Mrs P's complaint about The Pension Service
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Mrs P’s case demonstrates poor complaint handling at an individual level and at a systemic level. The Pension Service took far too long to resolve Mrs P’s complaint about their handling of her late mother’s pension; it took 18 months for them to get as far as considering compensation for the impact of their maladministration. Then, because of weaknesses in the departmental guidance, they did not take into account all the relevant factors; they discounted part of Mrs P’s claim simply because it did not match the particular meaning DWP put on ‘time’ and ‘distress’.
Background to the complaint
In July 2003 Mrs P’s mother (Mrs R) went into hospital. In September Mrs P returned Mrs R’s pension book to The Pension Service to be updated. In November The Pension Service updated Mrs R’s entitlement and paid arrears. Meanwhile, in October, Mrs P had applied to become her mother’s appointee. She was interviewed and told her application had been approved. She also completed her mother’s application for pension credit. Mrs R continued to receive pension books in her name: Mrs P’s appointee application had actually been refused because Mrs R was not present at the interview. (The Pension Service lost the application and so did not confirm with the hospital that Mrs R was in attendance there.) They also lost the pension credit application.
In February 2004 Mrs P made fresh appointee and pension credit applications, which were approved. During this period Mrs P asked for a change of Post Office where the pension book could be cashed. She returned several books before the change was made. After Mrs R died in March, Mrs P notified The Pension Service and asked for any benefit arrears to be paid. In June Mrs P chased the matter up and The Pension Service then made two payments of arrears (one of which should not have been made). In July Mrs P complained to Nottingham Pension Centre (Nottingham) about the service she had received and asked for compensation for the time spent dealing with these errors, for the stress caused, and for interest for the periods Mrs R had been without benefits. Nottingham said they would reply within three months. In November they told Mrs P her complaint had not been looked at. They apologised for the delay and asked for evidence of her communication costs. Mrs P provided estimates of her costs and said she wanted all of her complaint taken into account when considering compensation.
In February 2005 Mrs P was notified that she would receive £64.62, but without explanation. (The payment was, in fact, to cover her communication and travel costs.) Mrs P contacted Nottingham, who said the rest of her compensation claim would be passed to the special payments team in Newcastle (Newcastle). It appears that Newcastle did not receive the papers: they were resent in April, but Newcastle have no trace of receiving them. In August responsibility for handling pension credit claims – and thus Mrs P’s complaints – moved to Mexborough Pension Centre (Mexborough). When her file arrived it was put into storage. In October Mrs P chased matters again. Mexborough said the file would have to be retrieved, but by January 2006 they had not found it. They created a new file, with Mrs P’s help, and made a special payment referral to Newcastle in late January. The referral gave brief details of the events leading to Mrs P’s complaint and noted some of the facts. There was no section covering ‘what should have happened’ and the full extent of what errors were accepted was not clear. The referral did not give full details of events from July 2004.
In February 2006 a special payments officer considered Mexborough’s referral. Under ‘what should have happened’ the officer recorded that papers for the appointee and pension credit applications had gone missing and that there was no follow-up action when Mrs P had first complained. The officer awarded Mrs P compensation of £100 for inconvenience, but refused an award for time and stress, saying there was no evidence to support that claim. The decision letter sent to Mrs P on 13 February said that payment for a person’s time could only be made if it was necessary for a person to take unpaid time off work, and that payments for distress can only be made on receipt of ‘objective evidence, usually in the form of medical evidence confirming the effects on a person’s health’. The letter signposted Mrs P to the Ombudsman if she was still dissatisfied. Mrs P responded on 6 March saying, amongst other things, that her complaint was about the original matters and also about poor complaint handling. Newcastle reviewed their compensation decision, but did not change it. Mrs P asked Newcastle if they had taken account of her recent letter. Newcastle said they had not. They then considered her letter, but the decision remained unchanged. In July the Ombudsman received Mrs P’s complaint.
What we investigated
We investigated The Pension Service’s handling of the pension payments, the claim for pension credit and the appointee application, and also their complaint handling. Mrs P said that: in dealing with both the original matters and the complaint no action was taken unless she chased the matter up; there were long delays; and the eventual responses were superficial and impersonal. She said she was put to inordinate time and trouble, incurred unnecessary costs, and suffered inconvenience, frustration and distress. She sought a proper response to her complaint, an appropriate remedy and improvements in the way The Pension Service handle complaints.
