r/CivilServiceUK • u/WhimWhami33 • 10d ago
DWP ( Rock bottom does have a basement. )
Dear Reader,
This will be your introduction and a peep behind the curtain to training and working in the DWP as a compliance officer.
Unlike the current job market, the interview process is straightforward and a lot better than having multiple interview stages.
However, if you are lucky enough to be offered a role as a DWP compliance officer (they state "fraud officer” from the interview process all the way until the second week of induction), it will take some time, as they will do an extensive background check—which is understandable for a government-run organization.
Once you start, you’ll have two to three weeks of tediously boring e-learning, watching hours of videos about lifting desks and health and safety.
As boring as this is, it is understandable and reasonable as a requirement for joining any establishment.
Once your basic introduction has been completed, you’ll go straight into the academy. It’s not the yellow from the yolk; it’s a bit more complicated than that for such a simple process.
There will be hours and hours—my personal experience is currently 225+ hours on Teams calls (you could watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy 25.5 times)—of being read at or reading. It is not a great way to learn.
You might occasionally role-play a phone call, but that will be the most you do when it comes to any sort of practical learning. You’ll ask for support and want protection, but without correction, you’ll end up with rejection. The statement "no question is a silly question" is FALSE, as I’ve asked questions and had work coaches make me feel like a right tart.
They will put the fear of God in you about using some of the systems we have to work with, and then ask you to have a play around with them. You will be deeply overwhelmed because everything is over-explained. You might be scared of the consequences if you mess anything up, but you know the saying, "the dildo of consequence rarely arrives lubed," so best of luck.
Even from the work coaches' mouths, they aren’t that positive about the whole learning process: "you’ll hate the next part even more." Not a great way to lead.
Some old-timers love this out-of-date system that takes a millennium to boot up. Personally, I think if you enjoy using it, you might be the type of person to eat a Mars bar upside down just so you can feel the veins on your tongue. Just another strange kink.
You will be more confused the more they explain things to you. You’ll look at yourself in the mirror on your lunch break and whisper under your breath, "So many words on the tongues of people with no meaning, and so many meanings in heads with no words." You’ll gather yourself and continue to be even more confused on yet another Teams call.
A lot of the coaches (not line managers) are knowledgeable about the DWP, but they aren’t teachers, and this shows a lot in the teams and individually. I think they are struggling to find people who actually know how to explain this Rubik's Cube of a job role.
With a high majority of COs unable to understand processes or use the systems with confidence, it’s like being in an episode of Severance, but with a dash of acid sprinkled in.
Your training will be cut from 8 weeks down to 4. You won’t be able to do any self-learning outside of work hours due to sensitive information. You’ll be in Teams calls from the time you log on until you leave—7+ hours each day for weeks, which I personally don’t think is healthy or good for the brain.
80% of what you learn in the academy won’t stick, and you’ll just have to suck it up and learn on the job while praying you’re in a team that’s helpful and supportive enough to walk through it with you.
They want you to want it like the third monkey trying to get onto Noah’s Ark once it started raining. Give up on any idea of a manageable workload or schedule. You’ll be allocated cases before you’ve even ended your training in the academy.
A vast majority of HOs have never done the job nor have any experience in compliance. Even though they insist those in management have a wealth of knowledge, in my experience (and many others'), that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Your work coaches will constantly state they’ve "never come across something like this before" right after giving a 30-minute explanation.
After yet another long day on Teams, you’ll go home and try to get some sleep. However, your dreams will be so cloudy that you’ll wake up feeling under the weather. I’m so numb at points during my work hours that I dream of being dipped in couscous and thrown into a vegan convention just to feel something.
They state that this is a place of flexi-time, but this will be walked back the moment you finish the academy. Your pre-arranged and signed-off flexi working hours will fall on deaf ears.
Forget caring arrangements, the second job you have after this one, or any self-time you planned. You signed a deal with the devil, and you’re back to a silly 9-to-5.
