have just published new dwp guidance on 'Working with customer representatives' to the news area of rightsnet

also @ http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/repsguide.pdf

... plus have added a link from toolkit for our future reference

There appears to have been a mix up at Derne valley Pension Centre where they got this mixed up with the 'dealing with bogus callers' guidance and as a result presumed that things had actually been tightened up.

I spoke to them today and they realise their mistake but, according to them, the Working with Reps guidance has caught them completely on the hop and they say they still need further internal discussions. They're supposed to be calling me next week but if anybody else has problems, this may be why.

Andy,

We had similar problems with Bath Pension Centre towards the back end of last year, which turned out to be in part due to 'bogus callers' advice, and in part due to the circulation of a flow chart which explained part (but not all) of the disclosure policy and led staff to fetter their discretion when deciding who was or who was not a rep. It wasn't helped by the fact that the two policies were fed down through entirely different management stuctures (security and customer relations) and which didn't seem to be jointly anwerable to anyone within the Pension Centre, this may be what lies behind your 'internal discussions'

It took almost 6 months of disdcussions and emails before we sorted it out, but service now is pretty good.

Following a refusal to discuss a case with me when I seemd to fit perfectly in to the outline criteria I would be interested to know if any other advisers had a similar problem with the relevant office citing the data protection act?

Working with customer representatives seems to be a fine document but if other officers take the same line its not really worth much,

T.J.Lintern
Welfare Rights Officer
Derby Advice

Roger Pugh is the person with overall responsibility at the DWP for the implementation of the policy. Have you contacted him?

Yes,

The actual problem was of course sorted out but it is the principle of the lack of implementation by local offices when as I previously stated I seeemd to fit perfectly into the criteria.

W w R should lead lead to a civilized discussion not the kind of tit for tat conversation I had which can only lead to referrals to MPs.

They had had a copy of W w R prior to me faxing me a copy to them!

T.J.Lintern
Welfare Rights Officer, Derby Advice