[Sussex] Where are the East Sussex County council pension staff? All we needed was one.

[Eric the meek]

My wife has filled in the forms to draw her pension from East Sussex County Council. Before submitting them, she had a query to ask the pension team. She called the number on the form, spoke to a helpful woman who answered her query, and she promised that someone in the admin team would put it in writing to confirm. All good.

We were going to Lewes anyway, and I thought we would drop the forms in for the pension team to process. The bloke on reception said that there was nobody to take the forms, as there was no-one in the pensions team in the building. Not one. He said that none of them work on Thursdays. Come back next week, on Tuesday or Wednesday, but we should ring first.

OK. I'm getting old. I know things are changing fast. WFH is a thing, and there's a thread about it.

But we wanted to hand over the forms (which contain names, addresses, NI nos, bank details, together with ID (2 birth certificates and a marriage certificate), to ensure safe receipt by the council. But it wasn't to be. The council wouldn't accept them. On a working day, when the council offices were ostensibly open, albeit empty.

All we wanted to do was make contact face-to-face with a real person, to make sure our forms arrived safely. A reasonable aim I feel. But we are compliant. We will ring up next week, and do what the council tells us to do.

We also struggled with paying for parking in the Council car park, the emptiness of which, should have been a clue.

As a 65 year old, I feel I'm being marginalised, excluded and ignored by society. When you get old, you become invisible.

 

[Robinjakarta]

Could be worse. I belong (well, in theory) to the UK civil service pensions scheme. Last November, I had a change of bank forced on me with my old one ceasing operations. A simple matter, it seemed to notify the pensions office of the new bank details so that payment continued, no? Well, no. 10 months later, my pension payments remain stopped because the old bank won't take them anymore (of course). In the ensuing email 'tennis,' there has been one issue after another including:
1. emails from me ignored and/or allegedly not received after I followed up (of course they were: none bounced back)
2. what feels like a world record of times with never the same person handling my emails twice: a different one every time
3. repeated requests for me to provide information already supplied

And much, much more.

And don't get me started on my bank app that's worthy of a Monty Python sketch.

I hate trying to deal with officialdom having got out after over 20 years and never looked back.

I wish you better luck than I'm having with the ivory tower lot.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Eric

Wouldn‘t it have been easier to send it by registered post? Face to face contacts are rare nowadays.

Robinjakarta my pension scheme has a website where bank account details can be changed online, and would’ve thought the Civil Service had the same facility. The problem with a rabbit hole problem like yours, is the inability to correct it, once it had gone wrong.

 

[Chicken Run]

I’m hearing there are problems in the parking dept at B&HCC with not enough people actually in the building to process the printing and distribution of parking permits and associated renewal’s as they are unable to do this from home, the problem is the staff are resisting going back to normal working practices now that they have got used to being in their PJ’s all day ffs!

 

[Chicken Run]

would’ve thought the Civil Service had the same facility.

Lol

 

[Robinjakarta]

Robinjakarta my pension scheme has a website where bank account details can be changed online, and would’ve thought the Civil Service had the same facility. The problem with a rabbit hole problem like yours, is the inability to correct it, once it had gone wrong.

There is a website, yes, but bank details can't be changed online for those who live abroad as I do.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

There is a website, yes, but bank details can't be changed online for those who live abroad as I do.

It defeats the idea of everything being digital. My last eight working years were in the Civil Service, who insisted everything had to be paperless!

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I’m hearing there are problems in the parking dept at B&HCC with not enough people actually in the building to process the printing and distribution of parking permits and associated renewal’s as they are unable to do this from home, the problem is the staff are resisting going back to normal working practices now that they have got used to being in their PJ’s all day ffs!

I have had a quick turnaround, or I should say my son has with parking permits for matchday and he's ordered several times.

 

[Hastings gull]

My wife has filled in the forms to draw her pension from East Sussex County Council. Before submitting them, she had a query to ask the pension team. She called the number on the form, spoke to a helpful woman who answered her query, and she promised that someone in the admin team would put it in writing to confirm. All good.

We were going to Lewes anyway, and I thought we would drop the forms in for the pension team to process. The bloke on reception said that there was nobody to take the forms, as there was no-one in the pensions team in the building. Not one. He said that none of them work on Thursdays. Come back next week, on Tuesday or Wednesday, but we should ring first.

OK. I'm getting old. I know things are changing fast. WFH is a thing, and there's a thread about it.

But we wanted to hand over the forms (which contain names, addresses, NI nos, bank details, together with ID (2 birth certificates and a marriage certificate), to ensure safe receipt by the council. But it wasn't to be. The council wouldn't accept them. On a working day, when the council offices were ostensibly open, albeit empty.

