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

Thunder Bolt said:

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

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Thunder Bolt said:

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.

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Robinjakarta said:

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

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Chicken Run said:

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!

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Eric the meek said:

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.

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Thunder Bolt said:

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.

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Robinjakarta said:

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.

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Thunder Bolt said:

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.

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Tom Hark Preston Park said:

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

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Eric the meek said:

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.

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