parliamentary information office: There is nothing wrong with the current online system. I know, having been made redundant this summer after 14 years as an engineer and becoming obliged to use it.
This will be an excuse to spend more taxpayers money, or it will be something more sinister as hinted below.
Meanwhile I am job hunting furiously, believe me, and not even an interview yet. There's a few more months mortgage money in the bank account but then the shit really hits the fan for me.
parliamentary information office: Most people never use on-line services because government departments don't have them generally and the ones that are there are frigging useless. Living in Spain I've tried many times to get issues created by the DWP or the HMRC resolved on-line but there is no mechanism to do this via the internet and you have to resort to snail mail. Their web-sites are designed to promote caveat littered propaganda about this or that benefit but no where is there an on-line 'mail box' that specifically applies to you where you can resolve problems in a timely manner. Upon retirement I had the HMRC coding me as receiving two lots of state pension (I wish) and that took 4 different tax offices, 4 letters and goodness knows how many phone calls before I got the right tax code. This was despite being given 4 months notice of reaching 65. The DWP is no better as one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing and I ended up with 3 sets of EHIC health cards as a result. On the WFA where the rules have changed recently nowhere on their website does it state that people who weren't in receipt of the WFA prior to leaving the UK are now entitled to it when they reach 60. Is this a ploy to cut costs I wonder ! Three months ago I rang them up requesting the WFA and despite the fact that the woman talking to me had ALL my information on a screen in front of her, I still had to download a 12 page claim form for me and my wife and send it off. Six weeks later and no acknowledgement despite asking for a one line email I ring them up again and got a load of BS about we're overloaded but they don't know if they have received my form or not. Since then, we've received 4 additional blank WFA forms sent to us in Spain for filling in despite sending them the WFA forms 2 months ago whilst in England. Finally they have confirmed I will get the WFA but still haven't answered my claim for back payments from when I tried to claim it at 60 despite receiving a letter from me 2 months ago about this subject. I checked with an on-line EU advice centre and they confirmed that all ECJ rulings are retrospective unless specifically ruled otherwise and the new WFA ruling falls into this retrospective category. Another letter last week and we'll see what those people in Sunderland have to say about this as its over one thousand pounds by my estimation I've lost out due to being denied WFA from 60-67 years of age. In conclusion, unless organisations like the DWP or HMRC can design a simple web site that gives clear unequivocal information AND has an individual mailbox for everyone, it will be a waste of time. Other organisations manage to have secure 'mail boxes' so why not government departments.
parliamentary information office: Could not some savings also be made by bringing the end of the tax year to something more logical, like 31 March? If tax reform is included in the specifications for this latest Magnum Opus, the savings could indeed be massive, taking into account the reduced revenue streams for the post office and telephone companies, and the vultures in the tax avoidance game.
parliamentary information office: This is good news, I predict that changes to benefits payment software will result in even more savings than predicted. The civil service does not do computing, so when such changes are attempted there is usually a total cockup. Standby for lots of whinging and whining from career scroungers.
parliamentary information office: Most people never use on-line services because government departments don't have them generally and the ones that are there are frigging useless. Living in Spain I've tried many times to get issues created by the DWP or the HMRC resolved on-line but there is no mechanism to do this via the internet and you have to resort to snail mail. Their web-sites are designed to promote caveat littered propaganda about this or that benefit but no where is there an on-line 'mail box' that specifically applies to you where you can resolve problems in a timely manner. Upon retirement I had the HMRC coding me as receiving two lots of state pension (I wish) and that took 4 different tax offices, 4 letters and goodness knows how many phone calls before I got the right tax code. This was despite being given 4 months notice of reaching 65. The DWP is no better as one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing and I ended up with 3 sets of EHIC health cards as a result. On the WFA where the rules have changed recently nowhere on their website does it state that people who weren't in receipt of the WFA prior to leaving the UK are now entitled to it when they reach 60. Is this a ploy to cut costs I wonder ! Three months ago I rang them up requesting the WFA and despite the fact that the woman talking to me had ALL my information on a screen in front of her, I still had to download a 12 page claim form for me and my wife and send it off. Six weeks later and no acknowledgement despite asking for a one line email I ring them up again and got a load of BS about we're overloaded but they don't know if they have received my form or not. Since then, we've received 4 additional blank WFA forms sent to us in Spain for filling in despite sending them the WFA forms 2 months ago whilst in England. Finally they have confirmed I will get the WFA but still haven't answered my claim for back payments from when I tried to claim it at 60 despite receiving a letter from me 2 months ago about this subject. I checked with an on-line EU advice centre and they confirmed that all ECJ rulings are retrospective unless specifically ruled otherwise and the new WFA ruling falls into this retrospective category. Another letter last week and we'll see what those people in Sunderland have to say about this as its over one thousand pounds by my estimation I've lost out due to being denied WFA from 60-67 years of age. In conclusion, unless organisations like the DWP or HMRC can design a simple web site that gives clear unequivocal information AND has an individual mailbox for everyone, it will be a waste of time. Other organisations manage to have secure 'mail boxes' so why not government departments.
parliamentary information office: Could not some savings also be made by bringing the end of the tax year to something more logical, like 31 March? If tax reform is included in the specifications for this latest Magnum Opus, the savings could indeed be massive, taking into account the reduced revenue streams for the post office and telephone companies, and the vultures in the tax avoidance game.
parliamentary information office: This is good news, I predict that changes to benefits payment software will result in even more savings than predicted. The civil service does not do computing, so when such changes are attempted there is usually a total cockup. Standby for lots of whinging and whining from career scroungers.
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