All we wanted to do was make contact face-to-face with a real person, to make sure our forms arrived safely. A reasonable aim I feel. But we are compliant. We will ring up next week, and do what the council tells us to do.

We also struggled with paying for parking in the Council car park, the emptiness of which, should have been a clue.

As a 65 year old, I feel I'm being marginalised, excluded and ignored by society. When you get old, you become invisible.

They are all the same -they cannot bend or apply common sense, not helped by the fact that they prefer to work from home, and I think we can guess why that is . . I notified West Sussex Pensions Team of our change of address, and instead of simply confirming this, they sent a huge form wanting me to confirm such things as bank details and gender. . . When I queried this and asked for common sense to prevail, they didn't reply to that but said that only certain sections now needed to be completed,

 

[Eric the meek]

Eric

Wouldn‘t it have been easier to send it by registered post? Face to face contacts are rare nowadays.

Robinjakarta my pension scheme has a website where bank account details can be changed online, and would’ve thought the Civil Service had the same facility. The problem with a rabbit hole problem like yours, is the inability to correct it, once it had gone wrong.

Normally I would have used registered post, but as Lewes is only up the road, and we were going there anyway, I thought we could call in and physically hand over the forms to someone. To reiterate, the forms had our names, address, phone numbers, email addresses, NI numbers, bank details, and the proof of ID - birth certificates and marriage certificate.

Regarding a change of bank details online, that's a no-no. A while ago, a large amount of money was stolen from a Hargeaves Lansdown account holder, who was away. The thief managed to access their account and submit an online change of bank details. The victim got his money back.

 

[Eric the meek]

Could be worse. I belong (well, in theory) to the UK civil service pensions scheme. Last November, I had a change of bank forced on me with my old one ceasing operations. A simple matter, it seemed to notify the pensions office of the new bank details so that payment continued, no? Well, no. 10 months later, my pension payments remain stopped because the old bank won't take them anymore (of course). In the ensuing email 'tennis,' there has been one issue after another including:
1. emails from me ignored and/or allegedly not received after I followed up (of course they were: none bounced back)
2. what feels like a world record of times with never the same person handling my emails twice: a different one every time
3. repeated requests for me to provide information already supplied

And much, much more.

And don't get me started on my bank app that's worthy of a Monty Python sketch.

I hate trying to deal with officialdom having got out after over 20 years and never looked back.

I wish you better luck than I'm having with the ivory tower lot.

What a terrible story. Lack of continuity of service is a common complaint.

As a general point, it seems that too often, where there's an app, or wfh, the reason is for the convenience of the staff, and not the customers.

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

Incompetence is incompetence whether carried out in the office or at home. Not sure working from home makes some people more incompetent.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Eric

Wouldn‘t it have been easier to send it by registered post? Face to face contacts are rare nowadays.

Robinjakarta my pension scheme has a website where bank account details can be changed online, and would’ve thought the Civil Service had the same facility. The problem with a rabbit hole problem like yours, is the inability to correct it, once it had gone wrong.

Probably safer too. I'd far sooner have my documents officially signed for by the receiving organisation, thereby triggering their standard internal processes, rather than hand them over to some random person who may or may not handle them correctly

 

[Si Gull]

Probably safer too. I'd far sooner have my documents officially signed for by the receiving organisation, thereby triggerring their internal processes rather than hand them over to some random person

Sent my tax return by registered/signed for a couple of years ago. Was basically signed 'X' and never showed on Royal Mail tracking as having been delivered.

Took an age for hmrc to confirm receipt. Now just post it and hope for the best

ps. The software won't let me file all of my return online, so until hmrc get their act together it's full paper returns from me

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Normally I would have used registered post, but as Lewes is only up the road, and we were going there anyway, I thought we could call in and physically hand over the forms to someone. To reiterate, the forms had our names, address, phone numbers, email addresses, NI numbers, bank details, and the proof of ID - birth certificates and marriage certificate.

Regarding a change of bank details online, that's a no-no. A while ago, a large amount of money was stolen from a Hargeaves Lansdown account holder, who was away. The thief managed to access their account and submit an online change of bank details. The victim got his money back.

With the introduction of Stronger Customer Authentication (SCA) including Confirmation of Payee (COP) there really isn’t any reason to not accept online bank account changes as they can be verified

I work in financial crime for a bank and we operate what’s called a closed loop funding framework in our savings accounts where we will only transact with one nominated verified bank account.

Any requests to change the nominated account must be validated before transacting, we do this with sequential api calls to Experian and Equifax and then we do a penny traction enduring COP is passed.

The weakness in other banks processes is accepting and not spotting falsified bank statements, at which point the account is taken over and emptied.