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New consent issues?
I’ve twice this morning been told that call handlers can’t speak to me with an explicit consent entry on the journal.
The first told me there’d been a policy change in May.
Have I missed something?
I’ve not heard anything - be interested if anyone else has experienced similar and I will email DWP - if it’s just you Dan do you know which service centre it i? And let me know if you get any more
I’ve not heard anything - be interested if anyone else has experienced similar and I will email DWP - if it’s just you Dan do you know which service centre it i? And let me know if you get any more
Thanks Daphne
I’m not getting through to service centres, it’s call handlers taking calls at home.
I’ve just managed to discuss on another case and the handler was sat in a really echoey room, with their speaker phone on, and was barely intelligible due to the poor placement of her phone in the room; at one point her landline rang and completely drowned her out! It’s almost beyond laughable, but at least she answered my query!
I’d complain about the first call, particulary, but there’s no realistic way of identifying the call handlers; they’re working from home (clearly!) won’t give any real identifiers out other than a first name.
I know the system’s been shocked recently but this is either carte blanche for the automata to run roughshod over any realconsent process with reps, or there’s some very dubious training of new staff out there.
Harumph!
Update
I’ve just been told by one of their operators that the “helpdesk” that call handlers call for advice is instructing call handlers that they can’t speak to third parties unless the claimant is in the room with them. Conference calls are not possible according to the adviser, Caitlin, I’ve just spoken to who was very helpful once she realised I wasn;t going to bite her head off.
We have noticed a lot of this in recent weeks and suspect it’s the contracted out staff. On a recent call where I pointed to this guidance ->
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-consent-and-disclosure-of-information
and said why can’t you take the journal explicit note? the call handler said she was working ‘on behalf of the DWP’.
We think that non-DWP staff may not have been trained that they can access the claim using biographical information - DOB, Post code - and not only the 2 security answers (which we don’t ever hold).
We have raised with the local partnership manager.
We now mostly have been given smart ohones for work, so this gives us the possiblity of dialing the client in on a conferene call to give their consent ‘live’ (if they are available/no language barrier).
Thanks for that - I’ve sent an email up via the stakeholder forum too…
We have noticed a lot of this in recent weeks and suspect it’s the contracted out staff. On a recent call where I pointed to this guidance ->
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-consent-and-disclosure-of-information
and said why can’t you take the journal explicit note? the call handler said she was working ‘on behalf of the DWP’.We think that non-DWP staff may not have been trained that they can access the claim using biographical information - DOB, Post code - and not only the 2 security answers (which we don’t ever hold).
We have raised with the local partnership manager.
We now mostly have been given smart ohones for work, so this gives us the possiblity of dialing the client in on a conferene call to give their consent ‘live’ (if they are available/no language barrier).
Just though I’d let you know that the only mobile operator in the UK that allegedly supports what is called Call Merge is Three. It is a real nuisance because lots of smart phones support it but the phone companies don’t (EE, Vodafone, O2). You could try two phones both on speaker.
That’s odd b/c our work phones are on Vodaphone and have definitely done merge call a few times now!
That’s odd b/c our work phones are on Vodaphone and have definitely done merge call a few times now!
They all support merge but in any event it’s possible to use various apps to support the functionality required. I’ve done audio conference calls on Teams, Zoom, Cisco Jabber etc.
I had a reply via stakeholder forum - I’d sent them a link to the thread -
Thanks for sight of the thread.
I’ve been in touch with telephony colleagues who thank you for the feedback, confirm we continually look for improvement opportunities, and will use this feedback to ensure all our agents are applying guidance correctly.
Let me know if you continue to have problems - if you could give me any detail like time and date, name of call handler etc then I will continue to feed it back
The Workplace forum for Help to Claim advisers is choc full of issues related to inconsistent and mixed messages from UC helpline call handlers regarding consent etc. Many of them have been thrown into a deep end with barely any training,
The best advice is to say good bye and re- dial until you hit a more experienced person.
There has been no change to consent and information sharing guidance.
The Workplace forum for Help to Claim advisers is choc full of issues related to inconsistent and mixed messages from UC helpline call handlers regarding consent etc. Many of them have been thrown into a deep end with barely any training,
The best advice is to say good bye and re- dial until you hit a more experienced person.
There has been no change to consent and information sharing guidance.
So no change and no lessons learned from the introduction of the Pension Service then where the same tactic continues to be needed to this day.
Some Couling bloke had some involvement there too.
The best advice is to say good bye and re- dial until you hit a more experienced person.
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Exactly what I was doing last week, but it’s difficult explaining that tactic to someone with language & learning difficulties who’s sat penniless in a B&B. :-/
I’ve certainly found some DWP call handlers open to 3 and 4 way calls - although they keep changing their mind about whether or not they need to phone in an interpreter if one is required (which I’m happy for them to do as we’ve spent a fortune on interpreters in one case so far) or whether they’re happy for us to provide one.
In order to minimise the wait times for claimants as much as possible, I’ve mostly arranged a time when the claimant will be available to take a call and have phoned DWP first, advised the call handler that I wish to add the claimant into the call and on most occasions that has worked fine. This means that only I need to do the waiting time (and can get on with other things while waiting for the call to be answered)
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We’re definitely getting intermittent push back with conference calls which is how we do most of our discussion with DWP. One today said they couldn’t pass us to the supervisor due to social distancing, but would only speak to us if we and the client were in the same room :)
So far we’ve just been hanging up and trying again but escalating it again as an issue would be helpful!
