Why does the DWP make things so hard?

atpbx said:
Some of that is correct.

You don't do 13 hours, the working day is scheduled around 10.5 hours.The deposit can be taken across the first three invoices.

You also won't be driving an hour between stops (unless in the highlands or DG and TD but what do you expect) and you wouldn't be doing 100 stops out there anyway.

Amost runs are blueprinted at 85 stops and cover a couple of sub postcodes.

I know this because I have rerouted and blueprinted 3 DPD depots over the past couple of years.
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My point was that this lifestyle of a job would really need to be considered if it's right for him and not one person I've spoken to who has worked at DPD as a franchise owner had one good thing to say about it. It's still very long hours, no holiday pay and the way DPD get past "self employed" is a joke to be honest. If you are really self employed you are your own boss. Clearly you are not with this job.
 
FlakGunna said:
My point was that this lifestyle of a job would really need to be considered if it's right for him and not one person I've spoken to who has worked at DPD as a franchise owner had one good thing to say about it. It's still very long hours, no holiday pay and the way DPD get past "self employed" is a joke to be honest. If you are really self employed you are your own boss. Clearly you are not with this job.
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They don't "get round it" you sign a franchise agreement, have a designated service area and you service the deliveries that come into that area.

Its no different from if you bought a delivery franchise with interlink or a License with APC for a whole county.

The deliveries turn up, you have to deliver them by employing people to drive vans to deliver the parcels.

The fact that some people struggle to understand that is not DPDs problem, if a DPD driver wants a day off he can pay somebody to cover his area for him, just as if he had any other business and needed cover.

The £150 liquidated damages pay for some one to deliver the parcels that have arrived for the area that the driver signed a contract saying he would provide a service vehicle in and has not.

If he pays a fella to turn up in his van on a day he wants off and deliver his parcels for him, there is no problem with that at all.
 
atpbx said:
They don't "get round it" you sign a franchise agreement, have a designated service area and you service the deliveries that come into that area.

Its no different from if you bought a delivery franchise with interlink or a License with APC for a whole county.

The deliveries turn up, you have to deliver them by employing people to drive vans to deliver the parcels.

The fact that some people struggle to understand that is not DPDs problem, if a DPD driver wants a day off he can pay somebody to cover his area for him, just as if he had any other business and needed cover.

The £150 liquidated damages pay for some one to deliver the parcels that have arrived for the area that the driver signed a contract saying he would provide a service vehicle in and has not.

If he pays a fella to turn up in his van on a day he wants off and deliver his parcels for him, there is no problem with that at all.
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It's not real self employment though is it? you are still dictated too and firms like DPD have gotten around employment legislation. It is sub-contracting to their rules. That £150 fine, is in effect you fining yourself for having a day off! Well it would be if you were really self employed and if you were really self employed then why are you told what holidays you can have? there is hardly anything good about this scheme whatsoever.

A post from someone else who worked as a ODF, there is also many others scattered across the web:

Up until recently I have been a very happy ODF with DPD, but now feel i have to post on here to warn anyone looking into taking one on.

Everything said above is true, you work 10-11 hrs a day, with a start time of around 5.30 -6, and for me no breaks. I was dropping around 120-140 stops a day, in a semi rural area, but one i knew like the back of hand having done it for so long. Now at £2 a stop that is a very good earner, however DPD have this system whereby your route is governed by a blueprint. This blueprint calculates your stop rate based on varying factors ( fuel price, van lease costs, insurance, DPD's annual management fee, your fixed mileage fee and any mileage you do over that) once those costs are taken out it will leave you with the number of stops you need to be doing to hit a target income of 28-30K a year before your tax and ni.

Now that in itself is quite a good wage on paper, especially if like me you have no qualifications or no experience in other trades. But heres where all the bad points come in.

If for arguments sake you have to do 100 stops to hit that target, and your costs are true to the blueprint thats fine, but if when you leave the depot with your 100 stops, your Saturn (machine used for delivering) says you have time available before your working day is over and you havent cleared all the stops on your allotted area, you will be made to take additional stops. So now on a daily basis you end up taking slightly more stops because you have oppurtunity to do so, great you earn an extra £20 a day because youre efficient. Now a year down the line, when you have a rate review with your depot manager, he sees that you can do 110 stops a day therefore putting your yearly gross income over 30k, and this ion DPD's eyes is a no no. So what happens is that youre rate gets cut to bring it back to 28-30k, so now youre doing 10 stops extra a day for the same money (my rate has just been cut 24p). So thats how the wages side of things stacks up.

You get a contract yes, youre not allowed to take it off site for it to be read by any legal entity or by anyone remotely smarter than yourself( referring to me ), it has to be signed in depot, but dont worry, i will tell you now, there is nothing in that contract that benefits you. You will be assigned an area, but if its quiet and there isnt enough work for their employed drivers, expect to be stood down for a day (no earnings), If youre sick and cant come in to work, you can expect not to earn anything (common sense) but DPD will also fine you £150 for non compliance. If you bang your van, be it their lease or your own vehicle, expect a 21 day notice to get it repaired. You will be allowed 2 weeks service break a year, this is where DPD will cover your route, you will not earn during these weeks, but you will still have to pay van and insurance costs (the £150 a day doesnt apply during these 2 weeks). If you require further time off, you must arrange a subbie/replacement driver for your route (dpd employed staff arent allowed to take holidays and drive for you), but these drivers must take out the same number of stops that would normally take, and be trained by you at your cost. Your vans must be taken home, and it is your responsibilty to ensure they taken to services/mot's when they are due ( dpd pay for these if you lease the van through them and they do text you write to you when due) so no financial cost, but still a ballache running your van around especially if your approved dealer works saturdays. But if they take your van off the road for work to be done, you will have to hire a van!