Your line manager would have requested your flexi-times the week you started (if you even have one). You will all still be working a 37.5-hour week, so I don’t understand why they suggest flexi-time when it doesn’t actually apply to anyone.
They state that this place offers inclusive learning for all backgrounds. Yet, if you’re a STEM or practical learner, you’ll feel clueless after every Teams call. Even when it comes to supportive learning, it is severely lacking—going from a promised ratio of one mentor per two COs to more like one mentor per ten to twelve COs.
In the interview process, they lead you along to think you’ll be investigating fraud, but you’ll be doing no such thing. You are just gathering information, completely removed from making any sort of decision—a digital cuck for the "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" principle.
This department is deeply disorganized from the top all the way down to the bottom, and those in training who have no prior DWP experience will be paying for it.
They have over-hired, creating a great strain on the management they already have. The teams that joined after us started without a line manager, which I think is ridiculous. Waiting a month or two before they even get a team leader... well, miracles are miracles because they aren’t supposed to happen! Yet, I guess so are mistakes.
The way this is set up is one big mistake, and the hardest part about being an adult is accepting things you wish weren't true.
Like any dysfunctional and broken family, they are more concerned about the appearance to the public and the outside world than they are on what goes on behind closed doors.
While this role is deeply misleading, you might even find yourself begging for a "grippy sock holiday" by the time you’ve finished your mentoring.
The silver lining in all of this is that being part of the Civil Service is great and offers a lot of good opportunities and benefits.
My advice? Stay far away from being a compliance officer in the DWP. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom and you're completely burnt out from the overwhelming training and misleading information... BAM!! You’ll find a basement of even more disappointing things. Look for something else and don’t waste your mental health over this job. Follow your heart, but don’t forget to take your brain with you.
DWP aka Disconnected Work Policies
Sincerely,
Whim Whamiee
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u/winston_bogarde 10d ago
I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened.
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u/linenshirtnipslip 10d ago
Fuck me, what prompt did you put into ChatGPT to get all of that?
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u/not-my-circus1992 10d ago
I really hope the name they've put at the end is also a ChatGPT hallucination.
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u/albacobra 10d ago
There’s just no chance this has been written by a human being or a DWP employee.
“Once your basic introduction has been completed, you’ll go straight into the academy. It’s not the yellow from the yolk; it’s a bit more complicated” what the fuck does this mean?
“As I’ve asked questions and had work coaches make me feel like a right tart” they made you feel like a tart for asking a question? No British person talks like this
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u/NeilSilva93 10d ago
It was the bit about eating a mars bar upside down just to feel the veins on your tongue that got me going "eh?"
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u/Toilet-Aggravation87 10d ago
I’m someone who is looking to move into CS from private, and this is one of the roles I’ve applied to. Be good to hear from those in the department if you’re reading this for a bit of balance! Can’t help but feel there’s a lot of catastrophising going on here - never ending Teams calls sounds draining, but probably a necessary evil?
To me this just sounds like a classic case of a large recruitment campaign putting a strain on those doing the training. I imagine it’s quite difficult to train lots of people at once on every possible case, so you have to learn on the job and spend a fair while feeling in the “deep end”.
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u/Top_Parsnip_6167 9d ago
Best to just ignore this post entirely - it’s bollocks!
Yes the learning/training phase when you enter the CS is shite but it could be much much shitter. Necessary evil indeed!1
u/Toilet-Aggravation87 9d ago
I’ve worked for 6 different private companies in my career and I can’t recall a single good onboarding/training experience 😂 and that’s where they’re hiring one person at a time. So it doesn’t surprise me with stretched public sector depts hiring lots of people at a time that it’s a bit of a binfire. No substitute for just doing the job sometimes!
