Bloody officialdom....

[whatknot]

On a similar subject

I was a self employed shop owner a few years back and submitted my self assesment tax return online, by logging in through the Gov gateway

Roll on a few years and retirement, check your pension forecast they said, do it online by logging in through the Gov gateway, good I thought I can do that, having done so many a time before, so I log in with no problem and get several pages down the route to be told they now wanted to check my identity, despite having relieved me of rather a lot of tax in the past, they were quite happy then with my identity

List of items required now to enable using the online system
(I think it was two required)

UK Passport (don't have one, last ran out 20 odd years ago)
UK photocard driving licence (only have my paper licence)
Payslips or P60 (I actually have a P60 hooray)
Self assessment no more than two years (mine were well over two years)
Tax Credits (not entirely sure what they are but don't have any as am not working)
Credit record (nope)

The only photo ID I have is my bus pass, but thats not good enough

And only then do they tell you, if you don't have the aforementioned you can't use the system

So not for the first time rang HMRC first (as they sent me a letter) on hold for 50 minutes, got a partial answer and told I would have to ring the Pension service, nice young lady very helpful for what she could do, total call time 57 mins 45 seconds

Got through in just over 8 minutes, not bad I thought BUT I was told I would have to speak to another department BUT they close at 3pm ;-)

As I said I have rang these departments many a time and every time I am on hold for a very lengthy period, surely this should tell them that they are understaffed and with sufficient staff they would have much less grief than they do now, yes I know about departmental budgets but I bet their staff sickness days are a lot due to the strain they put on operators

PS if I remember rightly I applied for a pension forecast four months before retirement, it arrived seven months later, I wonder how many of those put on hold are phoning due to overdue correspondance

 

[Cozzer]

I changed my DL picture a year ago and was promised I'd be able to update online from now on....

Tried to change address and went through this whole thing like OP...

I do not have nor need a passport!! or maybe now I do it seems!? grrr

This is nothing (or at least not very much) to do with officialdom or stupidity - it is the Meldrew syndrome, better known as growing old.

The world moves on and we don't. My grandfather never learned to drive despite being able to comfortably afford a car. For my parents, programming a video recorder was a complex task best left to the kids.

My current gripes - apps - particularly parking. My brain is full up with irrelevant data and skills accumulated over decades leaving little room for anything new.

But the sad reality is that the days of real money are numbered, and interaction with the rest of the world relies upon the interweb. Fail to adapt and you will be marginalised.

To an extent, I agree. Had to smile about your grandfather - mine would never have a TV in the house, even though folk tried to assure him it was OK. His main reason was simply explained - he was in Northampton, the Cup Final was in London and kicked off at 3. Ergo, he couldn't possibly be watching it live in Northampton....

I would still be concerned about the "days of real money being numbered". Words like "eggs" and "one basket" should spring to mind.

 

[Cozzer]

On a similar subject

I was a self employed shop owner a few years back and submitted my self assesment tax return online, by logging in through the Gov gateway

Roll on a few years and retirement, check your pension forecast they said, do it online by logging in through the Gov gateway, good I thought I can do that, having done so many a time before, so I log in with no problem and get several pages down the route to be told they now wanted to check my identity, despite having relieved me of rather a lot of tax in the past, they were quite happy then with my identity

List of items required now to enable using the online system
(I think it was two required)

UK Passport (don't have one, last ran out 20 odd years ago)
UK photocard driving licence (only have my paper licence)
Payslips or P60 (I actually have a P60 hooray)
Self assessment no more than two years (mine were well over two years)
Tax Credits (not entirely sure what they are but don't have any as am not working)
Credit record (nope)

The only photo ID I have is my bus pass, but thats not good enough

And only then do they tell you, if you don't have the aforementioned you can't use the system

So not for the first time rang HMRC first (as they sent me a letter) on hold for 50 minutes, got a partial answer and told I would have to ring the Pension service, nice young lady very helpful for what she could do, total call time 57 mins 45 seconds

Got through in just over 8 minutes, not bad I thought BUT I was told I would have to speak to another department BUT they close at 3pm ;-)

As I said I have rang these departments many a time and every time I am on hold for a very lengthy period, surely this should tell them that they are understaffed and with sufficient staff they would have much less grief than they do now, yes I know about departmental budgets but I bet their staff sickness days are a lot due to the strain they put on operators

PS if I remember rightly I applied for a pension forecast four months before retirement, it arrived seven months later, I wonder how many of those put on hold are phoning due to overdue correspondance

"Thank you for holding. All lines are currently very busy. Your call is important to us....
Please stay on the line until your call is no longer important to you..."

 

[whatknot]

"Thank you for holding. All lines are currently very busy. Your call is important to us....
Please stay on the line until your call is no longer important to you..."

