Can anyone help, where to complain about a Job Centre staff member?

out_of_cash

Dont let them get away with treating you like muck they try it on with me sometimes ,but they now know not to:).



I think its totaly irrelavent how many times you make a claim as to opposed to how you are treated their doing a job and i would imagine they have some form of guide lines which would say something like treat customers with some respect not like a criminal,one day they could easily be on the other side of the counter:T.

dreamylittledream

MCGONIS wrote: »

The OP has not said he/she received Child Tax Credits or Child Benefit anywhere on this thread. He/she does mention Tax Credits though. Don't make assuptions that he/she has children or that any income was mis-spent. Tax Credits, as you will well know are also paid to individuals without children. The OP has stated the interview was arranged because they have no income whilst waiting on benefit coming through. Moving from Income Support to ESA was what was mentioned. If that is not a new claim to a benefit, then I don't know what is.

In addition, there are no Social Fund Officers in Jobcentres. There are officers that conduct interviews with applicants that have been sent there by an operator from the telephone centre. The staff in the jobcentre are not Social Fund Officers.

I could go on and on and nit pick more things about your post, but cannot be bothered to be honest.

But just one last thing to finish off, I am not your "friend". So don't refer to me as that again.

Good lord someone really doesnt like being corrected. As you seem unable to read I will draw your attention to the fact I said the OP initmated that she received Child related benefit, and said if these had been miss-spent then a 3rd application may have been appropriate. I said intimated as thencustomer has 3 applications in the last 12 months, was on Income Support and now moving to ESA. Income Support and Working Tax Credit as a single person living alone are not compatible benefits so its very likely that she was indeed referring to CTC. But again the wordnif was used...

I am not making any assumptions here, you seem to be confusing me with yourself.

Your comments about social fund officers are equally hilarious for someone who claims that they work in a social security office (which as you well know have not existed for some years, there are jobcentreplus offices that are customer and non customer facing. None of them are called social security offices).

The crisis loan interviewing officer is a JCP job role that involves the social fund, that makes the person doing it as much a social fund officer as the decision maker. I know in practice this is not always filled by a permanent person in the jobcentre but this is the way it was intended when the law was changed to make these applications in thus manner. The staff on the telephone are also social fund officers, they are executive officers in the department who deal with the social fund. How many more semantics do you want to argue?

I'm fairly sure you can't nit pick anything in my post given your singular failure to manage it so far.

I do aologise for referring to you as a friend, clearly foolish to disagree in a reasonable fashion with you and expect a civil response.

Indie_Kid

MCGONIS wrote: »

The OP has not said he/she received Child Tax Credits or Child Benefit anywhere on this thread. He/she does mention Tax Credits though. Don't make assuptions that he/she has children or that any income was mis-spent.

Why else would someone go from IS to ESA? The move hasn't really started yet.

krisskross

Why is it the Job Centre's responsibility to find the OP somewhere to wait whilst a decision was made? Was there no library in the town to wait in? Is it in the remit of the person sorting out the crisis loan application to decide on the OP's mental state? The OP does not say what the 'cutting personal remarks' were. Could have been perfectly acceptable remarks that the OP in a distressed state took exception to. Why offer up a document that you didn't want the advisor to read? If I am handed a document i assume i am meant to read it.

What does the OP expect from the complaint?

All of us who have worked in front line roles have had malicious complaints made by people who simply don't get their own way. I wouldn't work in a job centre for all the tea in China.

halibut2209

MCGONIS wrote:

I could go on and on and nit pick more things about your post, but cannot be bothered to be honest.

But just one last thing to finish off, I am not your "friend". So don't refer to me as that again.

This seems to be exactly the sort of rudeness that the OP is complaining about.

Indie_Kid

krisskross wrote: »

Why is it the Job Centre's responsibility to find the OP somewhere to wait whilst a decision was made?

People are usually expected to wait in the waiting areas in the JCP.

cit_k

sh1305 wrote: »

People are usually expected to wait in the waiting areas in the JCP.

When I went through it, they just told you to come back for the decision at a certain time, although it usually on took less than half and hour or so.

atomicsheep

dreamylittledream wrote: »

Fair bit of yes and no in this. OP has intimated that she receives Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit. If she had received these and spent them perhaps not on the most basic essentials of life (which is all crisis loans cover afterall) but other perhaps less immediate needs then it would not be unreasonable to deem the application a spent and not an alignment to a new benefit claim. Therefore a 3rd application interview would be appropriate.

The Social Fund officer in the jobcentre completes an interview not just an application - they are meant to perform an inquisitorial role and voice any doubts they have in the evidence provided and question any inconsistancies (for example just how many times is it possible to lose your wallet and all your money between the cashpoint and a checkout in the space of six months?). This is to allow the decision maker to just impartially assess the evidence and come to a conclusion.

There is a difficult line to draw with crisis loans - the whole 3rd application system was introduced to help reduce spurious applications which have clogged the system and made it much harder to help those genuinley in need. Robust interviewing is part of this although that is no excuse for being plain rude to someone who is clearly in a crisis.

As a side note guidance says the customer should wait in the jobcentre until the decision is made and this should take no longer than 30 minutes. Many offices however it should be said struggle a little with this *cough*.

3rd applications are booked inappropriatly by some call centre staff and it is quite possible that the 17 minute call time target has an impact on this, but it does not happen nearly as much as you are intimating. Probably roughly a third of calls require a 3rd application interview anyway (back to the main problem with crisis loans here) and that combined with inappropriate queries and calls that are never going to result in a successful application (such as those from people who have a sanctioned JSA claim or have already had a crisis loan award for the period in question) mean that whilst a full application does indeed take 30mins plus the average call taken by an agent is never going to be this.

Not that I agree that 17 mins is a useful figure for targeting staff with here - just stating the facts around this.

Back to the OP's original point, the main reason for complaint I can see here is inappropriate personal remarks made by the interviewing officer. If you feel these were out of order then you should complain as my quoted friend has stated - preferably in writing. The complaint would be best directed to the manager of the jobcentre you visited as it would appear to be against one of his or her staff.

Being a DM myself I can see that the different call centres operate differently causing conflicts in the way crisis loans are dealt with.
Our centre would never book a 3rd application for a customer awaiting benefit whether in receipt of ctc / chb or not. The application would not be treated as spent and in this situation i would have taken the application over the phone.

When you guessed a 3rd of applications are taken in the JC via a 3rd application again i think this will vary across centres.

My stats personally show that I make about 14 decisions per day, on average i book 1 per day into the JC for a 3rd app (thats it!!). Purely because the JC never have any spare appoints available.

This makes the 17 mins near on impossible for us most of the time.

Also (and this is just probably me) the inappropriate calls make up just 2-3 calls per day for me.

The original post then......heh............. Best practice is to put in writing to your JCP manager who can then feedback to the relevent office/officer.

MCGONIS

halibut2209 wrote: »

This seems to be exactly the sort of rudeness that the OP is complaining about.

I'm not in-post though. I am outside of my workplace, in my own home. I gave someone that wanted some advice, just that.

Then someone else came along, as happens frequently on these forums and wanted to pick my post to pieces and correct me. That particular post added no value [in my opinion] or advice to what the OP originally asked.

Rose_tinted_2

I assume you got it all sorted as you're now managing to find the money to buy stuff from the 'Grabbit' board?