I’ve failed security

4 times!

I know. What a spoiler for a Friday afternoon… I can almost feel the groans emanating over the interwebs.

Anyway, down to business, when a DLA claim is suspended due to long term hospital admission, then for security purposes at JCP is someone receiving the benefit or not?

It doesn’t help that the person concerned has claimed from at least 11 different addresses in the last couple of years hence I don’t know what address is attached to the IB migration file, nor that the automata on the migration team have been trained to think very firmly inside their little box. “The computer says ‘no’... “

However, frustrations aside, what about the DLA then? Any ideas?

and while I’m at it any idea how I can get a consent form to the migration team so I don’t have to go through the confounded security process?

The case I have in mind is about to have the rule book torn up for the sake of getting the person concerned some money (there are still humans inside JCP!)and I am extremely grateful to my collaborators, however if I can manage to get a legit ESA claim into payment that’s not quite so fragile that’s the way I’d prefer to go… That will depend on passing security but there are at least 22 different permutations of DLA/address and I gave up after 4!

If you know the client’s current residential postcode, I would suggest ringing the DLA dedicated adviser enquiry line and requesting a fax number for the relevant section. When I have called I have often found them most helpful.

Ps I don’t think they are receiving it, they have an entitlement to, but are not in receipt of the awarded components.

Cheers

Sady it was ESA who were assessing security; DLA are usually very helpful; ESA less so, especially the migration team.

I know what you mean about “receiving” but does CIS just show the award rather than the payment?

CIS shows the award, In the past I have just said they are entitled to the DLA

Have I misread this? Security should not be an issue. Security questions should not be asked of advisers. It’s the implicit consent questions which should be asked of advisers. Huge difference.

I posted a reply yesterday but it seems to have disappeared into ethernet hell.

Anyway, yes, they have extended security questions across an increasing number of benefits but that’s to be expected and is more to do with anti-fraud measures when contacted by third parties who are not obviously claimants or reps. as we would know the term. However, the extension of security questions should not be confused with the continuing applicability of the working with reps. guidance and the concept of implicit consent. Nothing has changed there.

This continues to be a problem because of the natural turnover of staff within call centres exacerbated by the periodic and sometimes continuous use of external organisations to provide telephony when they don’t have full access to relevant IT systems themselves.

So, how to get around this?

- on a practical level, sometimes you just have to be calm and put the phone down and start again. Although it’s rude it’s probably a good idea to not give warning of this as at their end other people will have heard the conversation if it escalates and colleagues in the immediate area will be ready for another call along the same lines. If they think the phone just cut out then the next call is often not an issue although your mileage may vary. Certainly my staff reported this as the most practical solution most of the time.

- engage in liaison whenever and wherever you can. Talk about implicit consent and offer to do some training for them on what we do. It always surprises me how little we understand about how little they understand about what we do and why, for example, we simply wouldn’t normally know when the claimant married.

This certainly had an impact at Warrington Pension Centre. Take paper copies of the working with reps. document. One problem they have is that they often can’t access the internet to get at their own guidance. Yes, I know that sounds bizarre but reality is almost always stranger than fiction when it comes to things like this.

- do not let the person you’re talking to get as far as the security questions. Anticipate and intercept. It is true that once they have entered the security dialogue there are issues with them backing out and going down the implicit consent route. From the outside and to their managers it looks like they’ve tried to circumvent rather than recognised an error in the route they’ve taken.

- ask for escalation to a team leader. If the team leader doesn’t recognise implicit consent as the correct route, and many won’t, then get a name and lodge a complaint. Complaints about telephony staff can be dismissed. Complaints about managers/supervisors register on the Richter scale of “things I was doing cos everyone else was and I didn’t know I was wrong”. Always works and often reveals some interesting tensions and offers solutions e.g. we once identified a specific team leader who simply refused to acknowledge that implicit consent was an option. We got a name and it kept on coming up. We compiled half a dozen complaints with named officer and clients. We lodged complaints but then we sent them to the person organising our next liaison meeting. The person complained about would have been at that. Instant incentive to start conversations. Matter resolved :)