Mr E's complaint about Jobcentre Plus
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In Mr E’s case, Jobcentre Plus took too narrow a view of their own responsibilities, providing his daughter with information about only one of the benefits to which Mr E might have been entitled. The failure to offer an interview, in line with their normal practice, also meant that Mr E did not receive the joined-up service that Jobcentre Plus aim to deliver.
Background to the complaint
Mr E’s wife passed away in November 2003. His daughter (Ms D) telephoned Jobcentre Plus to ask if her father was entitled to any help with the funeral costs. She was correctly told that he did not qualify for help towards the funeral costs from the social fund. (Although Mr E was not entitled to a funeral expenses payment from the social fund – because neither he nor his late wife were in receipt of a qualifying benefit – he could have been entitled to a lump sum bereavement payment of £2,000.) Ms D accepted what she was told and neither she nor her father made any further enquiries.
In early 2005 one of Mr E’s friends told him that he had received bereavement benefit, and on 3 March Mr E asked Jobcentre Plus to review his case. Mr E and Ms D were interviewed by Jobcentre Plus about the possible poor advice received in 2003. In addition to the interview, Jobcentre Plus’s special payments team asked the local Business Manager for her comments about Mr E’s complaint. The Business Manager said that:
‘On checking with Social Fund officers it is evident that individual officers have varying levels of awareness of bereavement benefit and it is not the norm to advise about other benefits unless asked. If a customer calls to the office to report a death, normal practice is to conduct an interview and advise the customer of the benefits available. A disparity of service appears to have occurred in this case and I feel that the customer should be believed and a special payment made to recompense the loss of award.’
In spite of these comments, Jobcentre Plus rejected Mr E’s request for compensation, on the grounds that there was no evidence that Ms D had been misdirected.
What we investigated
The Ombudsman received Mr E’s complaint in March 2006.
We investigated Mr E’s complaint that Jobcentre Plus had failed to advise Ms D about claiming bereavement payment, and had then refused to compensate him.
What our investigation found
One of the Principles of Good Administration (‘Being customer focused’) is relevant here. A department should aim to provide accurate, complete and understandable information about their service; they should aim to ensure that customers are clear about their entitlements; and they should deal with people in a co-ordinated way, referring them to other sources of help if they themselves cannot help. DWP’s own internal guidance highlights the importance of, where appropriate, providing specific advice tailored to a customer’s individual circumstances and requirements.
As Ms D mentioned a funeral and help with paying for it, Jobcentre Plus assumed she was asking about a funeral payment and put her through to the social fund team, and apparently took the view that as Ms D failed to ask about bereavement benefit she could not reasonably have expected the social fund officer to have put her through to the bereavement benefit team. That interpretation of Jobcentre Plus’s duties was far too narrow, and fell short of the Principles of Good Administration and Jobcentre Plus’s own internal standards. Jobcentre Plus restricted themselves solely to giving information about one source of help when a number of possible entitlements to benefit existed. That failure to give clear, accurate and comprehensive information was maladministration. That maladministration came about because Jobcentre Plus’s guidance at the time did not instruct officers to make the link between a reported bereavement and a possible entitlement to bereavement benefits. The guidance was effectively a barrier to providing a genuinely customer focused service; something that Jobcentre Plus have now recognised through a revision to their guidance.
We also found that Ms D was not offered an interview (normal practice when a customer notifies a death to Jobcentre Plus), because she was put through to the social fund team, whereas it is the bereavement benefit team who act on notifications of death and offer the interviews. Again, the guidance prevented Jobcentre Plus from providing a joined-up, customer focused service to Mr E and Ms D.
The effect of all that maladministration was to keep Mr E ignorant of his entitlement to a bereavement payment. When he did discover his potential entitlement, the time limit for claiming it had expired. Had Jobcentre Plus not been maladministrative it is reasonable to conclude that Mr E would have claimed, and been awarded, a bereavement payment of £2,000. Instead, he was deprived of financial help at a difficult time which added unnecessarily to his distress and caused him inconvenience.
We concluded our investigation in February 2008 and upheld Mr E’s complaint.
Outcome
To remedy the injustice to Mr E, Jobcentre Plus agreed to:
- apologise to him for the failure in customer service he experienced;
- make him an ex gratia payment of £2,000 equivalent to the bereavement payment he would have received;
- pay interest for loss of use of that sum from the date of his wife’s death to the date of payment, if the amount is more than £10; and
- pay compensation of £200 for the inconvenience and distress caused.
We also welcomed the commitment to retrain social fund officers about the existence of bereavement benefits.