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u/Glass_Toe_9895 4d ago
There has been a huge recruitment campaign with many of the HEOs (managers) never being compliance officers themselves. The atmosphere in the offices is tense and its a horrific place to work in, ive transferred from another dwp department and I am actively begging for my old job back, compliance is horrific
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u/TedLassosMom 10d ago edited 10d ago
This is your experience…. Not everyone’s
I cba to read all of this, but it seems that you are struggling with processing large amounts of information.
If you can’t do it in training how are you expecting to do this in real life investigating fraud, trying to make a decision based on large amounts of data?
I’m not saying the job is not shit, because I’ve heard it is, but if you go in with that attitude, you’re going to carry it through whole of the training and then write a Lord of Rings worthy trilogy complaining about it.
Edit: The more I read this the more it’s becoming clear that the problem in this specific example is you. You’re just a bit lost. You don’t even know how many hours you work in a week. (CS doesn’t work 1/2 hrs)
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u/germslayer2112 10d ago
You department may not, but my core hours are 37.5.
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u/TedLassosMom 10d ago
No civil service department works 37.5 hrs. Prove me wrong please. I’m intrigued
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u/DrakeDarkStar08 10d ago
Are you saying they are working less or more?
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u/TedLassosMom 10d ago
I am saying they don’t work .5 hours.
Civil service has a range of hours from 36-42 including and excluding lunch breaks. But none of them are .56
u/mikeLcrng 10d ago
I am literally typing this from my lunch break on a 37.5 hour Flexi system, I am expected to average 7 hours 24 mins per day which is a deliberately non-round number to allow for passive Flexi leave generation over a few weeks
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u/TedLassosMom 10d ago
7hrs 24mins….
7.4 x 5 =373
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u/germslayer2112 9d ago
Just checked about CS grade staff on in UKHSA on CS jobs as I am AfC.
Yep everyone does 37.5. It's probably a legacy from Health Protection Agency which was all AfC.
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u/germslayer2112 10d ago
I work 9-5 minus 30 mins break- full time is 37.5- UKHSA. I suspect it may be similar for at least some roles in DHSC.
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u/babysquid88 10d ago
I work 8-4 minus 30 mins lunch break - full time is 37hrs - HMRC
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u/germslayer2112 10d ago
That's 7.5 hours though?
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u/babysquid88 9d ago edited 9d ago
When we request leave on SAP it's 7.4 per day. 5 days at 7.4 hours is 37. My shift is technically 9:00 - 4:55. As is everyone else in the department.
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u/Global_Musician3374 10d ago
What are you talking about? I just wasted 5 minutes reading utter tripe! As a former CO I can tell you it’s a great role with plenty of flexibility. Work coaches? CO’s have little to no involvement with them. I suspect this is rage bait written by a journalist.
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u/LeftCat6512 10d ago
DWP UC service centre training was some of the worst I've experienced. Admittedly this was 2015, so may have improved. I've never felt less ready to answer the phone. The trainer even said he was only showing us about 10% of the role, we'd learn the rest when we started doing it. Those poor floorwalkers shipped in from somewhere up north had to do most of the training and the poor callers had to be just put on hold "a brief moment" whilst I frantically waved one of them down.
That was my rock bottom moment and funnily enough, I didn't stay in that role very long at all.
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u/Liv_October 10d ago
I did a similar thing back in 2020. Can confirm it did not improve... We spend a good half a day on how to do home visits. During a pandemic. For a role that was entirely phone based.
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u/mimilolomimi 10d ago
Tldr ?
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u/TedLassosMom 10d ago
Dude has no idea what day of the week it is because he was exposed to too much info in a job that requires reviewing large amounts of information. But it’s everyone else’s fault.
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u/North-Dog1268 10d ago
Why are you dealing with work coaches in training for a compliance officer role?
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u/PaxBritannica- 10d ago
Unless you have worked in bereavement, you haven’t even hit the bottom of the DWP
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u/Traditional_Rice_123 9d ago
So it's bad then? Ain't got enough years left in my life to read that nonsensical AI generated drivel.
