Contacting government departments

[oddoneout]

Government departments are all encouraged to promote "digital by default" as the way of "communicating". I know-I work for one! This works quite well with computer literate people, but many people don't have/can't use the technology and therefore effectively become second class citizens, which is unfair, since they've paid their taxes as much as anyone!

When this method of operation was being phased in where I work (I won't say where, or which Government department it is) one of the guys explaining things gave us a beautiful analogy, which I will share with you all here: he suggested we viewed this new way of working in the same way as drivers in the 1970s & 80s viewed the introduction of self-service petrol pumps; when it started it was a battle to get anyone to use them, but if you wanted fuel, increasingly you had no choice. Nowadays no-one would expect to return to "attended service" petrol pumps. So it will be with the new ways of working.

Not the best analogy in my view, not least because petrol pumps are generally reliable, and if something does go wrong there is likely to be a human around to ask, whether staff or another customer.
The digital push would be more successful if there was reliability, and if it was possible to contact a human(preferably one with the relevant knowledge....) when problems or queries arise. And that's not even taking into account those who do not have easy access to the internet, or may be unable to use it, who end up excluded and disadvantaged.
Two years ago I had to start completing tax returns again, and insisted on a paper return as I didn't believe the 'it's easy' sales talk of the digital route. Suffice to say I was right to be suspicious, there was no online answer to the queries I had, and the so-called helpline gave me wrong information(and cost an arm and a leg for the privilege) and wrong forms resulting in rejected returns. At least I had a paper trail when the threats of fines for missing deadlines and non-submission started. Being treated as guilty of deliberate wrongdoing thanks to poorly trained staff and inadequate systems does not make me want to embrace the brave new world...

[gradus]

I have been to court against them recently
and won
As many others will testify they are fundamentally dishonest and duplicitous
inspired by Kafka

Read and weep
url]https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmworpen/355/355.pdf[/url]

Thanks for the link. I have tangled with PIP and ESA and appeals and the severe problems that can arise exacerbated when claimants do not have fluent English, but I don't blame the poor bloody infantry with whom one deals on a day to day basis and who are powerless to change the system handed down to them. This shouts from the pages of the report which imv places responsibility where it should lie, on the shoulders of those that negotiated the contracts and allow the contractors get away with it. Whatever else they may be good at the senior civil servants who procured these contracts produced dismal fifth-rate work and the contractors ran/run rings around them.

[MrGongGong]

Thanks for the link. I have tangled with PIP and ESA and appeals and the severe problems that can arise exacerbated when claimants do not have fluent English, but I don't blame the poor bloody infantry with whom one deals on a day to day basis and who are powerless to change the system handed down to them. This shouts from the pages of the report which imv places responsibility where it should lie, on the shoulders of those that negotiated the contracts and allow the contractors get away with it. Whatever else they may be good at the senior civil servants who procured these contracts produced dismal fifth-rate work and the contractors ran/run rings around them.

YOU are more generous than I am
What I have experienced is a complicity in the mistreatment of some of the most vulnerable
by people who then adopt the "Nuremberg Defence"
Nothing to do with not having good English
just a system created to vitimise the vulnerable
it is NOT acceptable in any way or form and those who are complicit in this are guilty

[jayne lee wilson]

The Government Gateway certainly works well for many things, if you have it, giving you access to everything from Self Assessment to Pensions and Benefits Forms. Advice is clear and detailed.

So the other night I tried downloading and printing the Attendance Allowance form for Mum.... it runs to...45 pages. The printer ran too low on ink to complete the task so I had to order cartridges and wait...
But looking through the impossibly over-detailed, over-elaborate and very numerous questions the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" comes to mind... almost every question about care needs is needlessly subdivided into three....

So disheartening. Seemingly there not to offer help but to discourage you from trying to get it. So one carries on...

[Dave2002]

The Government Gateway certainly works well for many things, if you have it, giving you access to everything from Self Assessment to Pensions and Benefits Forms. Advice is clear and detailed.

So the other night I tried downloading and printing the Attendance Allowance form for Mum.... it runs to...45 pages. The printer ran too low on ink to complete the task so I had to order cartridges and wait...
But looking through the impossibly over-detailed, over-elaborate and very numerous questions the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" comes to mind... almost every question about care needs is needlessly subdivided into three....

