Housing Benefit staff and New Deal staff

Anthillmob

Barcode wrote:

I was told I could appeal, but had to go and find out how myself. It never went as far as the appeal tribunal as I enlisted the MP, welfare adviser and newspapers before it went that far.

Yes, regulation 99 was quoted, but oddly, the wording was not mentioned in the letter. Some claimants may understandably feel baffled by a letter that reads 'this is in accordance with regulation 99 a copy of which is available on request.' When I investigated I found other regs stating different things.

In a strange way, I'm glad the fiasco happened. It gave me the kick I needed to start dealing with the council instead of putting up with various levels of incompetence.

you can appeal to the benefit office/la.

rer the wording of reg 99. i perosnally go a bit deepr and add what reg 99 (or whatever reg) covers. i.e. for example 'reg 99 states that all overpayments are recoverable blah blah blah inc those made by la error'

maybe if we all worked like this then there wouldnt be 'reverse bashing'!

are you still in time to appeal? or maybe you should complain even if its weeks/months/years later.

Anthillmob

seven-day-weekend wrote:

Yes, I have seen it. We used to get similar complaints - not so much race, but complaints like 'Mrs So-and-so down the road has got an extension, why are you tellling me I can't have one, did she give you a backhander, etc ..etc...' (not knowing either the law or the facts).

If I'd actually had the backhanders I've been accused of having, I certainly wouldn't be sitting here on a MSE site trying to find ways to make a minute income stretch further!

oh we get them as well. we have a habitual compulsive liar of a claimant (i know strong words but what hes kept from us you wouldnt believe. we are talking BENEFIT CHEAT BIG TIME).

letters include 'mrs x from 3 doors down gets all her hb and ctb paid but i dont' - well thats because she is on a different income amount to you.

he got found out, appealed it, got a slapped wrist, paid us a huge overpayment only to be found to hiding even more capital! some people know how to push the boundaries.

olly300

've dealt with 3 job centres in my time and think that certain staff members simply hate their job and shouldn't be employed.

In one centre the staff where actually bullying another member of staff and by doing so took it out on the claimants. Four female members of staff sat at their desks with no claimants in front of them pretending to work. I know because I do this at work, managed to sneak a look at 2 of their screens, they avoided eye contact and had very clear desks. This staff member was fixing another member of staff's computer problems which you could clearly see him doing. This meant his queue of claimants all waited over an hour and a half to see him. This member of staff was the only male in the group and when he apologised he stated some other things they commonly did to him. At that time I didn't know you could complain.

In another centre one of the members of staff who hadn't met me decided that she would go to lunch and not tell her colleagues. During which time she had managed to misplace my file. Her colleagues where actually nice to me because I had told two of them that I had a job interview that afternoon and had asked would I be finished by a certain time. Not one of them avoided eye contact while sitting at their desks because they were actually doing some paperwork or seeing claimants. I actually walked out because I had to leave and I got a phone call on my way home to change to arrange a time for the next day.

In the third centre the staff:
1. apologised for over running for 5 minutes or however late they were
2. gave you a proper explanation of what forms you had to complete and why in plain English
3. you could clearly see them giving this service to every claimant which amazed me because I'm sure one person in front of me didn't speak very good English.
4. even though it seemed that some of the staff members didn't get on they presented a professional image infront of members of the public
5. they dealt firmly but fairly with members of the public who didn't keep appointments or where late

Aitch7

Hello everyone,

Well it has been interesting reading the replies and hearing the experiences of people - thank you to all of you.

For those of you who made personal accusations towards me - thank you for the feedback also. Regarding the person who suggested my career choice was wrong - that was personal and inappropriate. I have many years of extremely positive feedback, have come top of almost all my courses and am a very compassionate and caring person - I know that and so do the people I have worked with - the results are there to be seen.

Perhaps I should look at what I said again as the points about incongruence between what is said and how it is said appear to not be coming across to some people and it is an important area.

Regarding some of the other accusations - I am not going to respond to each one suffice to say that they stray so far from what I said that there is little point e.g. someone said something about me asking them to respond to a physical threat from a client with 'a smile and a wave' - I said nothing remotely like this and this merely shows a total lack of understanding as to what I did say.

My intention was to share experiences and create a set of resources for those of us who have experiences of the benefits system so that people feel better able to deal with the situations they find themselves in. I hope that we continue to do that and that it may help someone who may read this thread in need of help.

I will read on with interest...
Aitch7

msmicawber

I've just read through this thread, and tend to agree with Aitch that it's important to keep notes of conversations, documents supplied, etc. as if things go wrong with your claim, the onus is thrown back onto you to prove what you're saying. Also, I've found that different offices within the Council appear to have different access to, or different views of, information relating to your claim, so it can be helpful if the claimant can give a date and name when explaining a situation to benefits staff.