What our investigation found
The Pension Service took two months to update the pension payments after Mrs R had gone into hospital, they did not take necessary action on the pension credit and appointeeship applications and then lost the papers. They also failed to act on requests for a change of Post Office and took three months to make the final payments due. Taken together, that all amounted to maladministration. Instead of ‘Putting things right’ (one of the Principles of Good Administration), the level of customer service or focus was appalling. Nottingham led Mrs P to expect that her complaint would be dealt with within three months but it was not. When they did act, instead of passing the whole matter to Newcastle with a properly completed referral form, they dealt with Mrs P’s communication costs. What may have been an attempt to be helpful only impeded a full consideration of her complaint. Mrs P also received a payment with no explanation. Matters went further awry when Newcastle did not receive the special payment referral from Nottingham. No one officer took responsibility for ensuring the complaint was progressed, and despite Mrs P chasing progress, still nothing happened. When Mexborough assumed responsibility for the complaint, no one told Mrs P. When the file arrived they put it into storage, and could not retrieve it. The compensation referral was sent to Newcastle some 18 months after Mrs P complained. It should have been done within a month. That was extremely poor service and amounts to maladministration.
Because Mexborough did not complete the special payment referral form properly, Newcastle failed to take all relevant matters into account. They also discounted Mrs P’s claim for time and stress, because she had not claimed in a way which matched the particular meaning DWP’s Guide to Financial Redress for Maladministration puts on ‘time’ and ‘distress’. In most circumstances, the Guide directs officers not to make any payment for distress without objective evidence that maladministration has caused a significant deterioration in someone’s physical or mental health. But Mrs P had not claimed that her health had been affected in that way. Similarly, the Guide says that a payment for loss of earnings should only be made in exceptional circumstances. But Mrs P had simply spent more time than was reasonable in dealing with The Pension Service. While we would not criticise officers for applying the guidance as they understood it, we were critical of the guidance itself. The decision letter sent to Mrs P did not address her complaint, and did not meet DWP guidance on tailoring letters. Although her response made clear what she was complaining about, her points were not properly taken into account. Finally, Mrs P was inappropriately signposted to the Ombudsman when she had not exhausted The Pension Service’s own complaints procedure. This was maladministration.
The injustice to Mrs P was that she was caused considerable inconvenience and frustration over an extended period; she was put to excessive time and trouble in dealing with The Pension Service and in having to involve the Ombudsman; and was caused distress.
We upheld Mrs P’s complaint and concluded our investigation in June 2008.
Outcome
Jobcentre Plus agreed to our recommendations and as a result they:
- paid £400 to Mrs P as compensation for the injustice suffered;
- reviewed the question of interest (they calculated that she would be owed £5.50, but amounts less than £10 are not normally paid); and
- arranged for the Chief Executive to send Mrs P a written apology for their poor complaint handling.
The Pension Service are improving the way they handle complaints. For example, reviewing officers will, in future, carry out a full and fresh reconsideration of a complaint; they are considering whether to introduce a generic training programme for special payments officers; and DWP have made changes to ensure that complainants are properly signposted at the end of each stage of the complaints procedure. We made two recommendations aimed at improving complaint handling by DWP and their agencies:
- If a customer’s complaint cannot be resolved immediately at first contact and he or she pursues the matter, there should be one officer at stages two and three of The Pension Service’s complaints procedure with overall responsibility for handling that complaint from receipt to resolution (including updating the complainant on progress and writing to them with the response to the complaint and the decision on any remedy).
- During DWP’s review of the Guide, they should ensure that it is clearer than at present in guiding officers to provide remedies which take full account of the impact of maladministration on an individual customer, in accordance with the Ombudsman’s Principles for Remedy, and avoids rigidities that prevent this.
In her response to a draft of our report, Mrs P commented that:
‘I am pleased at this much later stage that I pursued my complaint against The Pension Service, although at times I did feel that the system was much larger than myself … I feel that the main problem with the service as a whole, right from the initial contact, is that there is no continuity of personnel who deal with one’s affairs. I can see that you have recommended this in the complaints procedure itself which should be a great improvement, giving a more personal approach. Hopefully others who have to resort to the complaints system may be better dealt with.’
