Links | Press Release |
|
|
|
| Written by Loan Ranger | |
| Saturday, 10 March 2007 | |
|
The following Press Release is for publication
I have written the following text (for publication) after conducting painstaking research, therefore I will accept full responsibility if there are legal repercussions resultant from its publication provided that it is reproduced unchanged. The problem as I see it now, is that Ministers for the DWP and the Chief Executive of "Jobcentre Plus" (Jim Murphy M.P., James Plaskitt M.P. and Ms. Lesley Strathie) prefer to remain in a 'cosy' state of denial in regards to Crisis Loans by telephone because if the facts were to hit the fan, none of them would come out of it unscathed. Todays problem has its origins in 2002 with the roll-out of Jobcentre Plus, staff cuts under the 'Gershon Review' and, the introduction of new I.T. and telephony systems, being implemented simultaneously. It doesn't require a genius to see that the DWP was trying to do too much, too fast, and to make matters worse, staff training provision has remained at the previous (average) levels of 6 days per person/year. The delivery of benefits has been beset by problems and failings ever since. This is all public knowledge and has been well reported by Committees and The Press alike. I would conjecture that, consequently, failures in the timely delivery of other benefits has caused a very significant increase in clients needing to apply for alignment loans whilst awaiting payment of their overdue entitlement, thereby overburdening the system. If the said increase in applications were to become public knowledge, it could be construed as indicative of wider dysfunctionality within the operation of Jobcentre Plus benefits delivery centres as a whole. So, the absence of statistics is advantageous to the aforementioned three wise monkeys of Westminster and Whitehall. So here we come to the nub of the story; no statistics, (leads to) no evidence of a problem, (and therefore) no call for improvements in service delivery. I intend to change all that starting with the co-ordinated gathering of statistics and evidence to present to M.P.s and the media. The reason they use for not giving any statistics pertaining to unanswered calls is pathetic, "...advanced telephony systems (not yet being) in place, enabling us to monitor telephony performance...", and it should not be accepted as a reason for them not trying. They just don't have the will to do anything, but surely anything would be better than nothing. See my new web site http://loanranger.no-ip.org/crisis loan/ for more. Notes for Editors; |
|
| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 18 November 2008 ) |
| < Prev |
|---|