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Carers Allowance - Not accepting Implicit Consent/Alternative Enquiry
I have begun to have a huge issue with trying to speak to Carers Allowance, without the client present on the call or without them having a written authorisation on file.
This only really begun being a problem for me last week, and in total I have made 3 calls to Carers Allowance where they have refused to speak to me at all.
1st) Was on the 11st October - the call handler even went off to speak to their manager twice and each time came back and said that they still couldn’t discuss the case. As it was extremely urgent, I did try and get the client merged in, and was successful.
2) On the 13th October, I called them and again was told that they couldn’t discuss anything to do with the claim. I told them about implicit consent, and they went off to their manager, and came back again saying they couldn’t speak to me. As I was quite frustrated, I decided to go through the Working with Representative DWP guidance - after reading some of this out, they went back to their manager and then did finally allow me to discuss my clients claim.
3)Yesterday was the most infuriating (20th October), the call handler wouldn’t even ask their manager about implicit consent. I explained that this is something that I have been doing for years and has never been a problem, and advised them to double check with their manager - she said “I have been full trained and know that I am unable to speak to you because of GDPR”. I then again, decided to read out the guidance, and read the whole of the “Alternative Enquiry” section. They still refused to speak to me or even discuss with their manager, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. They said they wouldn’t allow me to, as I wasn’t a claimant, but a 3rd party. I did manager to get their name, but they refused to tell me the service centre that they worked at.
I would be interested if others are having similar experiences, and what we can do to resolve this!!!
That is my moan over!!!!
Our advisers have reported similar experiences with the AA Unit for past few weeks.
Two members of staff including a superviser at the pension service have recently told me that the pension service ‘doesn’t do’ implied consent.
This might be true though as they don’t seem to ‘do’ anything at the moment.
Two members of staff including a superviser at the pension service have recently told me that the pension service ‘doesn’t do’ implied consent.
This might be true though as they don’t seem to ‘do’ anything at the moment.
Pension Service hasn’t done implicit consent for years. At Warrington we used to have regular liaison and managed to narrow it down to one team leader. Stockport even did training on implicit consent with them for a period but it ebbs and flows though.
Carers Allowance are my new favourite part of the mess. We’ve been having lots of issues for a while now. As best I can tell they have outsourced their telephony and… well you know the rest.
Opposite end of the spectrum. This morning I ring up to order a DLA form for a child. Took 6 minutes from calling to getting out of the call and in that time I was asked 3 times whether I wanted a large print form. The word “Yes” simply did not compute. Totally expecting a bog standard form to arrive at the clients home next week.