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Becoming appointee in UCFS
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Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council
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How do
Has anyone any experience of becoming appointee for someone who’s on, or is claiming UCFS? I’m curious how people might seize control of a journal where the claimant hasn’t got capacity to understand what needs doing.
I’ll bet JCP haven’t anticipated this process and I suspect I’ll be trying this out soon.
There have been huge problems for corporate appointees because the UC system won’t allow the same email for two claimants so corporate appointeeships are having to be dealt with clerically. If you’re just being appointee for one person I think it’s easier - but I don’t have direct experience.
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Welfare rights - Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council
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Has anybody any experience of how corporate appointeeships are really working in practice ?
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Daphne - what does dealt with clerically mean in practice? We work closely with our Deputyship team and they are really worried about the advent of full service.
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Yes I have and we’re seeing big concessions in how they are administering them with us. Most documents are going up by upload rather than across the desk, difficult to say how they’ll go on with appointments such as committments appointments yet as the ones we’re moving over are coming off appointeeship so we’re needing to take them however I’ve got one who’s in hospital and after some initial tension they’ve seen sense.
Currently awaiting guidance on how to deal with ID verification; basically will they take our word for it?
Rosie W - 22 June 2018 12:11 PMDaphne - what does dealt with clerically mean in practice? We work closely with our Deputyship team and they are really worried about the advent of full service.
To be fair Rosie I don’t know the details - you’d probably be best talking to one of the local authorities who are dealing with it already - Newcastle springs to mind. Do you know Clive Davis there - I could put you in touch if not - I know he’s been doing a lot of work on it.
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Thanks Daphne - I do indeed know Clive, I worked with him for 12 years!
Rosie W - 22 June 2018 02:12 PMThanks Daphne - I do indeed know Clive, I worked with him for 12 years!
i thought you probably would ;)
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Newcastle Council Welfare Rights
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I deny all knowledge
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Advice Worker, Gaddum Centre
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I have a client who is applying to be appointee for brother (currently making PIP claim). Brother lives in residential care, has brain injury meaning no short term memory so can’t look after own finances.
Practically speaking how does this work, anyone know what he can expect from the application process? I gather from this thread I am not the only one looking in to this! Does the brother apply online with his own email address?
Cheers
[ Edited: 25 Jun 2018 at 03:58 pm by JAS1 ]forum member
Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service
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clive - 22 June 2018 03:13 PMI deny all knowledge
The sound of a man who may have heard a similar phrase from the gatekeepers of UCFS.
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Hi I work with people with mental illness who are long term inpatients in hospital, and we act as corporate appointee. We are really struggling to make UC claims as it would mean setting up a separate email account for each patient. I have spoken to many people in DWP and have been advised that we can no longer make clerical claims so am unsure where to go next - a letter to the Ombudsman might make them listen and realise that for many people digital claims just do not work. Would value any experience anyone else has had. Thanks
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Dan Manville - 22 June 2018 10:45 AMHow do
Has anyone any experience of becoming appointee for someone who’s on, or is claiming UCFS? I’m curious how people might seize control of a journal where the claimant hasn’t got capacity to understand what needs doing.
I’ll bet JCP haven’t anticipated this process and I suspect I’ll be trying this out soon.
If you know the email address change it -however the password might be another matter.
That is the least of your problems. We have collated these issues from ourselves in Co Durham and colleagues in Hartlepool+ Gateshead. All issues have been raised through APAD+LGA Social Security Advisers group on to the national stakeholder forum.:
National Insurance Numbers
The DWP don’t use National Insurance numbers when making a UC payment, and the reference number when each payment is made is different, even for the same client. This makes the identification of benefit payments in a Corporate Appointee / Deputyship account almost impossible, and has become an unnecessary, very time consuming issue for my team. The Job Centre in Hartlepool have escalated this to their National Policy Group, with no further response. This will probably require each client to have their own bank account to receive UC rather than it getting paid into a corporate account.
• Correspondence Addresses
There isn’t anywhere on the journal to load a correspondence address. This means that correspondence like Work Capability could be sent to the appointee at their home address. We have been adding our correspondence details in the journal .
• Missed Payments
Bank accounts with more than 10 UC claims attached, instigate a missed payment scenario. This means that only 10 UC claims (claims seem to be chosen at random) are paid and any claims above 10 remain unpaid, until they are identified by my team and a note added to the journal.