So disheartening. Seemingly there not to offer help but to discourage you from trying to get it. So one carries on...

I've been down the Attendance Allowance route. In the first instance many people seemingly don't know either that it exists, or that they or others they may care for, are able to apply for it. We only discovered because a relative's GP made a comment - "oh, but of course he/she's getting attendance allowance ..." - which he wasn't at the time. This triggered our investigation into the aspects of allowances for carers. Fairly obviously with older relatives one may become disadvantaged and entitled to some support, while their partner may also be able to access support for their caring role. In my own mother's case she refused to let us apply for it for years, and didn't allow us to apply for Power of Attorney until the point at which we could not legally apply for it, but eventually we did get the forms and we did succeed in filling them in. Indeed they were quite complex, and one could perhaps imagine that the "system", such as it was, was constructed to discourage or prevent people from gaining access to this resource. I think in the end she only received a few weeks of this allowance, as she then took the other routes to hospital, nursing home.

At least with paper based systems which get looked at by humans there is some chance that issues can be dealt with humanely, if not always sensibly. Trying to automate systems to reduce costs often (nearly always) seems to introduce unwanted problems.

It's not only in the UK that this kind of thing happens. I was amused dealing with official telephone services in California, USA, for example to get visa extensions, or a change of visa status. Some of these had a diversionary tactic - "Before we put you through to the relevant department we'd like you to listen to some helpful information ..." at which point either there would be a choice of "helpful" audio snippets, or one might be chosen at random. On one occasion I think I must have fooled the system, probably by pressing a whole bunch of numbers, and then a human voice answered. He was helpful - but I also detected that he was surprised (very) that I'd managed to break through to his phone. That was over 20 years ago. I was pretty sure the phone system had been constructed to make sure that hardly any people were able to navigate through and get help from a human being.

Or am I too cynical?

[MrGongGong]

"Government Gateway" my a*se
More like a well known AC/DC track

The DWP make the whole PIP thing almost impossible
You can't apply online
You have to phone up for a personalised form they send you through the post which you have to fill in by hand then post to them
They won't accept any other format
So if you, for example, had a disability that made this difficult or impossible you would fail before you start

It is deliberately designed to stop people getting what they are entitled to

You can't trust a single word of what they say, one person will say one thing and another a different one

[oddoneout]

I was pretty sure the phone system had been constructed to make sure that hardly any people were able to navigate through and get help from a human being.
Or am I too cynical?

Not in my view no.
It makes sense that a phone system should try and direct those using it to roughly where their queries can best be dealt with, but it too often seems to be used as an effective way of screening out any possibility of a member of staff having to interact with the public. That may be to cover up lack of staff(government departments), lack of interest in the public(businesses) or incompetence in choice of systems(local authorities et al)
A fundamental failing at the first hurdle(whether government or other) is the assumption that the person calling already knows what category their query falls into. The number of times I've listened to the 'menu' and thought 'it's not any of those'. Increasingly I'll pick any number and if I get through to a human say 'I didn't know which option was right for this question'. Interestingly, more often than not the person I speak to can deal with the matter, which suggests to me that the initial filtering is just a way to distribute calls round the one call centre, rather than directing to a department. My local council has a version of this in that the number to contact a given department will take you through, not to that department, but to a general purpose person who is supposed to have enough information available to answer most of the calls in one go, or else pass on to the relevant department. Trouble is that if you have phoned a specific department because you have a specific rather than general query, spending time explaining said query to some generic phone answerer who then has to work through whether s/he can deal with it, then if the answer is no wait for connection to the department you were trying to contact in the first place.....

[french frank]

So the other night I tried downloading and printing the Attendance Allowance form for Mum.... it runs to...45 pages.

A few years ago my cousin asked me to help her fill in an AA form for her mother. I have three university degrees and we had to make an appointment with the Citizens Advice Bureau to help us (and arranging an appointment wasn't that easy owing to the quantity of helpless people wanting advice).

[eighthobstruction]

....I was helping someone fill out online Universal Credit form....he was a bit hastey and answered a question wrongly[ticked wrong box] but did not immediately realise he had. When he did realise the algarithim had taken him to a place/page which rejected his claim and he had to start all over again. This is of course after the hours it took for him to negotiate the Prove Identity pages/system....very difficult for him as he had no Driving License or valid Passport, nor an android phone to photograph and send info etc etc....weighted terribly towards the savvy, and not for quiet, slow and vulnerable....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

....weighted terribly towards the savvy,

Which includes anyone determined to cheat the system.

and not for quiet, slow and vulnerable....