That is very much what I was saying out loud to no one in particular but after the umpteenth "your call is very important to us" I resigned myself to listen to whatever passes as their music which is very loud and irritating even on the lowest setting, thank goodness for hands free cordless phones

 

[Cozzer]

That is very much what I was saying out loud to no one in particular but after the umpteenth "your call is very important to us" I resigned myself to listen to whatever passes as their music which is very loud and irritating even on the lowest setting, thank goodness for hands free cordless phones

....not to mention that it "may be recorded for training purposes".

 

[Superduner]

On a similar subject

I was a self employed shop owner a few years back and submitted my self assesment tax return online, by logging in through the Gov gateway

Roll on a few years and retirement, check your pension forecast they said, do it online by logging in through the Gov gateway, good I thought I can do that, having done so many a time before, so I log in with no problem and get several pages down the route to be told they now wanted to check my identity, despite having relieved me of rather a lot of tax in the past, they were quite happy then with my identity

List of items required now to enable using the online system
(I think it was two required)

UK Passport (don't have one, last ran out 20 odd years ago)
UK photocard driving licence (only have my paper licence)
Payslips or P60 (I actually have a P60 hooray)
Self assessment no more than two years (mine were well over two years)
Tax Credits (not entirely sure what they are but don't have any as am not working)
Credit record (nope)

The only photo ID I have is my bus pass, but thats not good enough

And only then do they tell you, if you don't have the aforementioned you can't use the system

So not for the first time rang HMRC first (as they sent me a letter) on hold for 50 minutes, got a partial answer and told I would have to ring the Pension service, nice young lady very helpful for what she could do, total call time 57 mins 45 seconds

Got through in just over 8 minutes, not bad I thought BUT I was told I would have to speak to another department BUT they close at 3pm ;-)

As I said I have rang these departments many a time and every time I am on hold for a very lengthy period, surely this should tell them that they are understaffed and with sufficient staff they would have much less grief than they do now, yes I know about departmental budgets but I bet their staff sickness days are a lot due to the strain they put on operators

PS if I remember rightly I applied for a pension forecast four months before retirement, it arrived seven months later, I wonder how many of those put on hold are phoning due to overdue correspondance

I was told yesterday in a call to HMRC that currently it's taking 9 months to even look at incoming mail.

 

[Cozzer]

I was told yesterday in a call to HMRC that currently it's taking 9 months to even look at incoming mail.

A few years ago my wife had a query with HMRC and was asked to call in to their local office to sort things out. I tagged along for moral support, clutching a few relevant documents that I'd thought might speed things up.
We eventually got ushered up to this woman's desk, and the conversation started off with all the usuals - name, address and so on.
At this early stage, the assistant stated that there seemed to be some discrepancy - (it may have been the address that differed - I can't remember now) - and spun her monitor around for us to see...allowing us to see some of my ex-wife's tax and personal data.
Same name, different person!

 

[stuart little]

Just sell your car

Yup, that's what I did 13 months ago, I've just traced it with google, it's residing near Belfast.

 

[Richard_C]

Roll on a few years and retirement, check your pension forecast they said, do it online by logging in through the Gov gateway,

Gov Gateway was a great idea, one login to access all services. Implementation was terrible. I have one login for HMRC and another for pensions because when I claimed my state pension 5 years ago it wouldn't join up. When I do my self assessment ( I still do a bit of self employed work and diligently declare it) the form is pre populated with my company pension payments which HMRC get in real time from the pension payroll but my state pension, which is paid by the same Government that taxes me, isn't visible to HMRC so I have to work it out manually. I have no doubt that the people on the helplines are equally frustrated, our Government IT systems are contracted out, poorly specified and poorly managed.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Bloody officialdom? My neighbour came back from the dump .............. recycling centre ......... (ironic, really as you're not allowed to recycle anything) and asked if we'd been there lately. I said no and he said just be aware they are now making you empty every black bag out in front of them so they can tell you which skip individual items go in or which bits you have to pay for. He was next to an elderly gentleman who said he'd been there for well over an hour and that they'd just made him walk the length of the site again, this time for one yoghurt pot. We already have a fly tipping problem, I can't imagine why.

 

[RogerS]

....not to mention that it "may be recorded for training purposes".

I had one of those with a life insurance comoany. He said 'We are recording your call for blah blah blah. Is that OK?' I said 'Fine as I'm recording it as well at my end'. He got very iffy and asked me to stop the recording otherewise the call couldn't continue ! So I lied

 

[stuart little]

That is very much what I was saying out loud to no one in particular but after the umpteenth "your call is very important to us" I resigned myself to listen to whatever passes as their music which is very loud and irritating even on the lowest setting, thank goodness for hands free cordless phones

I complained to BT about their 'crappy' distorted Muzak, or what ever they call it, the lass answering my call totally agreed, said she'd add mine to others. On the other hand, Sainsbury's is reatively pleasant.
Why can't we have Carmina Burana, or 1812, or even Wagner! The planets, four seasons (Vivaldi), the list is endless.

