Bureaucracy or The Right Hand Doesn't Know What The Left Hand's Doing

My husband had occasion to seek advice from HM Revenue and Customs this morning.  He phoned the help desk and explained the problem, viz, his late mother’s estate (she died in March this year) was being handled by his brother who died suddenly on Saturday. Probate had been granted but administration of the estate had not been completed. Barry’s sister-in-law told Barry she had been informed she would have to take over probate.

The help desk told Barry that was nonsense and he, as next of kin, would be responsible and he should apply for a second grant of probate. Barry then checked with Winchester, the office that granted probate, and was told that his sister-in-law would definitely be responsible for probate, along with her deceased husband’s estate.

Barry checked with the help desk again and the man he spoke to consulted three of his senior colleagues who insisted that their advice was right. A further phone call to Winchester resulted in three managers confirming that the advice they were giving was accurate. Back to the help desk who maintained their position but advised him to get legal advice (!!) but also said that as Winchester was responsible for granting probate he’d better accept their advice as they would be dealing with it.

Everyone Barry spoke to was helpful and polite but why was there so much disagreement between them? Finally, Barry phoned the principal Registry in London and The Winchester office’s advice was confirmed as correct.    

Fortunately, Barry and his sister-in-law get on well together and there is no conflict of interest or argument about the disposal of his late mother’s estate.

Help desks should help, not confuse. There needs to be clarification in training so that all parties are giving the same advice.

                                                                                               

Non-pc tax return

Tax Return

At this time of year we are engaged in filing our tax returns. It's boring and frustrating in equal degrees and so a little humour goes a long way. The following arrived in our email this morning and caused some mirth.

A man in Evesham has just had his Tax Return rejected by HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) because he apparently answered one of the questions incorrectly. In response to the question, 'Do you have anyone dependant on you?' the man wrote:-

'2.1 million illegal immigrants, 1.1 million crackheads, 4.4 million unemployable Jeremy Kyle scroungers, 90,000 criminals in over 85 prisons, plus 649 self- serving lying ponces in our Parliament and the entire European Commission.'

The HMRC stated that the response he gave was unacceptable.

The man's response back to HMRC was, 'Who did I miss out?'

Filling in the tax form

It’s quicker and easier to complete tasks online, isn’t it? I can shop, renew car tax, shift money around (mostly robbing Peter to pay Paul) read reviews, carry out research, keep in touch, make appointments – the list is almost endless.

In addition, it’s simpler. Yes? Not always.

Barry had to fill in a Self Assessment income tax return. He logged in to the site and began to answer the questions. When he came to the section about pension providers he duly typed in the information whereupon the process came to a halt. ‘Contact us’ or ‘Help’, however it was named, provided a telephone number and he phoned it to join a long, looonnnnnggg queue – I believe it took around half an hour to travel from the bottom of the line to the top. 

That was all right though because he was able to listen to soothing music, interspersed with messages reminding him, ‘You are in a queue.’ When he eventually reached a human and explained the problem, that he had put in the required data and then been ‘frozen’ he was told they knew about the glitch. The information had to be entered with no spaces between the words and if he cared to repeat the exercise all would be well.

Unfortunately, he had been logged out because he had been ‘inactive’ for a long period. When he logged on again he found that all the data had been wiped and he had to start again. I don’t know how many help desks there are at HM Revenue and Customs but much frustration and time would be saved if a note could be inserted on the site to the effect that data should be entered without spaces. No matter that it’s gobbledygook, the computer has been (badly) programmed to read it.

It’s also quite difficult to write without leaving spaces, just as it is to speak without taking breath. Computers are clever beasts but they do take a lot of the blame for mistakes, oversights, errors, losses in data. At least that’s the case with those in public service. ‘It’s a new system,’ ‘the computer’s gone down,’ ‘we’re changing to a new computer system’ are three of the excuses most frequently heard.

Don’t blame the computers – blame the outfits that accept the lowest bids for systems that then don’t work because the people who write the programmes have not been properly briefed.

ThisisanexampleofthegobbledygooktheHMRCcomputerhastoread.Asyoucanseeit’sdifficulttounderstandbutIsupposethat’sbecausethehumanbrainisnotasadvancedasacomputerbrain.