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Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
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Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#12> letters make no mention of a deadline or the fact that their payments will cease if they do not respond within 28 days. A spokesperson said this was “to avoid causing upset”
This is the most stereotypically British thing I’ve heard this year
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#13> The DfE told the Guardian that once a possible match has been identified, the beneficiary may be asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link. Sounds like garbage software
I love how an obvious bug that should have led to a rejection of the delivery of the system - or an emergency fix as per the support requirements these large contracts always come with - has instead transformed into official DfE policy. That's just so typical of the newfangled digital bureaucracy: it's far easier to change the workflow than it is to fix the software.
There is a pattern where accountability is outsourced by bureaucrats to software (they are supposed to be accountable for) and the citizens.
The Post Office Scandal has a similar theme.
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#14> ... asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link.
This is a bug in their system. Rather than fixing it, they prefer repeatedly and unashamedly asking old people whether they are dead.
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#15> The DfE told the Guardian that once a possible match has been identified, the beneficiary may be asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link.
Well there's your problem. Crapita, I mean.
And yet it's completely possible:
> After the Guardian queried the process, the DfE said it would make an exception and decouple McGrath’s name from the deceased’s so that she would not be contacted about it again.
Even if that was entirely manual...
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#16> ... asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link. This is a bug in their system. Rather than fixing it, they prefer repeatedly and unashamedly asking old people whether they are dead.
I mean, in a broader sense it isn't a bug. the government outsourced it to Capita explicitly so there's a responsibility gap into which people can fall and lose their money. it's not like these services suck and are hostile to normal people by accident - if the Powers That Be wanted it to not suck then they wouldn't structure systems like this.
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#17> The DfE told the Guardian that once a possible match has been identified, the beneficiary may be asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link. Sounds like garbage software
I love how an obvious bug that should have led to a rejection of the delivery of the system - or an emergency fix as per the support requirements these large contracts always come with - has instead transformed into official DfE policy. That's just so typical of the newfangled digital bureaucracy: it's far easier to change the workflow than it is to fix the software.
(at least) the UK government outsources things so there are gaps between "notional policy" ("people get paid pensions until they die") and "implemented policy" (Capita fuck up yet another thing) can differ and both sides get to assert it's not their fault.
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#18> ... asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link. This is a bug in their system. Rather than fixing it, they prefer repeatedly and unashamedly asking old people whether they are dead.
To be fair, there have been several stories (normally "world's oldest person!!!" type) where relatives have been claiming pensions and benefits for sometimes decades after the actual person died.
Whether the number of those stories and the amount of money involved is worth the hassle to the people not defrauding governments is left as an exercise to the reader...
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#19> The DfE told the Guardian that once a possible match has been identified, the beneficiary may be asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link. Sounds like garbage software
I love how an obvious bug that should have led to a rejection of the delivery of the system - or an emergency fix as per the support requirements these large contracts always come with - has instead transformed into official DfE policy. That's just so typical of the newfangled digital bureaucracy: it's far easier to change the workflow than it is to fix the software.
> it's far easier to change the workflow than it is to fix the software
This is just something software seems to do. There's a mature and fully-fledged industry in modifying entire workflows to fit software which is implicitly viewed as something that simply is the way it is.
Jira and SAP are some obvious big ones, almost with their own priesthoods, but at all levels, "capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say".
And let's not forget that the entire capital-C Content industry is completely subservient to the vagaries of "The Algorithms" that are not just considered ineffable by the supplicants, but were in fact specifically designed to be that way.
Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love how an obvious bug that should have led to a rejection of the delivery of the system - or an emergency fix as per the support requirements these large contracts always come with - has instead transformed into official DfE policy. That's just so typical of the newfangled digital bureaucracy: it's far easier to change the workflow than it is to fix the software.
There is a pattern where accountability is outsourced by bureaucrats to software (they are supposed to be accountable for) and the citizens. The Post Office Scandal has a similar theme.
It's a pretty sweet deal: we can't be responsible for something that the software does, since we are not programmers; meanwhile, the software provider has a thick contract that says he can't be held legally or financially responsible, so he's happy to take the political hit, it's not like it would prevent them from getting another contract in the future. It's like being the Ticketmaster of administrative accountability.