’re setting up a few UC claims for people under our appointeeship and in once case I’m dealing with currently we’ve had a couple of messages from teh case manager but they appear on the journal as though we’ve put them up there; they’ve got the claimant’s name next to them…

These entries might well end up before Tribunals going forward so best bear in mind their ID might not be entirely accurate.

Don’t forget that they log the IP address of each entry so if there’s a problem a Right of Access request for that log will sort it out.

FOI request that gives information about when DWP might delete entries from a journal -

There is a risk that deleting journal messages which contain attachments could destroy necessary audit trails in the event that the Department is ever legally challenged.

Messages can only be deleted by staff within 30 days of them being created. It is therefore essential to check that messages, especially those with attachments are correct at the time they are created. If errors are noticed, the message should be deleted straightaway.

Claimants are often confused when messages they have previously seen suddenly disappear without any explanation. Therefore, if messages are deleted remember to add a brief explanation so the claimant is aware of what has happened.

The information below and on the next slide gives circumstances when journal entries can and cannot be deleted.
Best practice when deleting journal entries

The following is good practice to avoid causing the claimant confusion:

- if journal entries are deleted and replaced with a corrected version, the box to notify the claimant of the new journal entry by text or e-mail should be unchecked. The claimant then receives just one text or e-mail informing them of a journal entry. Provided the mistake is rectified quickly, this reduces the risk of the claimant noticing a change in their journal entries
- where journal entries are deleted and not replaced, a note for the claimant explaining the deletion could avoid confusion