... in other words, most of the people who need the most help.

A contemptible disgrace.

[oddoneout]

A few years ago my cousin asked me to help her fill in an AA form for her mother. I have three university degrees and we had to make an appointment with the Citizens Advice Bureau to help us (and arranging an appointment wasn't that easy owing to the quantity of helpless people wanting advice).

In my home town some years ago I came across instances of the local Social Security office contacting CAB for guidance on interpreting the benefits system....It is unfortunate to say the least that at a time when the CAB's services are more in demand(and more essential) than ever as the only means many people have of engaging with the authorities that funding difficulties mean offices are facing closure or reduction in service provision.

[Anastasius]

Well, I confess to having been pleasantly surprised with the ease of getting through to the two Govt departments that I tried - HMRC who couldn't have been more helpful and DWP - who again were able to address my concerns.

Indeed, DWP have had, to my mind, some very good people in to create some letters that they send out. When I was approaching retirement age and wanted details on my State pension I wrote in. The reply letter set things out very clearly and, as I was reading it various questions came into my head...only for them to be answered a few paragraphs later. Someone had clearly considered 'What if'.

I have given up trying to get through to Liverpool Victoria regarding setting up some life assurance. Emails never get answered.

[oddoneout]

Well, I confess to having been pleasantly surprised with the ease of getting through to the two Govt departments that I tried - HMRC who couldn't have been more helpful and DWP - who again were able to address my concerns.

Indeed, DWP have had, to my mind, some very good people in to create some letters that they send out. When I was approaching retirement age and wanted details on my State pension I wrote in. The reply letter set things out very clearly and, as I was reading it various questions came into my head...only for them to be answered a few paragraphs later. Someone had clearly considered 'What if'.

I have given up trying to get through to Liverpool Victoria regarding setting up some life assurance. Emails never get answered.

It's good to hear of more positive experiences. I might try DWP again re State Pension info. The last time I tried what I had back was incorrect, unhelpful and had been inexpertly cut and pasted, but it's possible that all the fallout from the changes to the State Pension has prompted a revision.
The fact that there are examples of good practice only serves to highlight how poor much of the rest of it is, and also that poor provision isn't because they don't know how to do better.

[MrGongGong]

It's good to hear of more positive experiences. I might try DWP again re State Pension info. The last time I tried what I had back was incorrect, unhelpful and had been inexpertly cut and pasted, but it's possible that all the fallout from the changes to the State Pension has prompted a revision.
The fact that there are examples of good practice only serves to highlight how poor much of the rest of it is, and also that poor provision isn't because they don't know how to do better.

It is good to hear of positive experineces
BUT my strong advice is to never, ever trust anything they tell you
You might get someone who is "nice" or even something that is clearly written but that doesn't mean that the next time it will be the same.
I would be very very wary of anyone from the DWP who appears "helpful" , there are tactics they use to try and "catch people out"
NOT that i'm being paranoid but having had the long drawn out experinece of telling them things honestly only to be completely ignored until we actually got to court I would record, duplicate everything and keep detailed records.

[oddoneout]

It is good to hear of positive experineces
BUT my strong advice is to never, ever trust anything they tell you
You might get someone who is "nice" or even something that is clearly written but that doesn't mean that the next time it will be the same.
I would be very very wary of anyone from the DWP who appears "helpful" , there are tactics they use to try and "catch people out"
NOT that i'm being paranoid but having had the long drawn out experinece of telling them things honestly only to be completely ignored until we actually got to court I would record, duplicate everything and keep detailed records.

Even without the paranoia aspect, recording every exchange is essential. Hurried knee-jerk recruitment and poor training means that the quality of the advice or answers given cannot be assumed to be good or correct. Having a note of exact times of calls, the name of the person spoken to, and a summary of the query and answer proved invaluable in my recent skirmishes with HMRC. A similar approach was also essential with DWP when trying to deal with my late mother's changing circumstances(and yes I also had a 'trip-up' incident to sort out during that - although it was claimed to be an error), not least because of the Chinese whispers effect of dealing with several different people and departments who seemed (deliberately or otherwise) incapable of noting exchanges on file let alone agreeing on what they told me.