The day after my state pension qualifying age, nothing heard from the DWP

rosalind110

Good idea.  If I didn't have a work pension and was wholly dependent on the state pension, I'd be pretty well scuppered at this point.   

Alice_Holt

Another vote for contacting your MP, this can very often produce results.

Raising a complaint is also a good suggestion - but results can be variable and currently subject to delay.  Perhaps a letter addressed to the DWP Permanent Secretary   (Mr Peter Schofield, DWP Operations, Po Box 50101, LONDON, SW1P 2WU) may produce a result.


Something that does work quickly with other DWP benefits, is a pre-action judicial review letter. CPAG have a range of templates -  

https://cpag.org.uk/welfare-rights/judicial-review

You would need to find one to adapt - perhaps 
JR10 UC delay in providing UC MR decision (when MR was requested of HRT decision- but can be edited for any MR) 

But it would need considerable alteration to fit your circumstances.

The letter is send to the DWP lawyers at Caxton House, who (by law) have 14 days to respond.

xylophone

Have you had any luck with RNID?

Do you know why you are having difficulty in downloading Relay?

mags21

rosalind110 said:

It's not that I'm "impatient" or "inflexible", so much as being 100% in the dark, 8 days AFTER I reached pensionable age. 


I would expect that, even during a pandemic, I would be told at some point in the full five months between completing my pension application online, and the qualifying date for my pension, how much pension I'm going to get and when I'm going to get it.  I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation when it concerns my day-to-day income and financial planning to pay the bills, buy food etc.


Today I've literally spent 6 hours online trying to get some sort of information from them with no success whatsoever.  In order to access my own information on GOV. UK Verify, I am required to prove my identity via either The Post Office or a company called Digidentity, by providing two forms of identity.  I don't have a driver's license or an identity card, so my only two options are my passport and my mobile phone number. However, while there has been no problem with verifying my passport, neither company will accept my mobile phone number as verification, probably because I own the phone outright and use it with a SIM card, rather than having a contract, so I can't even log in to look at my own information. 


After further two hours of trying, and completely failing, to install apps on both my mobile phone and my desktop pc that will allow me to speak on the phone to the DWP via a deaf relay service, I am at a complete loss as to what to do next,  as literally, all avenues of potential contact appear to be completely closed to me. 


Based on that, I would ask that you don't assume that I'm being unduly impatient simply because I need to know how much money I'm going to have to live off, or, for that matter, whether they've processed my application at all, which is something I'm not able to check.

Just a thought… re. using mobile phone number as verification, perhaps you have to enter the number using the international format i.e +44 and omit the first zero?

mark55man

I'm really sorry for your difficulties, a complete nightmare.

In my opinion, the verify service is a complete farce and you shouldn't waste any more time on it.  

You should focus on getting access via the Government Gateway.  Which I know has been problematic but even so its thebest route

Failing that you might try CAB who I have found very helpful whenever I have had a challenge with DWP.

Alice_Holt

mark55man said:

Failing that you might try CAB who I have found very helpful whenever I have had a challenge with DWP.

        The difficulty faced by Citizens Advice is that the DWP don't provide an escalation line which Cit A volunteers and staff can use. 
     The routes into the DWP are exactly the same as for claimants, so 30 mins plus on the general phone lines, etc.

A couple of examples

  - a colleague waited 50 mins on the Universal Credit helpline with a very vulnerable client (who would need to pass the security questions and confirm that we could speak on their behalf), only to be told incorrectly by a DWP call-handler that they don't do 3 way calls and have the phone put down on both her and the client;

 - I wrote a letter to DWP debt management (enclosing a form of authority from the client);  their (eventual) return letter - addressed to myself at my Citizens Advice office - answered none of queries raised, but did tell me I could visit my local Citizens Advice for more help !! 

  DWP administration is fast approaching a shambolic meltdown. Hence my earlier suggestion that the OP involves her MP, writes to the DWP lawyers or the Permanent Secretary - that tends to concentrate minds. 

Troytempest

MP is the way to go now......

xylophone

I wonder whether contacting one of the national newspapers (Telegraph/Mail) would be worth a try?

NedS

As suggested, contact the local MP. They will be able to take up the issue with DWP directly. It is amazing how contact from an MP has the effect of concentrating the mind and someone will hopefully pick up the issue and see it through to it's conclusion.

woolly_wombat

xylophone said:

I wonder whether contacting one of the national newspapers (Telegraph/Mail) would be worth a try?

The Mail/This is Money’s pension agony uncle is former Pensions Minister Steve Webb.

Scroll down for contact details to ‘Ask Steve Webb a pensions question’:
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-5626211/Steve-Webb-answers-pension-questions-here.html