Forum Home → Discussion → Income support, JSA and tax credits → Thread
New call centre system for contacting DWP - problems already?
Bit of a rant - but if anyone has any practical suggestions as to how to overcome this, I’d appreciate it greatly…..
Seems that the new arrangements for Greenock rather than Makerfield to process claims in our area have already come into play, though they were due to start from April. No biggy - but it seems now that whatever BDC you ring, you get put through to a random call centre somewhere in the UK - in pursuit of the enquiry that generated this post, I’ve had Dorset and Wales. The arrangement appears to be that you ring the call centre and the call centre then passes on an e-mail to the relevant BDC with a request to phone you back.
All well and good (well, sort of, it introduces a new tier and it’s yet to be in place long enough to see how many call backs we actually get) except where the client is not with you and you are not on record as rep because the appeal/revision/supersession request hasn’t been received (or entered onto the system). In this situation - even where you are providing the client’s details but not asking the call centre to give you any detail - the call centre will not now even e-mail the BDC. In the past, where this kind of problem occurred, the solution was simple - fax through a copy of the form of authority. No longer - the call centres do not have a fax facility and can only access the client’s records, not amend them (e.g. to make an entry that you have authority to act). Further, they will not give out the fax number for the relevant BDC so that you can fax the appeal or FOA directly. So we are stuck with having to get the client back in to the office or sending a further copy of the appeal through the post (it seems that call centres are NOT giving out fax numbers full stop - so what prospect of faxing through an appeal when the client comes in for the first time on the day of the deadline?).
The real problem here is that’s it’s a right to reside decision that I sent to Wick. Wick have never given out their telephone number and as they do not actually process claims, often (in my experience) do not register the appeal so that the relevant BDC is aware of it…....
Arrgh!