complaints procedure DWP

diamonds

Good luck !

My local office ignored 30 complaints in 16 months and covered it all up, the regional manager nor next level up chief executive office with me following the complaints steps could investigate nothing as the point of contact had supressed all complaints & refused to follow the 10 day period, its now at the Independant Case Examinator, to add to that im 16 months into a "13 week" ESA assesment period and they witheld all my medical evidence from ATOS (ATOS confirmed such in writing & I won my appeal on ATOS ) & destroyed it all !!! Dept of Wonderless People.

eskimo26

woodbine wrote: »

were you well paid well trained and not facing an impossible work load?

If they can't do the job satisfactorily because they can't hack the working environment they need to be fired or leave and find a less stressful job. That is the reality in the private sector and frankly that is how it should be.

Why should we be subjected to unprofessional conduct because of the stress they are being put through by their employer. I am not the cause their employer is! the only reason they get away with taking it out on me is because they can.

People like this would be crucified in the private sector, incompetence is bad enough but to be intentionally rude to a client because your job is stressful is obscene.

OP would recommend you keep your MP abreast of all developments in your complaint and make sure the job centre know you are doing so, see how fast they scurry about and start caring then.

woodbine wrote: »

these "people" are massively over-worked and many of the front line staff are also on very low wages and get minimum training
your complaint will probably mean the other claimants will be pushed down the queqe
what are expecting?an appology?compo?a promise that it wont happen again?

If someone told me my cancer ridden wife 'sounds ok to me' i would settle for nothing less then getting them fired. But of course since it would never happen because of the lack of accountability i would at least persue it aggressively until i was satisfied that some disciplinary action in the form of unpaid training had occurred or a permanent marko on their file that would contribute to a 'x' strikes and your out policy. Either way i would hound my local MP's until something was put into place and if i exhausted that avenue it would be straight to the papers ( i record all conversations with government workers in the benefits sector), the complacency and lack of standards is as much down to knowing repercussions are none to minimal as much as it is to the other things you mentioned.

stroodes

I work in a shop and you wouldn't believe how rude peeps can be.

stroodes

prob wrong place to post this.

cit_k

woodbine wrote: »

were you well paid well trained and not facing an impossible work load?

I have bene underpaid (very low wages), massively overworked, undertrained, and exploited before.

But I never once, gave anything less than my best, and would never be as unprofessional as many at the DWP can be.

(note, there are many good workers at the DWP, just many many bad ones)

cit_k

stroodes wrote: »

unfortunately most people dealing with public have been threatened or abused, its the nice people that suffer for it, no excuse but when voices are raised in anger peeps that deal with public shut off, no excuse for bad service tho.

Last stats I looked at, there was more bullying coming from DWP staff/management at towards other DWP staff, than there was abuse from the public.

Perhaps, the security at jobcentres should be re-assigned to look after the staff, not watch the claimaints.

fluffymovie

I work in a benefit department of a local council as a team leader and I deal with complaints and requests to speak to the team leader. I consider myself over worked and under paid but always try and do my best. However, the legislation I work to does mean that often, I can't give customers the answers they so desperately hope for.

I thinks it's important to have empathy and compassion but this isn't always the customers experience.

I have been threatened, sworn at, told that I should get cancer and die, lose my home and a hundred other nasty things but I try not to take this out on the next customer and I hope the same is done by my team but I recognise that they are only human and sometimes, they have had too much.

I always investigate a complaint, look through a case file, listen to call recordings. If it means I can reassess the claim, I do. If it's a training need, I discuss with the staff member concerned at the time and in their one to one performance reviews and I'd expect the same happens in the DWP.

I am sorry that you have had such a bad experience but would day that in the main, those who assess benefits are trying to do their best and don't set out with an intention to offend or do harm.

NASA_2

I'll not take issue with the fact that DWP do have some unhelpful staff.

I have to laugh though when people are portraying the private sector as an image of perfection and how things should be done. All you have to do is look at the other parts of the this messageboard to see how people have constantly been let down by banks, service providers etc. From my own experience I found Vodafone to be the worst company I have ever dealt with - one part didnt know what the other part was doing.

It never improved so whether they sacked staff or not would seem to be irrelevant.

Criticise DWP if you wish but dont lie and say it is different in the private sector, I've worked there too, its little different.

Muttleythefrog

NASA wrote: »

I'll not take issue with the fact that DWP do have some unhelpful staff.

I have to laugh though when people are portraying the private sector as an image of perfection and how things should be done. All you have to do is look at the other parts of the this messageboard to see how people have constantly been let down by banks, service providers etc. From my own experience I found Vodafone to be the worst company I have ever dealt with - one part didnt know what the other part was doing.

It never improved so whether they sacked staff or not would seem to be irrelevant.

Criticise DWP if you wish but dont lie and say it is different in the private sector, I've worked there too, its little different.

I think the difference though NASA... when things go wrong in the private sector there tends to be some form of accountability... and penalty... people go elsewhere for services, shareholders get angry etc. There are of course exceptions... and probably most likely in larger organisations or where accountability features internally break down... probably like in banking system. I am getting dreadful service from Virgin Media right now... sick to the back teeth with them... but they do keep apologising and slashing my bills to compensate and I've got an engineer coming tomorrow to sort the problem out once and for all hopefully. So to be honest I don't have a complaint because they have taken me seriously and they have shown a way forward and they have in place the facilities and features to make complaints have the desired effect and be easily communicated.

It's all very painful for me to say... especially since I sit at the extreme left of the political spectrum and want all services under public control. I have terrible trouble regarding NHS too.. after battles I still can't get them to even spell my name correctly (nevermind anything else..lol)... in a former job I had I was authorised to recommend people to be dismissed for getting customer details wrong... nevermind failing to correct them after repeated customer complaints. They just keep saying 'oh yes we have it incorrect, I'll correct that now'... now they can't even get my GPs name correct.. and she is an employee of theirs... and they seem to find this quite normal... I find it quite staggering...lol. There's not really much in my power that I can do to force these state organisations and their employees to do the right thing... I can't say I'm going elsewhere from now on... I can't stop my Direct debit... I can't vote out the relevant minister and I can't persuade other people not to use their services as a threat because people probably don't have any choice..lol. I think you highlighted in quite some detail the computerised system regarding ESA case management being a real problem (and that explained a lot of the problems these threads throw up from the customer perspective)... problem is staff who use it probably can't get much done about it either... so the customer complaining to those staff is a waste of time.

Sixer

The point, generally, surely is that customers of private organisations can take their business elsewhere? Benefits "customers" can't, and some of them (not all) are much more vulnerable than the average customer of a private company. This is why it's so important for the standards of service to be upheld.

Also, the service standards of the company or public organisation generally are nothing to do with an isolated incident. Isolated incidents are the subject of individual complaints and for that to be successful, there needs to be a clear and accountable reporting system. General standards are irrelevant to one person who wants to make a complaint about one instance of poor service.

Fluffymovie: (thanks for the helpful post) - where you say if it's a training need, I discuss with the staff member concerned at the time and in their one to one performance reviews - this is not language I've ever come across in the private sector! And to a person with cause for complaint, it doesn't sound like you're really dealing with a potential breakdown of acceptable service. I don't say that you're *not* dealing with it. But in every private organisation I've worked for, if a customer made a direct complaint about you, the result would be an immediate disciplinary hearing. You'd get a chance to put your case, but if you didn't have belt and braces proof the fault wasn't yours, there wouldn't be talk of training needs, there'd be action of verbal or written warnings, or even summary dismissal, depending on the seriousness of the case. There's a huge philosophical gulf between the two.