• Payment of Arrears
Although UC generally notify the lump sum amount of the back payment, the journal information is updated in the Payments Section to look as if the arrears had been paid as normal throughout the relevant period i.e. it does not show that a lump sum arrears payment has been made, which is clearly inaccurate and for audit purposes (in the scenario that we are legally appointed to manage someone’s monies) very worrying because of the lack of evidence. Also getting the breakdown of the lump sum payment i.e. how it is made up is proving to be extremely difficult – which again is a worry because if the information isn’t provided, how can my team check that the payment is correct?
• Lack of DWP staff expertise
Hartlepool have a number of examples where benefit premiums (which give the customer an entitlement to additional money) have not been included when the claim has been assessed by the DWP. This leads to the team having to formally “advise” the DWP of their error, thus leading to additional work for the team. Of equal concern, is in relation to those individuals in the community who have mental capacity to manage their finances, but wouldn’t have the professional expertise or knowledge to identify their entitlement to this “missing income.”
• Staff time
The UC claim process is resource intensive. Both my team and the social work team need to attend the initial meetings at the Job Centre with the claimant. This adds a minimum of 2 hours per claim for each member of staff for cases that are straightforward. If the claim involves a particularly complex set of circumstances, this can be much longer. For cases where we need to provide updated capital information to update the claim, further meetings at the Job Centre need to be arranged on an monthly basis. Prior to the introduction of UC this would have been done by letter.
• Couples claims. Often my team manage the finances of one part of a couple, because of the unsuitability of their partner to manage the full claim. If the capacitated partner doesn’t carry out the requirements of their claimant commitment, the joint UC claim will then stop causing financial hardship to the person whose finances we manage. The Job Centre in Hartlepool have escalated this to their National Policy Group, with no further response. The couple cases we manage seem to experience an ongoing cycle of the claim re-starting followed by further suspension, sanctions etc when the capacitated partner next fails to meet the requirements of their claimant commitment. This again is extremely resource intensive for staff.
There seems to be little by way of impetus by DWP to improve matters given we are dealing with an ‘agile ’ system+ design. Perhaps because so few people are affected? This is in stark contrast to the excellent partnership +joint work that DWP do on the general caseload in Co Durham.
The silence is deafening.
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Welfare rights service - Northumberland County Council
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Thank you for that information Duncan. It is useful, interesting and depressing though not unexpected.
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The Regard Partnership, Kingston
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Good Morning.
I am really struggling here. We act as a Corporate Appointee for many people throughout the UK. I see that there is mention of making a clerical claim, is this still available and does anyone have the form and where it needs to be sent to? Our clients are learning disabled and need an appointee.
Thanks
Julia
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Welfare Rights Unit - Leeds City Council
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my understanding is that there is no scope for a ‘clerical claim’ as such but there is a telephone claim line available - I’ve not sued it myself with anyone but I’m told that the pre-recorded message on that line keeps trying to push you back to an online claim so the advise is to just be persistent and ignore those messages whilst on hold…
as far as I know - DWP don’t even have a workable option for those claims that cannot be managed online as yet
as far as appointeeships go - I’ve only got one experience of this from a customer in Halifax and that went really well - DWP came and did a home visit as customer was unable to leave the house or deal with anyone herself and her mum managed everything on her behalf - from what the mum told me the visiting officer didn’t even ask to see the daughter/claimant and took all the identification and medical information from the her….
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The Regard Partnership, Kingston
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Many thanks for this. Does anyone have the phone claim line number then?
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tarzier - 03 August 2018 02:01 PMMany thanks for this. Does anyone have the phone claim line number then?
Just ring the enquiry line; 0800 3285644, option 2 then option 6; you’ve got to be pretty firm with them so they’ll accept a telephone claim.
I’ve run into problems with this process recently; they assign a “contingency” email address to get through they verification process but their administration of those addresses is pretty weak and the system easily falls over taking a few hours for them to sort.
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we are corporate appointee for clients though i have no direct responsibility for managing those peoples money.
from the advice side i have been raising issues with the appointee process for both personal and corporate appointees.
at the last stakeholder meeting we had we were advised someone was working on it but thats about all i have.
as well as the email issue it also (to my knowledge) not possible for an appointee or prospective appointee to say they are making a claim on someone elses behalf so they need to make the claim and sign it off electronically as if the person is making it then put a note on the journal to explain.
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its purely the nature of the roll out and my client group thats meaning we arent seeing many uc claims at the moment as most of the people we support are legacy benefits and are less likely to have the types of changes that would prompt a change of circs that would prompt a claim.
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stevenmcavoy - 03 August 2018 04:09 PMas well as the email issue it also (to my knowledge) not possible for an appointee or prospective appointee to say they are making a claim on someone elses behalf so they need to make the claim and sign it off electronically as if the person is making it then put a note on the journal to explain.