I started writing this at 4 am in the morning because i couldnt sleep due to the job affecting me so much and me being unhappy. Im hoping toi get a new, employed job soon earning less on paper, but when you think about the benefits (sick pay, holidays, time off over xmas with the family) im hoping to be a richer person.

I know this is a very long post and it doesnt infringe any forum rules, but i just want anyone thinking about this as a career path to go into it with open eyes. My advice is stay away, but if you have no other option then go for it, im not naive we all have bills and families to support but please weigh up your options.
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Like myself and others have said though I don't drive so this is kind of moot unfortunately.

That said I'm not afraid of hard work, I'd do anything to support my family. Have just heard though that a colleague whom I don't like all to much is leaving at the end of September so I'm hoping there will be some more hours going.
 
So a little bit of good news today, got a letter from Liverpool City Council in regards to our housing benefit application and it's considerably more than what was initially calculated, so called them to query and that's the correct amount.

While I'm not going to enjoying an easy ride still its taken a fair chunk of pressure from my shoulders which is nice.
 
Only for 2 weeks but its better than nothing. Just hoping for the Council Tax benefit letter now and hoping its even half as generous as the £40 + I'm paying a week currently is savage.
 
JessieD said:
Good advice here. :)

@Vidar
What qualifications do you have? It'll help people to come up with ideas of jobs for you. I hope things improve for you flower. It sounds like you're a trier. Sadly the DWP doesn't seem to care about honest people who are clearly trying to improve their situation.
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Sorry only just seen this response sorry... Sadly I don't really have anything in qualifications, academically speaking other than a few GCSE's I've had a fair few work related qualifications like my First Person On The Scene but these are all pretty much expired now sadly.
 
Sign yourself off sick with depression and chrons through your doctor. If you get sick pay then good if not go onto employment support allowance

Find a better job while on esa.
 
Gabbatek said:
Sign yourself off sick with depression and chrons through your doctor. If you get sick pay then good if not go onto employment support allowance

Find a better job while on esa.
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and this is why everyone gets treated with suspicion in the first place...
 
dowie said:
and this is why everyone gets treated with suspicion in the first place...
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Absolutely. I have sympathy with the OP, I really do. I think there's a good amount of folks in the UK that expect everything and plan for nothing. Being totally honest, if I was in the OP's position and on the amounts of money he has available, a baby would be the LAST thing I'd be planning to have, maybe I'd think about a vocational course to learn a trade like plumbing, but a baby, noooooo. At some point we have to take responsibility for our actions and not expect the state to just solve everything (even if it was because a planned job fell through). Sorry OP and I hope it works out for you, but IMO you should have planned better.
 
dowie said:
and this is why everyone gets treated with suspicion in the first place...
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Indeed, as someone who has a diagnosis for treatment resistant clinical depression and was on ESA until they sent me for the capability assessment, didn't ask me a single question about mental health unless being able to dress myself counts and then surprisingly found me fit for work. Even the appeals process was a joke with a gp calling the medical evidence I'd brought with me incorrect. I had a letter from my psychotherapist. I was promptly rejected and informed that I would never be able to claim for depression ever again. Nice! Job Seekers allowance was absolute hell. But meeting my fiancee allowed me to at least get working again even if its a job I don't like. and so far I haven't slipped back despite everything.

I really don't like the idea of abusing the system as a means to an end, I know a doorman who did this with his Day job so he could take 6 months off with full pay... telling his employer he was suicidal, he thought it was highly amusing they believed him. As someone who has come close to actually doing it this is atrocious and utterly abhorrent.

ultralaser said:
Absolutely. I have sympathy with the OP, I really do. I think there's a good amount of folks in the UK that expect everything and plan for nothing. Being totally honest, if I was in the OP's position and on the amounts of money he has available, a baby would be the LAST thing I'd be planning to have, maybe I'd think about a vocational course to learn a trade like plumbing, but a baby, noooooo. At some point we have to take responsibility for our actions and not expect the state to just solve everything (even if it was because a planned job fell through). Sorry OP and I hope it works out for you, but IMO you should have planned better.
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I agree with you mate financially speaking a baby right now isn't what is best. But this didn't go according to plan. My fiancee fell pregnant the first time while on the pill, something we weren't expecting or planning but was something we were happy about. The miscarriage hit my missus incredibly hard as being a mum is something she always wanted and thought would never have as her ex was abusive and wouldn't allow her to be the mother of HIS child.

Honestly weren't expecting it to happen again so quickly.... I actually had plans and was accepted to an IT course starting in September. Either way though we are were we are now and while I'm certainly not expecting the state to just solve my problems, actually seeming to go out of its way to scupper you because you don't fit into one of its neat little boxes isn't right at all.
 
So after not hearing back from the council in regards to my council tax benefit application I gave them a call today. Very glad I did as it turns out that not only am I getting council tax benefit, I've already paid enough so that I have nothing to pay until April next year, including all my arrears!!! Not only that but I'm getting a £500 refund for all the moneys I've overpaid HAHA!!!!

I feel like kissing someone, come on who's first?
 
Okay and the good fortune continues.... My missus just got a tax rebate of £331.20 and I just got a letter from Canada Square operations with my account numbers on from my old egg card and loan I had 10+ years ago so I should hopefully be able to claim back my PPI too!
 
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