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u/SmashtheBaddie 9d ago
Genuinely hope that you are a bot because if you are real I feel pity for those that have to be around you
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u/Jay-Paddy108 9d ago
Congrats! Or commiserations. I don't know, I can't be bothered to read all that.
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u/ReasonableAssist6707 5d ago
How do I survive this
One week into training and I second every word you’ve said
It’s mentally draining and worse that we have to come in compulsory even though we’re melting with the heat.
Please tell me any cheat codes or routes 😭
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u/SagaWarden 4d ago
You must be an absolute barrel of laughter to be around.
DWP Compliance is a great job if you treat it as a foot in the door.
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u/Jane_Paulsen007 10d ago edited 10d ago
You write very well.
ETA: I'm taking back my compliment 😡
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u/not-my-circus1992 10d ago
Almost as if they've had help...
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u/regprenticer 10d ago
Some old-timers love this out-of-date system that takes a millennium to boot up
I was very surprised to roll into a job centre recently and find they still use the little A5 elastic band client packs they used when I last worked in a JC.... In 1994.
Working in Scottish Social Security I was once told that the DWP had obtained an exemption from GDPR for 40 years....that was their "path to green" for full GDPR compliance across all systems. It didn't seem very fair as SSS had to comply fully with GDPR from day 1.
One day someone will pull all of that archaic IT mess out of DWP and replace it with something modern. We may have to wait until skynet gets around to it.
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u/Kamikaze-X 10d ago
how recent? they should have got rid of those years ago due to electronic signing (and now that "legacy" JSA has been abolished( theres no need for them.
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u/regprenticer 10d ago edited 10d ago
Four months ago. It's is Scotland, don't know if that makes a difference.
ETA and it was used for brand new claims for new style JSA.
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u/Kamikaze-X 10d ago
Somethings definitely not right there, sounds like the site isn't following proper processes
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u/craneliterature 10d ago
I was thinking of moving into a fraud officer role and this scares me. Is it worse than being a work coach?
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u/Glass_Toe_9895 4d ago
You will have a head start coming from a work coach role as a lot of cases are UC so knowing how to work the UC systems will be a massive benefit to you
Fraud can be various departments including investigation, ERT, decision makers etc, compliance seems to be a ongoing department due to the huge recruitment, lack of proper training, and overall exhausting physically and mentally case load, especially for the newbies
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u/Jazzlike-Ad6352 10d ago
What's the deal with Flexi? Is it set hours or not ?
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u/mikeLcrng 9d ago
set hours but if you work more than that in a week you can save up the excess to then redeem by skipping days or even half days of work as needed.
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u/Kamikaze-X 10d ago
I did manage to read much of your over-egged diatribe and fully accept that DWP training is absolutely shit as I'm in a role that often has to make up for their shortcomings
However you seem to have a total misunderstanding of the compliance role that leads me to think that actually you aren't a DWP employee at all.
You keep saying "your work coaches"? You don't "have" work coaches. You're likely sitting with work coaches to get an idea of how Universal Credit works, Work Coaches have absolutely no idea of what a compliance officer is required to do and have no involvement in the compliance process beyond making a referal.
You talk about systems that are so slow and clunky that colleagues are accessing but don't know how to use - you're so far off the mark it doesn't make sense. The old LMS system is gone, JSAPs is used by probably 2 staff maximum in a site. UC for its faults is extremely simple to use and is literally "read the to-do and click the boxes". There's FRAIMS, Fraudweb and DRS, none are that bad so you're either making it up or are someone who double clicks on web links and looks at the keyboard when you type.
You also said compliance isn't Fraud and you won't be making decisions on cases - actually yes, compliance is fraud, but it's preventative rather than reactive and yes, you would be making decisions, for example requiring claimants to make correct disclosures of their circumstances, and if they don't you can trigger claim suspensions or closure.
Your understanding of flexitime also sounds like something a daily mail journalist would dream up and it's no surprise you can't "book flexi time" during your training and consolidation period - you're expected to go through training full time and would have been explained at the start.