ESA, DLA and PIP chaos - DWP overturning more than half of it's own decisions on MR..

50Twuncle

jennyjenkins wrote: »

I will be quite honest and tell you that the media already know about this mess, up until November 2013, I was working all the hours that God sent, we took on 32 new trainees, we trained them for three months, sent them on courses, I worked on Saturday and Sundays, we even had people in for interviews on the Saturdays, and made phone calls all over the weekends to claimants, to discuss their claims, my day started at 7am and I finished at 7pm, and YES I did get overtime for working these hours. We wanted the back logs to be cleared, then we started getting trouble with ATOS, they wanted to pay 50 million pounds, to the government, to stop their contract,the government refused, so ATOS stopped sending out there assessors, and they would not give us the paperwork that had been done. All the claimants that have made appeals and have had assessments, we have not got the paperwork for.

On top of this, we had just taken on all these people across the country, but luckily they were all on 6 month probationary so we could dismiss them, with out repercussions, from employment tribunals.

Then from the end Of November, we were told to put everything on hold, because of ATOS, many of you should know by now that they wanted out, they were not up to the job. Since January we used to have 8 appeals in each office per day, there were on average, 32 appeals per day, in just our office, with Doctors, medical staff, and advisor's, translators. We have had no appeals going through since March this year. The media know, there are questions being asked by local councilperson's who have been contacted by people waiting for their appeals. And we have to lie every single day, by saying we are clearing the backlog. We are not. We have cleared what we have and all we can do now is wait.

I am totally sick of the whole thing that is why I am on here.

I have made a FOI request on DWP to see what they are playing at.......

jennyjenkins

bloolagoon wrote: »

Very confusing re your housing as I understood zero UC have yet to be implemented for families, when did they start this.

The UC has not started yet as they are having too many problems, the tenants being paid their own rent is part of what the UC will eventually be, tenants are being paid their rent and not paying the landlords, so they have had to revise what UC is eventually going to be.

jennyjenkins

50Twuncle wrote: »

I have made a FOI request on DWP to see what they are playing at.......

I wonder if you will get any answer, I actually work for them, and we are in the dark, we haven't got a clue what is going on.

bloolagoon

jennyjenkins wrote: »

The UC has not started yet as they are having too many problems, the tenants being paid their own rent is part of what the UC will eventually be, tenants are being paid their rent and not paying the landlords, so they have had to revise what UC is eventually going to be.

Council tenants with children are included in this? I thought it was singles only and a pilot. I've never heard of any families accruing arrears enough to be evicted due to this, even the bedroom tax hasn't resulted in family evictions AFAIK and this is an area I have an interest in.

nannytone_2

its quite usual for tenants in private lets to have their LHA paid directly to them.
a request, together with a specific reason, has to be made for it to go direct to the landlord.

jennyjenkins

bloolagoon wrote: »

Council tenants with children are included in this? I thought it was singles only and a pilot. I've never heard of any families accruing arrears enough to be evicted due to this, even the bedroom tax hasn't resulted in family evictions AFAIK and this is an area I have an interest in.

Council and housing associations, the tenants in some areas are getting the rent paid direct to them. The evictions are not occurring because the people are not paying the excess bedroom rent, it is happening because they are not paying any rent at all.

jennyjenkins

nannytone wrote: »

its quite usual for tenants in private lets to have their LHA paid directly to them.
a request, together with a specific reason, has to be made for it to go direct to the landlord.

Council and housing association tenants are also being paid direct now.

osdset

jennyjenkins wrote: »

The UC has not started yet as they are having too many problems, the tenants being paid their own rent is part of what the UC will eventually be, tenants are being paid their rent and not paying the landlords, so they have had to revise what UC is eventually going to be.

Do you actually know what UC stands for? Having read your responses over this thread I've come to the conclusion that you don't work for the DWP because even the thickest DWP employee has more info to hand than you currently do.

To the rest of the posters on this thread, don't be suckered in by this bridge dweller.

john539

jennyjenkins wrote: »

This is why it is not public knowledge, there would be uproar, universal credit is also in the same position, but I do not work in that department it is only what I have found out. Giving tenants the money to pay their own rent has caused chaos, councils all over the country, are now owed rent by their tenants, where as they used to be paid direct, now it is given to the tenants to trot down to the Council offices themselves, it is not happening the tenants are just spending the money, it is a windfall to them. Trouble is, the councils can not make a family with young children completely homeless, so they are paying extra to put them up in travel lodges, and guest houses, whilst the council houses are being given to the Polish Roma's and other immigrants. It is complete chaos. And I hope that the Tories get back in next election because it is their mess they will have to clear it. I am sure they are hoping that Labour will win, and Labour will have one hell of a mess to clear up.

Yes, that is why clueless Tories have gone quiet on welfare reforms & Universal Credit and stopped UC roll out, they have created a poisoned chalice for Labour to pickup and clear up the Tory mess.

jennyjenkins

osdset wrote: »

Do you actually know what UC stands for? Having read your responses over this thread I've come to the conclusion that you don't work for the DWP because even the thickest DWP employee has more info to hand than you currently do.

To the rest of the posters on this thread, don't be suckered in by this bridge dweller.

You can say what you like I do not deal with UC I deal with tribunals, all I know about the UC is what I have been told from other departments.