We did our first one yesterday for a Deputyship client who has moved out of area into a full UC area and needs to claim housing costs, hence the UC claim. We did exactly that - made the claim in his name and put a note on the Journal about the appointee/Deputy. We also added that he has already been assessed for ESA as having LCW/LCWRA and that this status needs to be carried over into the UC claim.
We’ve had a helpful phone call from the DEA at the JC who confirmed that information had been emailed to him by the case manager and that the client will be in the no work related requirements group and will receive the appropriate element. Less helpfully to start off with, he was insisting the client attend the JC (which is miles away) for the ID interview. I explained why this was not possible (lacks capacity, does not have any documents) and he suggested getting a VO to visit him at home. Due to the Deputyship and the likelihood that relevant documents will be held by the Deputy I asked if he could arrange for a VO from our local team to visit the Deputy at his workplace and he agreed to look into it. I doubt that will come off as we’re a different local authority area and don’t even have full service UC yet. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Good to get this level of assistance from the JC; however so far this has taken several hours of my time and that of the Deputy. We’re fortunate that our service is second tier so we probably have more ability to have this level of input but it’s not going to be feasible once all the working age social care clients start to come under managed migration.
It should be a good example to give our local JCs in the run up to full service though.
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Rosie W - 03 August 2018 04:38 PMstevenmcavoy - 03 August 2018 04:09 PMas well as the email issue it also (to my knowledge) not possible for an appointee or prospective appointee to say they are making a claim on someone elses behalf so they need to make the claim and sign it off electronically as if the person is making it then put a note on the journal to explain.
We did our first one yesterday for a Deputyship client who has moved out of area into a full UC area and needs to claim housing costs, hence the UC claim. We did exactly that - made the claim in his name and put a note on the Journal about the appointee/Deputy. We also added that he has already been assessed for ESA as having LCW/LCWRA and that this status needs to be carried over into the UC claim.
We’ve had a helpful phone call from the DEA at the JC who confirmed that information had been emailed to him by the case manager and that the client will be in the no work related requirements group and will receive the appropriate element. Less helpfully to start off with, he was insisting the client attend the JC (which is miles away) for the ID interview. I explained why this was not possible (lacks capacity, does not have any documents) and he suggested getting a VO to visit him at home. Due to the Deputyship and the likelihood that relevant documents will be held by the Deputy I asked if he could arrange for a VO from our local team to visit the Deputy at his workplace and he agreed to look into it. I doubt that will come off as we’re a different local authority area and don’t even have full service UC yet. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Good to get this level of assistance from the JC; however so far this has taken several hours of my time and that of the Deputy. We’re fortunate that our service is second tier so we probably have more ability to have this level of input but it’s not going to be feasible once all the working age social care clients start to come under managed migration.
It should be a good example to give our local JCs in the run up to full service though.
we are a social care organisation (amongst other things) supporting people with learning disabilities from the islands to the borders in scotland. some we are appointee for, some not.
either way when uc is rolled out alongside the removal of implicit consent it is going to limit by ability to help people massively. i am currently a one worker service (we have a child specific project in fife as well but outside of those specifics its just me) so what you have described wont be feasible for me either.
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Don’t know why you’re all fussing about corporate appointees. See the latest Universal Credit Local Authority Bulletin which reveals this lucid and clear explanation….
Corporate Appointees
We do have a process that allows us to successfully deal with claimants on a case by case basis. However we are currently looking at improving this process as Universal Credit rolls out.
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 23 August 2018 10:21 AMDon’t know why you’re all fussing about corporate appointees. See the latest Universal Credit Local Authority Bulletin which reveals this lucid and clear explanation….
Corporate Appointees
We do have a process that allows us to successfully deal with claimants on a case by case basis. However we are currently looking at improving this process as Universal Credit rolls out.
I must agree that this deserves some sort of award.
How about the NonInfos -for supposed statements of information that in fact contain little or no information at all.
I have sent an email to the SofS and the SSAC on 7th Sept; a copy the email text is attached fyi.
Await any reply !
Thx to all contributors on this topic.
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- Dear_Secretary_of_State.doc (File Size: 28KB - Downloads: 2303)
We are still unable to get past the unique email address element for a UC to even start the claim process
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Mike Hughes - 17 September 2018 12:55 PMAll in hand :)
but there’s nothing there about those with no capacity….
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ClairemHodgson - 17 September 2018 03:19 PMMike Hughes - 17 September 2018 12:55 PMAll in hand :)
but there’s nothing there about those with no capacity….
Thus the smiley :)
Reply to my email sent to S of S is attached; happy reading
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