if these links work - below is the recent must read article in The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1457499,00.html

the buried report on the DWP site is here-
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2005-2006/rrep232.pdf

it's very long unfortunately, but a very encouraging piece of work - i'd like one on jobcentre plus, do you think they do requests?

jj

buried on the dwp site, but not on rightsnet ....

.. we published a news story, with a link to the report, on 4 April 2005 @

Poor training, friction between staff, and increases in resignations & sickness levels: New DWP research on the new child support system

When I read stuff like this I just sigh. When I think back to the 70’s and 80’s and all the shenanigans that I (and a lot of others) knew, as fact, went on then and look at now, then nothing has really changed. Dodgy practices, deception, incompetence and outright misrepresentation, all for administrative convenience and to meet politically imposed targets. I know that there are many staff on the ground who do care and are trying to genuinely help people but they are pressurised my management to behave like this. It betrays an absolute organisational contempt for claimants and I, for one, do not expect any significant change in the next 30 years either.

also heaving a sigh at your baroness hollis comments in another place, i have copy of District Manager's letter to MPs from June 2003, with bullet points making risible claims under the heading

"Introducing Jobcentre Plus will allow us to:"

you know the ilk - "dramatically improve our levels of customer service...offer a more joined-up, personal and supportive service...become more accessible to our customers by ...making more phone, internet services available..." blah blah

and i realize that she only said it "will allow us to:", she didn't say they definitely would, so one could hardly accuse her of lying...

friday...musings on a minimum pay job in garden centre but i bet some ass still orders me to paint the white roses red...

jj

ps shawn - just testing - rightsnet as ever surpasses expectations... : )

I honestly don't wish to initiate an argument and am genuinely interested in hearing a balanced view of "How others see us", but I'd like to know if "outright misrepresentation" is based on an isolated event or whether this is more a more widespread experience.

Remember, please, that many members of staff may misrepresent the situation innocently through ignorance of what is happening elsewhere or through lack of experience and training. A piece of paper is usually only in one location and staff answer queries by referring to what has been recorded on computer systems. "Outright misrepresentation", however, to my mind carries a connotation of the misrepresentation being deliberate or calculated? In which case I have to disagree. My many years experience as an appeals officer have never unveiled a single incidence of deliberate misrepresentation.

The CSA report is positively riddled with the frustration of operational staff. Is this frustration not incompatible with "an absolute organisational contempt for claimants"?

The CSA report did say that staff "had attempted to find alternative solutions to the problems caused by the fragile IT system, to provide better customer service. As noted in earlier sections, staff were not always entirely sure how near they were to breaking rules or whether they may be causing problems further into the process, but their intentions were generally honourable."

"you know the ilk - "dramatically improve our levels of customer service...offer a more joined-up, personal and supportive service...become more accessible to our customers by ...making more phone, internet services available..." blah blah......

I too remember reading that, and other announcements of a similar nature, going back over a number of years: on each and every occasion I, like most other Advisers have not been disappointed when our predictions that whatever revolutionary step was being proposed eventually turned out to be a worse admin nightmare than the system it was replacing.

The breaking up of the BA benfits administration into JCP, Pensions Service and the Inland Revenue, unfortunately coupled with the proposed redundancies, is a prime example. We now have 400 odd staff in the Norwich Pensions centre who will be losing their jobs when it is moved elsewhere: we now have JCP stggering along on three cylinders, as staff bale out and look for other jobs: some time this year, all benefit administration will start to be centralised in "Centres of excellence" (Their title not mine) - again with the loss of jobs amongst good experienced staff.

The crux of the problem is, and always has been that Whitehall keeps dreaming up these wonderful visions of utopia, and expect their Managers at grassroots level to implement them, without allowing them the proper IT tools to do so, and not allowing them the salaries budget to allow them to run their departments efficiently. Hence, for instance, we see claim processing times being changed and bland statements being made to the effect that they are meeting their targets etc. I have a lot of time and every sympathy with local office staff, most of whom are genuinely trying to help their clients - the fault lies in Whitehall, who appear to have no idea of what the real world is like both in the rural areas and in the inner cities.

These views are not based on speculation - they're based on listening to really unhappy DWP staff who, up until 18 months ago would never have dreamed of speaking outside of their office. It's also good to see one or two putting their heads above the parapet on such sites as this.

It would seem as if LA's are subject to much stricter scrutiny than DWP - If a Local Authority consistantly operated in the same manner, the District Auditor and eventually the Audit Commission would soon start to take a keen interest, as has happened in the past with some HB departments.

Please note that the contents of this posting are of a personal nature, and do not reflect any official policy or view of the Council.

The report on the CSA cites a situation where managers told their staff to make up the NI numbers on their stats sheets in order to ensure that targets were hit. A daughter of an adviser I know was told by the person on the counter in the jobcentre when assisting her to complete her JSA claim form that they have to fail a certain percentage of claims each year as a matter of course. I’ve known many situations of people being told that you cannot make a claim, as you are not going to qualify for this or that particular benefit. People being told that they cannot have a crisis loan as they are under 18. I am sure other advisers have their own examples. So I think that they are more than isolated incidents.

If my memory serves me right there was a notorious case under the supplementary benefit regime where an office manager told staff not to tell people that they were entitled to the long-term higher rate of SB (after they had been on the benefit for the requisite length of time) unless they enquired about it.

I have also seen with my own eyes, a document inserted into the appeal papers by someone in the DWP, which was actually fraudulent. It purported to evidence a conversation (or action, I cannot remember which)that was alleged to have taken place on a particular date when the conversation actually never took place at all. The printed DWP date code on the document was several years later than the written date entered in the margin next to the alleged conversation. In other words that particular piece of paper had not actually been manufactured when the alleged conversation took place.

Furthermore, misrepresentation does not have to be wilful. It can be innocent but it is still misrepresentation, as many recipients of overpayments have found to their cost.

I was careful to point out, and I do believe this, that there are many in the DWP who are genuinely trying their best to do what they can for claimants and, yes, they are underpaid, overworked, poorly trained and given ridiculous targets to meet and rubbish IT systems to work with.

However, my concerns as an adviser, are for the clients who walk through my door who have been, in their words, messed about, been spoken to rudely, given wrong or misleading information, made to feel like scroungers or liars and, who in the mean time, are struggling to make ends meet, feed their kids, pay the bills etc, etc.

I retract not a single word.