Mr and Mrs A's complaint about Jobcentre Plus
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The case of Mr and Mrs A highlights the pitfalls of taking a defensive approach to complaint handling. Jobcentre Plus gave considerable thought to the complaint but their efforts concentrated on how they could defend their position rather than taking a customer focused approach and try to put things right. As a result Mr and Mrs A’s distress from the initial maladministration was compounded.
Background to the complaint
In September 2003 Mrs A applied to Jobcentre Plus for income support. She was told to provide bank and credit card statements, and a copy of her passport, all of which she gave to Officer L, who was dealing with her claim. Officer L used those details to take out loans, credit cards and store cards in Mrs A’s name. The police were then contacted. They recognised Mrs A’s name from a similar fraud enquiry affecting another Jobcentre Plus customer and realised that Officer L was also involved in the crimes against Mr and Mrs A. Officer L was later convicted of offences relating to both frauds.
In August 2005 Mr and Mrs A’s lawyer wrote to Jobcentre Plus describing the impact of the fraud on them, and requesting compensation. Jobcentre Plus replied by saying that compensation was not appropriate as they had neither authorised nor condoned Officer L’s activities, and that Officer L had ‘engaged in unauthorised acts for entirely personal reasons that were not connected with the administration of social security benefits’ (meaning that her actions could not, in their view, be considered maladministrative). Mrs A countered that she had given her personal details to a government agency in support of her benefit claim, as required by law, and was entitled to feel those details would be used legitimately. She questioned whether Officer L’s employment should have been ended earlier or more intensively supervised when her earlier fraudulent activities had come to light.
Jobcentre Plus sought legal advice about their potential liability, as Officer L’s employer. The legal advice concluded that a court ‘would see a close connection between [Officer L’s] work for JCP, the obtaining of [Mrs A’s] personal details and the subsequent fraudulent misuse of those details’. The advice said also that one of the definitions of maladministration is turpitude (wicked behaviour), ‘which suggests that there may be scope for awarding a small payment to [Mrs A] were you minded to do so’. Jobcentre Plus also consulted the DWP team with policy responsibility for redress issues. Their opinion was that Officer L’s actions could not be considered an exercise of an administrative function, and that although turpitude could be maladministration, ‘it should be seen in the exercise of administrative functions rather than the unlawful activities, unconnected with such functions, of an individual who happens to be employed by a government department and whose actions were incidental to that employment’.
In April 2006 Jobcentre Plus replied to Mrs A. They said the matter had been promptly and thoroughly investigated; that Officer L’s actions had not been ‘undertaken with the knowledge or authority of the Department or in the exercise of an administrative function’; and that in the absence of evidence that DWP were negligent and could have prevented Officer L’s actions, no compensation was payable. In November Mr and Mrs A’s MP brought their complaint to the Ombudsman. We referred the complaint back to Jobcentre Plus, asking the Chief Executive to reconsider the view that no compensation could be awarded because Officer L’s actions were not authorised or condoned by DWP and so could not be considered maladministration. We said that ‘the Ombudsman may not share this view’. A Jobcentre Plus Director then asked the special payments team to reconsider their compensation decision: he was concerned that Mr and Mrs A’s distress and inconvenience had been caused by a member of staff, and felt Jobcentre Plus must bear some responsibility. Nevertheless, in April 2007 the Chief Executive informed the MP that
‘I think it is reasonable to conclude that neither Parliament nor the Secretary of State expects our administrative functions to be connected with the type of criminal activity involved in this case and therefore this activity should not represent maladministration’. Mr and Mrs A were dissatisfied with that response and asked the Ombudsman to investigate their complaint. Their complaint was accepted for investigation in June.
What we investigated
We investigated Mr and Mrs A’s complaint that Jobcentre Plus’s response had not addressed:
- the shock and upset they suffered, and the effect on their health;
- their loss of faith in government agencies and other providers; and
- the time and effort they had spent correcting their credit record and the ongoing effort involved each time they apply for any kind of credit.
In trying to ensure their credit record was accurate and correct, Mr and Mrs A had to co-ordinate correspondence with and between finance companies and credit reference agencies. They were also told that future credit applications were likely to take longer to complete as their credit reference records have been flagged to require additional action. Mr and Mrs A have also been refused credit, which they say never happened to them before the above events.
What our investigation found
Jobcentre Plus did not take a customer focused approach to Mr and Mrs A’s situation. Instead, they went to extraordinary lengths to defend their position. The question of whether they had authorised or condoned Officer L’s activities was not a reasonable test of whether she had acted maladministratively (we would not expect Jobcentre Plus to authorise or condone any maladministrative action). Nor were Officer L’s actions incidental to her employment. As for the argument that her criminal actions were not connected to administrative actions, the notes to the then Parliamentary Commissioner Bill clarified that a department’s administrative functions covered everything involved in how they administer their business with the public. Jobcentre Plus also argued that they had reasonable safeguards in place to prevent Officer L from using Mrs A’s details fraudulently and so nothing more could be expected of them. We were not convinced that that was a proper test of whether something was maladministration. In summary, we found nothing by way of definition to prevent Officer L’s actions from being considered maladministrative.
One of the Principles of Good Administration (‘Getting it right’) is that public bodies should act in accordance with the law and with due regard for the rights of those concerned. In this case, Mr and Mrs A applied to Jobcentre Plus for benefits and supplied the information they had asked for, in support of that claim; as a direct result of which their identity was stolen. Jobcentre Plus’s failure to ‘get it right’ was so serious as to be maladministration.
Two more of the Ombudsman’s Principles of Good Administration are relevant to this case. ‘Being open and accountable’ includes that public bodies should take responsibility for the actions of their staff. In spite of indications from the Ombudsman and others about accepting their corporate responsibility for Officer L’s actions, Jobcentre Plus sought to sidestep their accountability. ‘Being customer focused’ includes dealing with people helpfully, promptly and sensitively, bearing in mind their individual circumstances. But instead of acknowledging and responding to Mr and Mrs A’s distress, Jobcentre Plus sent them letters which showed little sympathy and were defensive.
Jobcentre Plus’s poor complaint handling significantly compounded their earlier maladministration. It is likely that an acknowledgement, an apology and a modest compensation payment would have resolved Mr and Mrs A’s complaint quickly. That would have been in line with the Principles of Good Administration (‘Putting things right’), whereby public bodies should put things right as soon as possible to prevent further injustice. Instead, Mr and Mrs A had to escalate their complaint through Jobcentre Plus and then to the Ombudsman.
Jobcentre Plus’s maladministration caused Mr and Mrs A inconvenience and upset. They also lost confidence in the ability of government departments to handle their personal details appropriately and to respond positively and appropriately to legitimate complaints about their officers’ actions.
We upheld Mr and Mrs A’s complaint and concluded our investigation in December 2008.
Outcome
As a result of our recommendations, Jobcentre Plus agreed to:
- apologise to Mr and Mrs A for their maladministration, and to pay them compensation of £2,000 (Jobcentre Plus said they would review the amount if Mr and Mrs A provided evidence of the impact on their health of Jobcentre Plus’s actions);
- consider if there are additional steps they should take to prevent, as far as possible, further instances of fraudulent use of customers’ details by their officers; and
- consider what steps they should take to ensure that where inappropriate action by their officers has led to loss or distress for customers (or others), they take positive, prompt steps to accept responsibility for the actions of their staff and to provide appropriate remedies for those who have suffered as a result.