We’re definitely getting intermittent push back with conference calls which is how we do most of our discussion with DWP. One today said they couldn’t pass us to the supervisor due to social distancing, but would only speak to us if we and the client were in the same room :)
So far we’ve just been hanging up and trying again but escalating it again as an issue would be helpful!
I am sure they are running a contest to see who can gain notoriety on rightsnet for the most preposterous utterance.
Anyway I’ve taken to keeping schtum about the fact that I am on a conference call as it seems to confuse the little darlings on the other end of the line
Yes .. one of my colleagues has experienced this with Walsall Service Centre. She tried on more than one occasion but got same answer each time. I have now escalated this to Partnership team, and am waiting for a response.
Yup - just been told today by PIP they “can’t accept conference calls” but then went through implicit consent (+ written consent on file) so could continue call.
Also been told a couple of weeks back by UC that they won’t accept conference calls, that was the second call to UC in the space of a day with the same client, previous call with same client went via a conference call no problem!
Well I’m sorry, but due to a certain global pandemic that’s still very much going on, neither my employer’s risk assessment nor my client’s health conditions make it safe for me to visit them in person at the current time. Have they heard of CV19? What, exactly, is the issue with conference calls?
Why do you need to tell them it’s a conference call?
I think when I’ve been asked “Is the claimant with you?” I’ve answered “they’re on the line” thus giving the game away.
I suppose they are ‘with me’ on the phone call though so perhaps Yes would be a better anwer!
I simply reply that they are “with me”. They are on the phone with me.
Whole thing is a nonsense. If you said that the client was with you in the room how would they know any different?
It reminds me of when they used to ask you to ask the client to press the # key to confirm that they were deaf…
My work phone is on EE and won’t do conference calls, only group calls that involves a system that won’t work for contacting DWP. Can anyone suggest anything else that I can use so that I can be on the same line as the client when speaking to PIP, ESA, UC, etc., whilst we are not able to offer face to face appointments?
My work phone is on EE and won’t do conference calls, only group calls that involves a system that won’t work for contacting DWP. Can anyone suggest anything else that I can use so that I can be on the same line as the client when speaking to PIP, ESA, UC, etc., whilst we are not able to offer face to face appointments?
Cisco Jabber. We use it on our work laptops. Call the client and then add the DWP. Painless and also hands free cos you’re on a computer.
Thanks Mike. I will look into that properly when I can find someone to translate its endless pages of IT drivel into English for me…
a single client for your laptop or desktop
enhance productivity by integrating presence
soft-phone features
Use real-time presence information
etc.
Eh?
It’s a software phone i.e. an icon on your desktop. When it rings you answer it with a click of the green button like you would with a smartphone. You can talk into the mike on your PC/laptop and listen via speakers or headphones/a headset. Effectively you are hands free. Mine is connected to my office landline so when that rings I can pick it up despite working from home several miles away. It has its foibles like everything so, for example, it shows missed calls but doesn’t show when a missed call then turns into a voicemail. I have to dial into voicemail to see if I have any. On the other hand, used with Office 365 it can be configured so those voicemails drop into your Inbox as sound files. That works as an alert.
It also allows me to switch between my office landline and a hunt group i.e. a group of phone which ring in turn until the next person available answers. Our Admin/Support team have a small hunt group and when they need some cover I will happily step in and pick up calls and voicemails and calls. All of us continue to work from home.
Easy enough to add callers for conference calls but I think it requires implementation at a corporate organisational level rather than one individual signing up. Requires a VPN connection (at least it does within our organisation).
If anything requires further translation by all means yell out.
Thank you for taking the time to explain Mike, much appreciated.
Hmm. For the job I was primarily thinking of using it for (not the Brunswick Centre) I am at the relatively enlightened end of the technology spectrum. I think that if I started mentioning terms like hunt groups and hidden voice messages I would be summarily ejected from the Zoom meeting with no further recourse…
Hi,
I phoned UC this morning with my client on a conference call and UC said they wouldn’t speak to us unless the client was in the same room as me. He went away twice to ask superiors and said he wasn’t able to transfer calls so I couldn’t speak to them direct. My client coughed throughout the call.
I have been helping mixed age couples to make the UC claims during lockdown, the things that have gone wrong with these calls are astonishing, there is no way we can make sure they have any money past the state pension date unless we can make telephone claims for UC on a conference call. It is completely impossible for a usual person of any age to understand the mixed age couple rules and how to claim UC and then with UC also making errors I am going to have a lot of hungry pensioners.
This particular couple had made the claim with the help of their grandson months before their pension date after a call from one of my colleagues that they misunderstood. They had just made a single person claim and said they had no housing costs ! The journal can’t be written on and we can’t see the home page to notify a change, the husband just had a corona virus test and is in bed ill and the wife was on the line with me coughing !! There was literally no way to solve the problems but they wouldn’t speak to me.
The only thing I could get was a promise to ring the claimant but she can’t read and doesn’t know what is going on really with it all (understandably).
Is it just a mistake when they say that and do they actually have to accept the calls really?
we have had this issue again today - with an advisor refusing to speak to my colleague even with explicit consent on the JNL. She said she couldnt even check for consent unless my colleague could supply the answers to the memorable information, and wouldnt do a conference call so that she could get this information (as we dont store this information)
In the case I referred to previously in this thread I just kept sending emails to the escalation points outlining my difficulties and asking them what I could do to resolve matters. I now have several direct line numbers for DWP officers and after a lot of involvement from them we’re almost sorted (claimants have recently received £000s in backdated UC due.
I’ve also submitted a detailed complaint about my case and am waiting for a reply to that.
Thanks Mairi - just had a call from partnership manager who is also going to raise this nationally (so frustrating though)