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UC digital system
Just for interest - here are some notes I made when we had a play on the digital system at operational stakeholders (unfortunately no dummy version for people to have a go on - they just bought ipads to the session) -
You have to give yourself a username and password and choose 2 security questions (things like first pet etc). If you have a partner you get given a partner code and they must use that to register - they will need their own username etc but it will log into the same account. Once you start the registration process you have 7 days to go back to it without what you have done being lost. Once you have registered you have a month to finish the claim and keep the claim date.
The new service does save everything up to where you stop - and when you go back on it will pick up where you were.
There is no post in the digital service!!! You choose your favoured method of contact - SMS or email. On your account there is a ‘to do’ list - showing what needs to be done - everytime something is added you will get a notification by your preferred method prompting you to go and look at it. When you have completed the action it shows as completed in your ‘journal’. The journal and to do list are on the same page and seem pretty straightforward to read. There is a notes box where you can put any queries/problems and you can mark it that it gets alerted to an adviser eg so you might put why you were unable to complete an action.
At the end of the claim you have to confirm details correct and also agree a claimant commitment - I didn’t get this far but we asked about it and apparently it is just a skeleton agreement - doesn’t set out any of the details of what you need to do - that is completed at your first jobcentre interview.
Under the new digital service changes of circumstances are reported on line - it will be logged in your journal what you have done so you can check it has been registered.
What will happen to UC digital claimants who don’t have, or cannot use, email or SMS as the means of contact, or are unlikely (for example due to learning disability, mental health condition) to respond to such contact? We regularly see clients who do not open their mail.
Is any alternative provision being made. If not where do DWP expect such claimants to get support for the duration of their claim (retorical question I know)?
Do any advisers have experience yet of accessing decision notices etc for clients on the digital service - is it straight forward to ‘work out’ what’s going on with a claim /award from the claim info. on-line?
Computer Weekly reporting on evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee on delivering Major Projects - John Manzoni (civil service chief exec) asked about three ‘troubled projects’ - including surprise, surprise UC - says -
‘What’s interesting is if you think about those three projects, which have fallen into some difficulty, they happened right at the moment that we were learning – and everybody was learning, not just government – about how digital technologies could be applied to big business processes…That gated process that was hitherto best practice in major projects across the private and public sector – we said [instead] we were agile now, not waterfall. And we overcompensated and misunderstood that process. Now we know no project is either waterfall or agile; it’s a good mixture of both. Those three [projects] were right at the moment everybody was learning that, and it in part explains. We’re beginning to learn about minimum viable products, and doing things in a more agile way: create a minimum viable product, do it simply, we don’t [have to] know the end state. There is a change happening and it’s to do with that technological change that’s going on.’
(Hope you understood all that!)
Tony Meggs, chief exec of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (replaced Major Projects Authority) said -
‘The digital business of government is massively focused on understanding and enhancing interaction with the public. Along with that are iterative or agile processes that allow you to get feedback as you go. Universal Credit is now in a place where they are very nimbly adapting as they get continuous feedback from public. It’s not perfect and we have a way to go and we make mistakes, but I do think there is a much higher level of awareness’
A storm of words; information content almost nil.
So they are cocking it up - but ‘nimbly’ and in an ‘agile’ (shudder) way.
Pass the bucket….
(and just don’t get my OH started on ‘Agile’. It does things to his BP).
‘…………That gated process that was hitherto best practice in major projects across the private and public sector – we said [instead] we were agile now, not waterfall. And we overcompensated and misunderstood that process. Now we know no project is either waterfall or agile; it’s a good mixture of both. Those three [projects] were right at the moment everybody was learning that, and it in part explains. We’re beginning to learn about minimum viable products, and doing things in a more agile way: create a minimum viable product, do it simply, we don’t [have to] know the end state. There is a change happening and it’s to do with that technological change that’s going on.’
That kind of butchery of the language displays syntactical imbecility, betrays a complete lack of clarity of thought and is wholly inexcusable.