I too have had mixed experiences with our local Council benefits staff, though I have to say that when I've gone in person rather than telephoned, I've been very civilly treated. It is mainly over the telephone that I've been spoken down to on occasion.

Anthill - as regards the baffling paperwork, the staff at my local Council always push it away when I ask to have it explained and work from the computer as they confess the letters are difficult to understand. Is there any way claimants and benefits staff can push to have this improved and clarified? It must cause vast amounts of work for you having to explain properly what the letters are intended to explain, and in appeals where information has been missed or misunderstood. And, from a claimant's point of view, it's baffling and upsetting, especially if something is missed so that you end up in an overpayment situation and you're then told that you're liable to pay it back because it's your responsibility to check that it's correct.

healy

For those of you who made personal accusations towards me - thank you for the feedback also. Regarding the person who suggested my career choice was wrong - that was personal and inappropriate. I have many years of extremely positive feedback, have come top of almost all my courses and am a very compassionate and caring person - I know that and so do the people I have worked with - the results are there to be seen,

I dont think it was inappropriate because some of the advice you are giving and is incorrect and your attitude is not level headed. As for compassion you seem to be lacking in that department with regard to benefit staff. With regards to being personal you did mention the career choice in the first place and I think it wrong to paint all benefit staff as aggressive bullies which is clearly not true.

jembie

My New Deal adviser is brilliant. He lives in the real world and doesn't push me into anything that is inappropriate for me. He has worked with Lone parents for a few years and only ever gives advice that can make a difference and only ever offers up job details for vacancies that will work for me and my children.

Anthillmob

msmicawber wrote:

I've just read through this thread, and tend to agree with Aitch that it's important to keep notes of conversations, documents supplied, etc. as if things go wrong with your claim, the onus is thrown back onto you to prove what you're saying. Also, I've found that different offices within the Council appear to have different access to, or different views of, information relating to your claim, so it can be helpful if the claimant can give a date and name when explaining a situation to benefits staff.

I too have had mixed experiences with our local Council benefits staff, though I have to say that when I've gone in person rather than telephoned, I've been very civilly treated. It is mainly over the telephone that I've been spoken down to on occasion.

Anthill - as regards the baffling paperwork, the staff at my local Council always push it away when I ask to have it explained and work from the computer as they confess the letters are difficult to understand. Is there any way claimants and benefits staff can push to have this improved and clarified? It must cause vast amounts of work for you having to explain properly what the letters are intended to explain, and in appeals where information has been missed or misunderstood. And, from a claimant's point of view, it's baffling and upsetting, especially if something is missed so that you end up in an overpayment situation and you're then told that you're liable to pay it back because it's your responsibility to check that it's correct.

believe me where i work we have asked but we are always told 'by benefit law' they must be set out to be the most baffling documents ever. i agree it isnt fair and also its a waste of paper if you are lucky enough to get one 15 pages long when 1 page would suffice!

also, we have received envelopes before now with cheques for amounts under £1.00 and i once received a letter with 2p sellotaped to a piece of card because the little old lady was sent a letter saying she had been overpaid 2p! that is not on but, suprise surprise 'nothing can be done' apart from me returning the 2p with a grovelling letter apologising for her sleepless night.

Turning_into_scrooge

I have to say that i for one have never had a problem with any local benefit office. I'm sure many do i consider myself to be probably very lucky but i have always spoken to them with respect and friendly politeness and received it back. I for one have no complaints about my local benefit offices or officers. I have been spoken to like a piece of dirt by a DLA officer who was telling me why my claim had been reduced and also by the doctor who came out to disprove my disability but i soon knocked that on the head and proved them both wrong with the help of welfare rights.

Aitch7

saintjanet wrote: »

I have to agree with this and would be interested to know how many benefit staff the op has had contact with.

I was just recommending this thread to someone who needed some advice when I noticed your comment about how many staff I had had contact with and thought I would reply even though it is a long time since this thread was active.

The answer is many many staff - due to being very ill for a long time I had contact with lots of benefit agency staff.

I was on very good terms with most to the point of being friendly, however I stand by my point that there were SOME who were bullies and whose behavior was abusive and cruel.

My intention with this thread was to enable people to have some resources with which to deal with these staff as the system is set up in such a way that it is very difficult for the public to gain any control or to be believed.

The staff with whom I was friendly would frequently pour out their feelings to me about how stressed they were and about how they also had to deal with difficult people sometimes - for which I sympathized of course!

I was frequently reassured by the staff that I had made a good career choice in Life Coaching and that they wished me all the luck in the world.

I am still assured of my career choice despite a vocal minority on this thread who made things personal and became the very thing that this thread was about!

If this thread helps even one person to feel a bit more in control whilst dealing with the benefit system then it was all worth it!