complaints procedure DWP

Lady_strange

I have found some people I have spoken too to be incredibly patronising, and also making assumptions about a diagnosis. My partner was told by a member of DWP staff that they were sure a cure for arthritis would be found soon, and that he would be able to return to work in the next few months.

I have no doubt that there are many people who work for the DWP who are polite, and do their jobs well, but in my dealings with them, I am afraid the negative experiences far out weigh the positive.

spiff

Back to my OP which was has anyone raised a complaint of a similar nature and what was the nature of the response?

Lady_strange

Spiff we raised a complaint over being told that there would be a cure for osteoarthritis soon, and never really got a satisfactory response, somebody listend to the recording of 1 out of 20 phone calls, and said they didn't see anything wrong with what we had been told. We have a representitive from a trade union who deals with benefits, who has brought that situation into another one, and has asked for a transcript of every phone call we have had with the DWP.

If enough complaints are made, then there may be changes made, more staff employed, and better training provided.

spiff

OP Update: I have today received a very well written letter of apology, this was sent within the stated DWP timescale of 10 days and I regard the matter as closed.

deathvalleydemon

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 the tossbags have a customer charter then they should stick to it.

happy_lass

if i need to speak to them, i always try to phone them first thing in the morning as soon as the telephone lines open. I find them to be quite pleasant then as appose to phoning them late in the afternoon when most of them sound really p issed off then !!

[Deleted User]

Sixer wrote: »

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.

i think one point thats been missed in this debate is that private sector or public sector it aint that easy to dismiss anyone(thankfully),whilst we should expect a decent level of service we also shouldnt be surprised that others dont share the high standards that many of us would set for ourselves and others,this is 2011 after all and not 1951

[Deleted User]

deathvalleydemon wrote: »

if the tossbags have a customer charter then they should stick to it.

if thats how you speak about them i wonder how you speak to them?

cit_k

dmna wrote: »

I myself am a fairly stressed and fed up DWP employee. However it's a mark of personal pride that I still try and do my best and am rarely anything but extremely polite and civil to a customer. Very occasionally you do have to spell out a few home truths (still in a polite way but things you might not normally say in customer service roles - I don't mean 'you are an !!!! sir' or such derivatives, but more 'yes sir, it is your responsibility to do this, and as you haven't, and continue to fail to do so, then we will continue to not pay you any money') but generally it's about trying to present things that aren't necessarily positive in a reasonable way.

That said, it is difficult to present yourself in a positive manner to someone when the last customer you spoke to, for example, threatened to break your arms and legs for something that you can do nothing about, all for around £15 grand per year (with a hiring freeze and ever more people wanting your services). However there is no excuse for abject rudeness - you don't necessarily have to be cheerful, but polite, always.

I know it's difficult to believe but 'computer says no' and 'rules are rules' are generally not just get out of jail free cards - some of the department's IT solutions are 20 years old and the regulations are obscure at best so quite often you can do nothing but wait for something to fix itself. For £15k you are not going to get individuals who know everything about everything about benefits either. The initial customer contact is generally a case of a little bit of knowledge and for anything more complex you get handed off to a subject matter expert who is generally snowed under.

So yes, on one hand I do agree - basic customer service skills are not too much to ask and anyone who is downright rude wants dealing with ASAP.

On the other, I think there is a real lack of understanding of the realities of what you may be expecting from DWP staff. The private sector generally doesn't have to cope with 20 year old computer systems, books of regulations that run into their thousands of pages, and a hiring freeze that takes no account of workload, as well as a portfolio of things to deal with that no one human short of Stephen Hawking could ever know in one go, coupled with a general expectation that you can do absolutely anything to deliver an 'entitlement' rather than a service you choose to use.

Yes, but when was the last time you followed the civil service code you signed up to, and reported the concerns to superiors? When did you officially put in a report about each and every problem with the computer system?

Its not going to get fixed, unless you all follow the code you are meant to follow - report problems to your superiors.

If you chose not to follow the rules you agreed to, then its hardly the claimaints fault they are highly annoyed when they are messed around by the DWP due to the systems.

When was the last time you refused to send out a letter, knowing it would be garbage that makes no sense? Or did you just select it from the dropdown, and know it would go out, making no sense, confusing the claimaint?

Why not stop, go to a superior, and report the problem?

As for regulations, yes there are many, including countless articles of case law and guidance.

But that argument holds no water with me when I ring up, and they dont even know the basics, and LIE.

Thousands of pages of regulations dont come into it, when you ring up and they tell you things like you MUST claim JSA if wanting to appeal a IB decision for example.

Basics are basics, you expect them to know the subject they are talking about to a simple level, after all they deal with calls on that subject each and every working day.

Many I speak to do know what they are talking about, are polite, and professional, but many also are not professional.

None so far seem to have done anything about addressing long term problems, and are quite happy to blame the computer, or admit they have no idea what has happened.

happy_lass

i think that there are ways of getting your point across without resorting to rudeness. BUT sometimes i have come across some really rude and arrogant people and i really have to bite my tongue and smile sweetly. I dont work in a call centre, and i would not really like to because i could imagine how pushed the people are (the ones that take the calls). But i have a mentally disabled daughter and i deal with social workers and doctors on a regular basis (daily sometimes) and i can honestly say that most of the time 99.99% they are courteous and polite. But i did lose it big time with one doctor who told me that it was my fault that my daughter was overweight (not the fact that she is on various medication, one particular brand that is notorious for weight gain, but if she was not on this medication then her and my life would be a nightmare). He also told me that 'there were no fatties in Belsen Concentration Camp' I lost it big time with him, told him exactly what i thought of him and that i never wanted to see or speak to him again, either over the phone, face to face, mail or email. I reported him to my local NHS and he was hauled over the hot coals.
So there are times when telling someone exactly what you think of them, is a good thing. But threatening DWP staff with violence is wrong really. They just do a job to keep a roof over their heads and families heads. Much like the rest of us really.:)