Mrs Z's complaint about Jobcentre Plus
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In Mrs Z’s case, her son’s claim fell through the gap because Jobcentre Plus had not ensured that information held in different places was consistent with the relevant regulations, and their staff were not fully aware of them either. Jobcentre Plus also failed to refer Mrs Z to the officer who was specifically trained to deal with claims from people her son’s age.
Background to the complaint
On or before 19 June 2006 Mrs Z downloaded income support and incapacity benefit claim forms from Jobcentre Plus’s website, so that she could claim on behalf of her son, J, who has severe learning disabilities. She rang Twickenham Jobcentre Plus (Twickenham) as instructed on Jobcentre Plus’s website and the income support claim form, to obtain a claim date. According to Mrs Z, the officer she spoke to seemed unaware that claim forms could be downloaded or that a person doing so then needs to telephone to obtain a claim date. Mrs Z took the claim forms to Twickenham on 29 June. They stamped the forms as received on 3 July, although J’s birth certificate was verified as a true copy on 29 June.
On 4 July 2006 Stratford Income Support Office (Stratford) awarded J income support. When Mrs Z rang them to ask how J’s payments would be adjusted if he was also awarded incapacity benefit, she was told that J was ineligible for incapacity benefit and advised to claim severe disablement allowance. Mrs Z received a letter from the Taunton Contact Centre (Taunton) where the incapacity benefit claim was being processed, asking for unspecified information. When Mrs Z telephoned them, no one was able to help her. She was told that all claims were dealt with by telephone and she should ring back. When she did so, Taunton said their letter was a mistake, and also that the claim had been forwarded to them by mistake. Mrs Z was told (incorrectly) that claims could only be dealt with by telephone or by an appointment and was advised to make an appointment with an under-18s adviser at Twickenham. When Mrs Z rang Twickenham she was referred to the Ashton-in-Makerfield Benefit Delivery Centre (Ashton): they told her J would not be eligible for incapacity benefit, but that he could become eligible for it after six months once he had received National Insurance credits from his income support. Although Mrs Z protested that J was not sick, she was advised to submit ‘sickness certificates’ to receive National Insurance credits. Mrs Z said she spent at least two hours on the telephone to three offices that day, having to repeat the nature of her son’s disabilities and answer insensitive questions, such as whether the officer could speak to her son about his claim.
On 12 July 2006 Mrs Z complained to her MP, who wrote to the Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus. On 26 July Jobcentre Plus wrote to J’s school to ask about the hours he attended. The school was closed for the summer holidays. On 27 July Twickenham told Mrs Z that the claim date for J’s incapacity benefit was wrong, and that a new form would be sent to allow her to amend the claim date. The form did not arrive. In August a Jobcentre Plus Director replied to the MP saying that J’s case should have been dealt with at his local job centre and said he was sorry it had been dealt with incorrectly and that Mrs Z had been wrongly advised about needing medical evidence. He said Jobcentre Plus needed to confirm the details of J’s education before deciding his incapacity benefit claim. He added that Jobcentre Plus had ‘brought Mrs [Z’s] complaint to the attention of the people who have dealt with her enquiries to ensure customers in similar circumstances are given the correct advice’.
On 22 August 2006 Ashton were asked to check if any child benefit already paid to J needed to be offset from his incapacity benefit arrears. Ashton sent an enquiry that day to the Child Benefit Office. Ashton did not receive their reply of 4 September and sent duplicate enquiries on 12 and 19 September. They received a reply on 20 September. On 26 September Ashton asked Stratford if income support needed to be deducted from incapacity benefit arrears. They chased up their enquiry on 18 October and received a reply the same day. Ashton then told Mrs Z that J had been awarded incapacity benefit from 3 April 2006 (backdated three months from 3 July, and based on a claim date of 29 June, not 19 June). Arrears were paid. Jobcentre Plus told us that the award was based on a claim date of 29 June because a telephone call or electronically signed form of communication were not acceptable, on their own, as claims for incapacity benefit.
On 24 October 2006 Mrs Z received a letter saying that J’s income support would not change and that he would continue to get £81.95 a week. However, the letter went on to say that his income support would decrease to £14.48 a week and decrease from 19 October to £3.45 a week. J would continue to receive income support ‘for as long as he is sick’. Mrs Z found the letter confusing. In November the Chief Executive wrote to the MP apologising for the delay in paying incapacity benefit arrears, blaming the need to obtain information from J’s school and the Child Benefit Office. Jobcentre Plus later wrote to Mrs Z, awarding her compensation of £20 for the costs incurred in dealing with and complaining about J’s incapacity benefit claim, and a consolatory payment of £100. They apologised: for the delays; that staff did not know how to deal with downloaded claim forms; and for the insensitive way the claim was dealt with. Jobcentre Plus paid no interest for the delay in paying the arrears, as the arrears had been paid within four months of the claim (the ‘indicator of delay’). The letter also contained the following standard paragraph:
‘Consolatory payments are made in very exceptional circumstances where an official error has had a direct adverse effect on the life of the customer and/or on the life of another person. It should be remembered that some dealings with the Department, whether or not an error occurs, may take time and that complying with the law can often be frustrating or inconvenient and sometimes stressful.’
