First payment of state pension not received

xylophone

Try Daily Mail.

Money Box BBC?

https://twitter.com/Moneybox?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

michael417

Thank you Xylophone, Molerat and Diplodicus for your contributions.
Diplodicus - are you able to give me the 'link number' you mentioned?
I'm not sure what it is, but it could save me the 80 minute wait on the telephone.

xylophone

My brother got through after 80 mins waiting on the phone this morning.
Said it wasn't them but also supplied a link number 

Got through to whom?

xylophone

Thank you Xylophone, Molerat and Diplodicus for your contributions.

Did you see that this poster (link below) received prompt assistance from her MP?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78561788/#Comment_78561788

I wrote to my MP, who wrote back the next day, asking for further details so that she could contact the DWP.  Today she emailed me a copy of the reply sent to her by the DWP.  It states the amount that I will receive and says that my first four weeks of pension will be paid in arrears into my bank account on 26th August, and four weekly thereafter.  I still haven't received a letter from the DWP, but they claim in the email to my MP that they sent one out on 19th August, so it may still be in the post.

Alice_Holt

michael417 said:

Thank you Xylophone, Molerat and Diplodicus for your contributions.
Diplodicus - are you able to give me the 'link number' you mentioned?
I'm not sure what it is, but it could save me the 80 minute wait on the telephone.

      Contacting your MP is likely to result in a quicker resolution.

     

sheslookinhot

Alice_Holt said:

michael417 said:

Thank you Xylophone, Molerat and Diplodicus for your contributions.
Diplodicus - are you able to give me the 'link number' you mentioned?
I'm not sure what it is, but it could save me the 80 minute wait on the telephone.

      Contacting your MP is likely to result in a quicker resolution.

     

It may do for those that contact their MP, but not for others who will have to wait a bit longer as staff are diverted to investigating and responding to MP’s.

woolly_wombat

sheslookinhot said:

Alice_Holt said:

michael417 said:

Thank you Xylophone, Molerat and Diplodicus for your contributions.
Diplodicus - are you able to give me the 'link number' you mentioned?
I'm not sure what it is, but it could save me the 80 minute wait on the telephone.

      Contacting your MP is likely to result in a quicker resolution.

     

It may do for those that contact their MP, but not for others who will have to wait a bit longer as staff are diverted to investigating and responding to MP’s.

.
If contacting your MP is becoming the only route to obtaining the state pension to which one is entitled, then so be it.

It would also be helpful if the press were to pick up the story and apply pressure until this shambles is sorted out. I’m surprised this hasn’t already happened. Perhaps someone might like to contact Steve Webb, This is Money’s pensions agony uncle. That should put a rocket up a few senior bottoms to get things moving.
.

Alice_Holt

sheslookinhot said:

Alice_Holt said:

michael417 said:

Thank you Xylophone, Molerat and Diplodicus for your contributions.
Diplodicus - are you able to give me the 'link number' you mentioned?
I'm not sure what it is, but it could save me the 80 minute wait on the telephone.

      Contacting your MP is likely to result in a quicker resolution.

     

It may do for those that contact their MP, but not for others who will have to wait a bit longer as staff are diverted to investigating and responding to MP’s.

       Your point is entirely moot, since DWP staff should be thoroughly investigating the issue and responding to the customer when it is first raised by their customer. 

      By not doing this, and not getting it right first time, DWP are spending more time and effort in dealing ineffectively with subsequent customer enquiries.

     An MP's intervention may enable senior DWP staff to identify and rectify DWP problems for the benefit of future customers.

xylophone

It may do for those that contact their MP, but not for others who will have to wait a bit longer as staff are diverted to investigating and responding to MP’s.

If you were dependent on the receipt of the timely payment of your state pension and hadn't received it (even several weeks after it was due), would you not take the quickest means available of bringing it into payment?

I would hazard a guess that this shambles is rooted in the DWP's failure to require its staff to return to the office and do the job properly.

german_keeper

xylophone said:

It may do for those that contact their MP, but not for others who will have to wait a bit longer as staff are diverted to investigating and responding to MP’s.

If you were dependent on the receipt of the timely payment of your state pension and hadn't received it (even several weeks after it was due), would you not take the quickest means available of bringing it into payment?

I would hazard a guess that this shambles is rooted in the DWP's failure to require its staff to return to the office and do the job properly.

You might be right to some extent but I would suggest that another more important factor would be the amount of recent publicity about state pension in general. I can think of 3 things straight away, there may be more; all the waspe stuff, the underpayments to women due to DWP applying rules incorrectly, and the situation with the triple lock.

This leads to big increases in what HMRC (where I work) refers to as "low value" calls, I would imagine DWP has the same sort of problem. So people will ring up and say "I have seen something on the telly/read in the paper about pension and I want to check if it makes any difference to me". That sort of thing.

I haven't seen any DWP data about this but over the years I have seen plenty of HMRC data about tax credits calls and the number of "low value" calls that follow increased publicity (one was a few years ago when Martin Lewis did a big tax credits 
 piece on his television show) and the number of calls is quite astonishing. 

This means that staff are diverted to phones when they should be dealing with "back office" work. And don't forget that those staff are paid less and aren't as well trained as they used to be. All part of the "efficiency savings" that we have seen since 2010. At the end of the day it might well be what you voted for.