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Post by bracknellboy on Jan 12, 2024 11:29:34 GMT
When Rees-Mogg was appointed "Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency" I said that never have so many oxymorons been compressed into so few words. Well a few years on, we have the ability for companies to package wine into pint cotainers. Actually we don't, we have the ability for them to package wine into 568ml containers: they must be marked with that and must conform with it from a weights and measures perspective (so not quite a pint in fact). So that is Brexit Opportunities ticked off the list.
On my father's death the DWP insisted that the 1 week of state pension he had been paid for the period after he had died be paid back. £160 ish quid or whatever. Which I get, but I do wonder from a taxpayers' perspective whether it was really worth the candle. A little while later I receive a notification that while DWP was sorry he had passed away, he might nonetheless be due the winter fuel payment. He passed away in mid-October, and the cut off date for being eligibility was something like 30th September. I therefore filled in the paperwork and have today received notification from DWP that he was eligible: in about 3 weeks I will receive payment of £600. Which is the full amount, not pro-rata. Obviously.
So I guess that's "Government Efficiency" ticked off the list with a similar level of success.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jan 12, 2024 16:58:31 GMT
When Rees-Mogg was appointed "Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency" I said that never have so many oxymorons been compressed into so few words. Well a few years on, we have the ability for companies to package wine into pint cotainers. Actually we don't, we have the ability for them to package wine into 568ml containers: they must be marked with that and must conform with it from a weights and measures perspective (so not quite a pint in fact). So that is Brexit Opportunities ticked off the list. On my father's death the DWP insisted that the 1 week of state pension he had been paid for the period after he had died be paid back. £160 ish quid or whatever. Which I get, but I do wonder from a taxpayers' perspective whether it was really worth the candle. A little while later I receive a notification that while DWP was sorry he had passed away, he might nonetheless be due the winter fuel payment. He passed away in mid-October, and the cut off date for being eligibility was something like 30th September. I therefore filled in the paperwork and have today received notification from DWP that he was eligible: in about 3 weeks I will receive payment of £600. Which is the full amount, not pro-rata. Obviously. So I guess that's "Government Efficiency" ticked off the list with a similar level of success. Isn't the single-person payment between £150 and £300 (£600 being the figure for a couple)? Trying to tie together all the various strands of welfare payments in and out would be HMGovt's worst nightmare. It's probably simpler and more efficient overall to just have the DWP section claim their overdue payment and the winter fuel section do their separate thing. Much like the bank and most other private sector organisations. How many times have you received multiple letters from the same organisation on the same day, which could theoretically have been combined into a single envelope? They, too, never link outgoing strands, even though that might appear to be more efficient and cost-saving. And their relationship with their customer will be less complex, with far fewer tentacles, than Joe Average's relationship with HMG. Joined up processes sound simple in theory, but must be quite tricky, expensive or time consuming in practice, otherwise they'd all do it.
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Post by bracknellboy on Jan 12, 2024 17:13:20 GMT
When Rees-Mogg was appointed "Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency" I said that never have so many oxymorons been compressed into so few words. Well a few years on, we have the ability for companies to package wine into pint cotainers. Actually we don't, we have the ability for them to package wine into 568ml containers: they must be marked with that and must conform with it from a weights and measures perspective (so not quite a pint in fact). So that is Brexit Opportunities ticked off the list. On my father's death the DWP insisted that the 1 week of state pension he had been paid for the period after he had died be paid back. £160 ish quid or whatever. Which I get, but I do wonder from a taxpayers' perspective whether it was really worth the candle. A little while later I receive a notification that while DWP was sorry he had passed away, he might nonetheless be due the winter fuel payment. He passed away in mid-October, and the cut off date for being eligibility was something like 30th September. I therefore filled in the paperwork and have today received notification from DWP that he was eligible: in about 3 weeks I will receive payment of £600. Which is the full amount, not pro-rata. Obviously. So I guess that's "Government Efficiency" ticked off the list with a similar level of success. Isn't the single-person payment between £150 and £300 (£600 being the figure for a couple)? Trying to tie together all the various strands of welfare payments in and out would be HMGovt's worst nightmare. It's probably simpler and more efficient overall to just have the DWP section claim their overdue payment and the winter fuel section do their separate thing. Much like the bank and most other private sector organisations. How many times have you received multiple letters from the same organisation on the same day, which could theoretically have been combined into a single envelope? They, too, never link outgoing strands, even though that might appear to be more efficient and cost-saving. And their relationship with their customer will be less complex, with far fewer tentacles, than Joe Average's relationship with HMG. Joined up processes sound simple in theory, but must be quite tricky, expensive or time consuming in practice, otherwise they'd all do it. sure, and not suggesting they necessarily should. But not pro-rating the winter fuel payment while clawing back 1 weeks pension seems somewhat 'inconsistent'. And payments were only due to start being made in November, after date of death. But eligibility arises from still being around in late Sept. As to value: don't know, can't be bothered to do digging. However, I think there may be two elements: 'standard' WFP and a "one off" (twice off because it happened last year) payment due to inflated fuel costs. If they have made any single vs couple errors then I will leave that at their door.