What we investigated
We received Mrs Z’s complaint in November 2006. We investigated her complaint that Jobcentre Plus had given her conflicting and incorrect advice, did not know how to deal with the claim, were insensitive and asked inappropriate questions. We also looked at whether there was confusion and lack of communication between different Jobcentre Plus offices, unreasonable delay in processing the claim and poor complaint handling.
What our investigation found
Jobcentre Plus should not have told Mrs Z to claim severe disablement allowance, as that benefit was no longer available. When Mrs Z was told the claim date for the incapacity benefit was incorrect and that they would send her a new form, they did not do so. This was not in line with a focus on dealing with people helpfully and promptly.
We expect public bodies to deal with people promptly, bearing in mind their individual circumstances. Given that Jobcentre Plus knew that J’s claim had been handled poorly, the enquiries to the Child Benefit Office and Stratford should have been followed up more quickly and given a much higher priority. They could and should have been made simultaneously, thus it should have been possible to obtain the necessary information in two to three weeks in contrast to the eight weeks actually taken.
We found that J’s incapacity benefit claim should have been dated from 19 June 2006. That would be in line with the instruction on Jobcentre Plus’s website that claimants should contact them to establish the date of their claim. A statement in the downloaded claim form that benefit cannot be paid for a period more than three months before the date Jobcentre Plus receive the claim form is inconsistent with the regulations, and with the statement on their website that claimants should contact them to establish the date of their claim.
Jobcentre Plus’s letter of 10 August 2006 did not adequately address Mrs Z’s complaint. Although it said her complaint had been drawn to the attention of the relevant officers, Jobcentre Plus need to do more to ensure their procedures are effective and to ensure they learn lessons from complaints and use them to improve services and performance. The letter Mrs Z received on 24 October 2006 was poorly worded and confusing, and incorrectly referred to J as ‘sick’. This insensitivity was particularly poor. The standard paragraph in Jobcentre Plus’s letter of 1 December 2006 was unnecessary and inappropriately suggested that some of the fault may have lain with the need for Mrs Z to comply with the law.
Public bodies should acknowledge mistakes when they happen, explain what went wrong and put things right quickly and effectively. We found that Jobcentre Plus incorrectly blamed the delay in paying J’s incapacity benefit on the need to obtain information from his school and the Child Benefit Office. J claimed benefit on 29 June 2006 and Jobcentre Plus did not write to the school until 26 July (when it was closed), and did not contact the Child Benefit Office until 22 August (and did not follow up their enquiry until 12 September). Jobcentre Plus should have ensured J’s claim was dealt with urgently, and accepted that a significant share of the responsibility for the delay was theirs.
Finally, J’s claims were not particularly complicated. When considering whether to pay interest on the delayed arrears payment, Jobcentre Plus should have calculated interest from when they could reasonably have been expected to have processed his claim, rather than from four months after his claim was submitted. We saw no reason why four months was used other than that it is an ‘indicator’ in a set of guidelines. The case should have been considered on its merits and in relation to relevant issues.
As a result of Jobcentre Plus’s maladministration, Mrs Z suffered anguish and distress. She lost confidence in the ability of Jobcentre Plus to deal with her son’s claim, or claims from other people in similar circumstances. She was put to a great deal of unnecessary effort and inconvenience to follow up J’s claim to ensure that he was being paid his full benefit entitlement. Further, Mrs Z and J had to wait an unreasonable amount of time to receive benefits and received no compensation for that delay.
We upheld Mrs Z’s complaint and concluded our investigation in January 2008.
Outcome
To remedy the injustice to Mrs Z and J, Jobcentre Plus agreed to:
- pay Mrs Z further compensation of £150 for gross inconvenience and £250 for severe distress;
- send her a written apology; and calculate interest from a date appropriate to the case (the revised amount was less than £10, so was not payable); and
- review the start date of J’s incapacity benefit claim.
To bring about systemic change, we recommended that Jobcentre Plus:
- ensure consistency between the regulations, the statements on their website and the forms to be downloaded from the website, particularly in respect of the claim date;
- modify their guidelines about processing clerical claim forms to include forms downloaded from the internet; remind all staff who take telephone calls from the public: about how to respond when a claimant rings to say they have downloaded a form and wishes to establish the date of claim; and that benefit claims for people under 18 years of age (and enquiries about such claims) should be referred to the young people’s specialist officer in each job centre;
- provide guidance to their special payment officers to reinforce the principle that DWP’s Guide to Financial Redress for Maladministration should not be read as a rigid set of rules, but that discretion should be used in making each decision and each case should be considered on its own merits, particularly when calculating interest for delay;
- provide guidance to officers that standard paragraphs should only be used where they are appropriate in all the circumstances of the case;
- consider changing the wording of letters so that people whose changed circumstances have led to a change in their income support do not receive letters with contradictory information about whether their income support has changed, and reflect the fact that not everyone receiving income support is sick; and
- consider how to ensure they give priority to claims which they have already recognised as having been subject to delays on their part.
Jobcentre Plus agreed to comply with our recommendations.
