Why does it take the job centre ages to answer

tomtom256

calcotti wrote: »

Good point. Many of the cases I am aware of are claimants with LCWRA who therefore do not have a work coach. It is my understanding that messages on their journals have to be read by their case manager and that reading journal messages is lower on their priority list.

Are messages posted in different parts of the journal processed and directed differently?

Yes, some get routed to a Work Coach and some to the case managers.

However if a customer doesn't have a work coach, then these messages can go unanswered as in theory they will never be picked up by the case managers as they will not show on their dashboard.

Case managers rarely get chance to read and respond to messages, as they are very overworked and payments take precedence.

I would advocate a visit to a Jobcentre if the matter is urgent, as all should have a front of house team that can deal with drop in issues.

donnajunkie

Fire_Fox wrote: »

DWP seems to be trying to move everyone over to mainly online contact. It is more time efficient than telephone. My ex is on Universal Credit and messages about budgeting loans through his online account. Even with dyslexia it is faster than the telephone. Depending where you live it can be faster to go into the Job Centre in person.

HTH.

Goodluck getting passed the door if you go into your jobcentre. I dont see how online is quicker unless it is seen the instant you send the message.

11krage

I suppose it might depend on what jobcentre you're allocated to, and so what service center your case manager is in.

I do find the news about waiting so long on the phone odd as on the last area my team covered we would get calls coming through within a couple of minutes from the time the claimant made the call. We knew this because we'd have persistent callers (most of the time trying to get an advance). They'd call, get turned down for the advance, then hang up and three minutes later be with the agent sitting next to the agent who took the first phone call. Some would go around the entire team within 20 or so minutes.

However, that service centre and team had a really great rate of not letting calls drop and staying in the right code. Basically you have to be in a certain code on your computer to receive calls. You need to stay in this code unless you get special permission from your team leader (usually because you need to do something complex). This is also why most casemanagers will ask you to stay on the line on hold while they fix your claim. This is because it can be difficult to get that permission, so if they manage to fix it with you holding on the line they won't get told off for being in the wrong code or forget about it when another phone call comes through right after your one.

However, we are also low on casemanagers and some service centres have bad rates for letting calls drop (from their point of view this is just because they get so many phone calls it can make it difficult to even get through the basic work like making sure payments get out on time. So some do make themselves unavailable for calls more often than they should due to this.)

You can put a message on your journal if you wish, but advances are only agreed over the phone (or face to face with a work coach) so you will need to get through. Calls are routed to your casemanager. If they aren't in or are not in the right code or on another call it will go to someone on the team. If none of them are available it will be redirected to someone in the service centre. If none of them are available it will then go to national telephony.

As others have mentioned, trying as soon as the phone lines open can help.

You may luck out contacting someone with a journal message, but casemanagers are supposed to follow a strict trigger system. Journal messages are trigger three. There's so few case managers, few I know of manage to get past trigger two. There are some who break the rules somewhat and do journal messages during their breaks and lunch half hour (which is technically against the rules, but none of the managers ever complain about it or even remind them they should be taking their breaks).

We've had several mass exoduses of case managers leaving due to sudden changes to their jobs and being overworked. In the area I'm based we're currently undergoing another one. An email was sent around in March. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was something along the lines of 30 percent of long term staff had left since october. This is only the long term ones who've been working there for years. On top of this we also seem to be losing most of the newly recruited staff. They'll finally get around to recruiting some more casemanagers, and within the first few months on the job half or more of those new casemanagers disappear once they find out what the working conditions are really like.

Some of this might go toward explaining what you've experienced.

If you do go to the jobcentre and manage to get a kindly work coach to fit you in for a quick meeting (you can book these at the jobcentre as well as phone, but they might not be able to fit you in that day. There's claimants you don't show up for their appointments so you might get lucky if that work coach is kind enough to give up their unexpected break). Please remember the work coaches have just as much access to the advance system as case managers do.

Some work coaches fob claimants off by telling them to phone for an advance, when they're able to do it themselves. Occasionally they'll even check and see you're not eligible for advances (the screen will tell them this, and if so there's no way around it) and ask you to phone to see if a case manager can see any different. Which of course won't happen as they see exactly the same screen they do and there's no way to bypass it.

Another thing that has popped up in at least one jobcentre I'm aware of is work coaches being told they're not supposed to give claimants bad news for personal safety. This caused a lot of claimants who were not eligible for advances to phone up after their meetings as the work coach had interpreted this as not being able to tell them no to anything and to let us do it. Of course most claimants were fine, and only angry at the fact their time had been wasted as the work coach could've told them while at the meeting.

Not sure what you can do about that except put across a calm demeanor and assure the work coach you're not going to bite them if it's bad news??? Only one of the jobcentres I dealt with had this silly practice, so you probably don't need to worry about it happening to you. Other work coaches from other job centres also referred people wanting advances to us instead of checking themselves, but we didn't receive any explanation when we looked into why the work coach hadn't done it themselves, so I assume it might've been laziness more than fear of confrontation in their place.

So if they ask you to call instead of looking themselves and they're at a computer, just say you know they're able to check themselves and ask them to do so (in as nice a way possible so they don't think you're going to attack them if you're not eligible).

calcotti

donnajunkie wrote: »

Goodluck getting passed the door

I like the idea of walking out of a JobCentre with the door!

donnajunkie

calcotti wrote: »

I like the idea of walking out of a JobCentre with the door!

lol,
Seriously though, the last time i went to mine needing to see someone they wouldnt let me see anyone even though it was quite an important issue. Not only that they said they couldnt give me an appointment within a week. I bet if i said i wanted to sign off i would have been in and out within ten minutes.

calcotti

My frivolous comment in no way intended to take away from your point, but the typo conjured up the image in my mind - strides out with door tucked under arm.

donnajunkie

calcotti wrote: »

My frivolous comment in no way intended to take away from your point, but the typo conjured up the image in my mind - strides out with door tucked under arm.

Dont worry,i didnt think any offense was intended.

sportsarb

venison wrote: »

Over-worked under-staffed basically, always best to try as soon as they open in a morning, same goes for any DWP calls

This is the answer I would give.

Try as soon as the lines open, from that point onwards there are only more and more people waiting to speak to someone, it might be that there are little pockets of time when pick up rates improve as more staff get logged in etc. but by and large its best to be amongst the first people in the queue.

DWP don't employ enough staff and they don't properly train the staff they have, this leads to repeat calls, not enough processing staff leads to repeat calls, add that to all the people making initial enquiries and its a recipe for failure.

Robbie64

donnajunkie wrote: »

lol,
Seriously though, the last time i went to mine needing to see someone they wouldnt let me see anyone even though it was quite an important issue. Not only that they said they couldnt give me an appointment within a week. I bet if i said i wanted to sign off i would have been in and out within ten minutes.

It possibly depends on the JobCentre and workloads. At mine, on the two occasions I've gone in to query something and without an appointment I've been able to see a member of staff without any problems.

wild666

Try telling the person in charge of UC at the DWP N. Co_ulin_g that you cannot get through to the number you're phoning and they seriously need more people working the phone lines.
IMO the DWP don't care they don't hit targets, if they did no one would be waiting long for their call to be answered.