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keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Jan 12, 2024 19:23:53 GMT
Given state pension is paid in arrears there should be no clawback indeed in most cases the state would owe 2 weeks of pension
( paid 4 weekly in arrears therefor the average is 2 weeks )
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Post by bernythedolt on Jan 12, 2024 21:52:07 GMT
Isn't the single-person payment between £150 and £300 (£600 being the figure for a couple)? Trying to tie together all the various strands of welfare payments in and out would be HMGovt's worst nightmare. It's probably simpler and more efficient overall to just have the DWP section claim their overdue payment and the winter fuel section do their separate thing. Much like the bank and most other private sector organisations. How many times have you received multiple letters from the same organisation on the same day, which could theoretically have been combined into a single envelope? They, too, never link outgoing strands, even though that might appear to be more efficient and cost-saving. And their relationship with their customer will be less complex, with far fewer tentacles, than Joe Average's relationship with HMG. Joined up processes sound simple in theory, but must be quite tricky, expensive or time consuming in practice, otherwise they'd all do it. [...] As to value: don't know, can't be bothered to do digging. However, I think there may be two elements: 'standard' WFP and a "one off" (twice off because it happened last year) payment due to inflated fuel costs. If they have made any single vs couple errors then I will leave that at their door. My mistake. Some do indeed qualify for £600, depending on age and circumstances, including single people over a certain age: www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/how-much-youll-getApologies, I should have checked this first. My wife & I got £250 each, but I can appreciate the very elderly need even more heating and nobody would begrudge their little extra payment.
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Post by bracknellboy on Jan 13, 2024 8:43:45 GMT
Given state pension is paid in arrears there should be no clawback indeed in most cases the state would owe 2 weeks of pension ( paid 4 weekly in arrears therefor the average is 2 weeks ) Not really true - well one might well be (arrears) but the conclusion re. therefore no overpayment doesn't necessarily follow. It is an accepted norm that an estate will often owe the DWP for overpaid pension. Indeed it is one of the very few things, the other main one being funeral expenses, that the bank will settle out of the persons frozen account if requested to do so. In my mother's case there was also overpaid pension. The reason is probably 'delays': delay in notifying, and delay in them processing and acting on the notification. I'm sure I notified them pretty promptly through the 'tell us once service'. But nonetheless there was still ultimately an overpayment by them. Also his and I'm sure my mother's state pensions were paid weekly, not monthly. In this case they paid one week's worth for the first full week after death. They weren't claiming pro-rata, they were claiming back a payment that never should have been made.
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keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Jan 13, 2024 10:22:09 GMT
Monmouthshire Council need to make £8 million n savings and spend £800,000 on 37 car parking spaces www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67948249my gawd you know these people have no grasp of economics £23,000 per space if each one generates £10 a day in income ( unlikely in this part of the world ) 2300 days to cover costs nearly 6 and a half years but what about maintenance, new meters etc etc. but of course for many councils money is no object, I can remember years ago us as IT objecting when office based staff were allocated laptops as a perk, I also remember the enquiry when one of those offices was broken into and every laptop was stolen because they weren't put away securely overnight. What came of it , simples they were told to follow the rules no other penalty. the quote that struck me was from a manager "a laptop is £1,000 that's nothing in a budget of £500 million" |
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Jan 13, 2024 16:13:37 GMT
When Rees-Mogg was appointed "Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency" I said that never have so many oxymorons been compressed into so few words. Well a few years on, we have the ability for companies to package wine into pint cotainers. Actually we don't, we have the ability for them to package wine into 568ml containers: they must be marked with that and must conform with it from a weights and measures perspective (so not quite a pint in fact). So that is Brexit Opportunities ticked off the list. On my father's death the DWP insisted that the 1 week of state pension he had been paid for the period after he had died be paid back. £160 ish quid or whatever. Which I get, but I do wonder from a taxpayers' perspective whether it was really worth the candle. A little while later I receive a notification that while DWP was sorry he had passed away, he might nonetheless be due the winter fuel payment. He passed away in mid-October, and the cut off date for being eligibility was something like 30th September. I therefore filled in the paperwork and have today received notification from DWP that he was eligible: in about 3 weeks I will receive payment of £600. Which is the full amount, not pro-rata. Obviously. So I guess that's "Government Efficiency" ticked off the list with a similar level of success. As you know my mother passed away in November and I've not heard from the DWP yet. It looks like I may have two letters to look forward to...
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keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Jan 15, 2024 10:53:07 GMT
My OH was saying Cardiff Council are proposing building a new 15,000 seater indoor venue.
from what they've been told £250 million cost, the leaseholders will pay a lease to the developers that will get the council it's money back in 40 years. that's not bad for developer a 40 year interest free loan. I wonder who would own the building if the developer goes bust after 5-10 years.
It will "create thousands of jobs" according to the council, I can see a few hundred during the build phase, and then you have door staff, ticket sellers ( although that is mostly online ), ice cream sellers, ticket checkers etc, and obviously cleaners and maintenance guys etc, but my view is this is not thousands of jobs.
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mogish
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Post by mogish on Jan 17, 2024 13:18:31 GMT
Just spent 4 days in Spain. Watched 3 council guys sweep seaweed from the beach, the 4th guy drove a dumper truck with said seaweed to the area to dump it.
They each had a council van parked the the prom.
Seems it's not only the UK councils that ate inefficient.
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keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Jan 17, 2024 15:06:05 GMT
many year ago ( 20 or so ) I was in Bulgaria early every morning a large elderly ex Russian Military truck trundled along the beach it had finger like prongs at the front that picked up the rubbish and dropped it on a moving grid that carried said rubbish up and over the cab and dumped it in the back. I was amazed at how efficient it was. possibly less pleased were some of the Brits and Germans who'd been down before 6 and put towels on the sand they got scooped up with everything else. but yes 1 man to do the job
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mogish
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Post by mogish on Jan 18, 2024 7:44:15 GMT
many year ago ( 20 or so ) I was in Bulgaria early every morning a large elderly ex Russian Military truck trundled along the beach it had finger like prongs at the front that picked up the rubbish and dropped it on a moving grid that carried said rubbish up and over the cab and dumped it in the back. I was amazed at how efficient it was. possibly less pleased were some of the Brits and Germans who'd been down before 6 and put towels on the sand they got scooped up with everything else. but yes 1 man to do the job 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jan 18, 2024 15:22:06 GMT
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