 

[stuart little]

Bloody officialdom? My neighbour came back from the dump .............. recycling centre ......... (ironic, really as you're not allowed to recycle anything) and asked if we'd been there lately. I said no and he said just be aware they are now making you empty every black bag out in front of them so they can tell you which skip individual items go in or which bits you have to pay for. He was next to an elderly gentleman who said he'd been there for well over an hour and that they'd just made him walk the length of the site again, this time for one yoghurt pot. We already have a fly tipping problem, I can't imagine why.

 

[RogerS]

I've had both sides of the coin with the DVLA.

I told them about their passport issue and photographs and 'Your passport is not valid' about 5 years ago. That went nowhere.

But we changed the name of our house and needed to update the licence to get the address correct. "Enter your old address.....".....'Not valid'. NSS! Of course it isn't as the databases now hold the updated name. In the end, I did get in touch with a very helfpul bloke who told me how to 'finesse' their system.

 

[whatknot]

Bloody officialdom? My neighbour came back from the dump .............. recycling centre ......... (ironic, really as you're not allowed to recycle anything) and asked if we'd been there lately. I said no and he said just be aware they are now making you empty every black bag out in front of them so they can tell you which skip individual items go in or which bits you have to pay for. He was next to an elderly gentleman who said he'd been there for well over an hour and that they'd just made him walk the length of the site again, this time for one yoghurt pot. We already have a fly tipping problem, I can't imagine why.

We apparently also have that here, I have yet to visit the tip since it started and am not looking forward to it when I have the need to

 

[RogerS]

Gov Gateway was a great idea, one login to access all services. Implementation was terrible. I have one login for HMRC and another for pensions because when I claimed my state pension 5 years ago it wouldn't join up. When I do my self assessment ( I still do a bit of self employed work and diligently declare it) the form is pre populated with my company pension payments which HMRC get in real time from the pension payroll but my state pension, which is paid by the same Government that taxes me, isn't visible to HMRC so I have to work it out manually. I have no doubt that the people on the helplines are equally frustrated, our Government IT systems are contracted out, poorly specified and poorly managed.

But at least all of them have excellent user-interfaces and the same look-and-feel. TBH your description of many Govt systems is not that of mine as I've found most of them working very well.

 

[RogerS]

Bloody officialdom? My neighbour came back from the dump .............. recycling centre ......... (ironic, really as you're not allowed to recycle anything) and asked if we'd been there lately. I said no and he said just be aware they are now making you empty every black bag out in front of them so they can tell you which skip individual items go in or which bits you have to pay for. He was next to an elderly gentleman who said he'd been there for well over an hour and that they'd just made him walk the length of the site again, this time for one yoghurt pot. We already have a fly tipping problem, I can't imagine why.

Sounds like Reason No.367 'Not to live in Cornwall'

 

[Spectric]

This is nothing (or at least not very much) to do with officialdom or stupidity - it is the Meldrew syndrome, better known as growing old.

The world moves on and we don't. My grandfather never learned to drive despite being able to comfortably afford a car. For my parents, programming a video recorder was a complex task best left to the kids.

Growing older we are also mostly wiser and can remember better days when you were not surrounded by so many acts of stupidity and incompetance. We seem to be going through a phase of replacing people with cheaper alternatives, take a walk into a bank and cashiers have been replaced by machines that can only do the basic's but cannot provide advice or assistance with anything else. You should be offered alternative methods and not forced to require a passport for getting things like the government gateway or need a so called smartphone to do things, it should be your choice. So much technology these days has been created simply because we can, if it was really essential then we would have died out as a race many decades ago. It is a good time to be old because would you want to re live your life in the world of today, the world is not moving on but in a state of collapse and turmoil where us older folk are hanging on trying not to fall into the abyss. So many people are mere sheep just following the gospel according to social media and no longer free thinking, hence this current phone zombie culture where the lights may be on but not much going on inside so getting things done becomes harder, no work ethic's and any of you running a business will have experienced this.

 

[whatknot]

Bloody officialdom? My neighbour came back from the dump .............. recycling centre ......... (ironic, really as you're not allowed to recycle anything) and asked if we'd been there lately. I said no and he said just be aware they are now making you empty every black bag out in front of them so they can tell you which skip individual items go in or which bits you have to pay for. He was next to an elderly gentleman who said he'd been there for well over an hour and that they'd just made him walk the length of the site again, this time for one yoghurt pot. We already have a fly tipping problem, I can't imagine why.

Are you also changing to fortnightly black bag collections? with food waste every week, they are supplying a new wheelie bin and food waste bucket, or a seagull sack , despite our having already paid five quid for a council seagull sack, thinking of all the plastic wheelie bins and seagull sacks that will be redundant, not exactly green is it?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes. Initially they were going to take the recycle weekly which would have been good, but that seems to gone by the board.