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Appointess - Implicit consent for reps
Dealing with appeal for client who is appointee for her daughter. DWP would not speak to me today, started call with implied consent no problem but after going to check with superviser as unable to answer question came back to say they could not speak to me as I was acting for appointee not client.
I contacted our Partnership Liason manager who phoned me back to say this was correct. The guidance states they cannot talk to reps for appointees - only for ‘customers’ .
Her take on it was that if an appointee needs a third party to act on their behalf it brings into question their suitability as an appointee!! I did point out that appointee had already called them (but did not resolve the matter) and written (but not received a response) and that was why she had asked us to contact them…
I have looked at the guidance from previous post but cannot see anything specific about reps of appointees only that implicit consent should be used for reps or appointees. Has anyone taken this further or is there other guidance we are not aware of?
Oh for Heavens Sake…
I don’t have a copy of the ‘dealing with customer representatives’ policy to hand but I’m pretty certain there’s nothing in there to that effect. I’ve certainly never encountered a problem when liaising with DWP on behalf of appointee. I think they’re making it up as they go along. Try ringing again and speaking to someone else.
Working with representatives: guidance for DWP staff
Have a read of this, the person you spoke to is talking arrant nonsense, unfortunately you do come across telephone contact staff fairly regularly who don’t understand their own guidance. Ask for name and contact centre location and call back to lodge a complaint, it usually helps to resolve such blockages.
we, as an organisation, are appointee for some clients. when I have called the dwp re these claims I have had to go through implicit consent as trying the appointee route brings questions I cant answer such as ones about bank accounts etc (I have no reason to know this).
surprisingly I haven’t yet been asked why I am calling from the appointee organisation yet using implicit consent.
I do wish DWP would train their call handlers to even a basic level of competence. Today I had one of them who did not understand the difference between a representative and an appointee. Took several minutes to explain and one should not be having to do so.
My favorite of all time was the call where the call handler insisted that implicit consent only applied if the claimant was present to give verbal permission. I loved that.
I do wish DWP would train their call handlers to even a basic level of competence. Today I had one of them who did not understand the difference between a representative and an appointee. Took several minutes to explain and one should not be having to do so.
Makes a change from having to explain the basic rules for the benefit at issue!
I also had to explain what a MR was!
I did call back and make complaint (partly because the person I was insisting on a call back with hung up on me!) The person who took the complaint was pleasant but very sure that their guidance had been followed correctly.
After looking at the guidance I have again written to our Liaison manager at DWP, will be interesting to see what her response is.
If we didn’t spend so much time and energy dealing with all this I could see twice as many clients I’m sure!
What was the question? One of the most frequent issues is simply that when you’re the rep. of an appointee you get asked security questions rather than implied consent questions.