Home > Publications > Selected cases — Parliamentary > Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations - October 1998 - March 1999 > Department of Social Security
Sixth Report Session 1998-99
Volume 2
OCTOBER 1998 - MARCH 1999
The full report of selected cases
Summary of other investigations completed
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SECURITY
Handling of a claim by the War Pensions Agency (WPA)
Mr F was discharged from the Royal Navy in 1969 on health grounds. He was awarded a gratuity. In 1974 Mr F also claimed that he was suffering from Raynaud's syndrome arising from his service. Much later in 1994 it was accepted that Mr F was then suffering from that condition, and he was awarded a gratuity backdated to 11 March 1994. The Ombudsman found some errors on WPA's part, but did not find that they had obstructed, or acted maliciously towards, Mr F in the period his investigation covered.
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Mishandling by the Child Support Agency (CSA) of a non-resident parent's case
Mr G complained about the way CSA had handled his case. He said that as a result his health had suffered and that he had had to resign from his job. He also complained that a member of CSA's staff had behaved in a threatening manner towards him. The Ombudsman's investigation found a number of shortcomings in the way that CSA had handled Mr G's case, and that they had given Mr G a poor standard of service. The then and current Chief Executives, the then Deputy Chief Executive and members of CSA's staff apologised to Mr G for CSA's shortcomings. CSA also agreed to make Mr G ex gratia payments totalling £270.
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Error and delay by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in the collection of child support maintenance
Mrs D complained that CSA had wrongly cancelled a deduction from earnings order (DEO), that they had made an agreement with the absent parent of her daughter to repay arrears of child support maintenance at a nominal rate without first consulting her, and that they had mishandled the collection of arrears which had become due when CSA had reviewed the maintenance assessment after a tribunal hearing. The Ombudsman found that CSA should have continued to collect arrears of maintenance by way of the DEO instead of cancelling it. Their efforts to compensate Mrs D had been inadequate, causing her to wait longer than necessary to receive all the arrears of maintenance due to her. The Ombudsman also found that CSA had made errors in the handling of Mrs D's accounts including the writing off of £339.89 from her accounts without good cause or explanation. CSA apologised for their shortcomings and paid further compensation totalling £257.14 for the loss of use of maintenance.
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Delays and errors by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in handling the complainant's child support maintenance application
CSA delayed sending a maintenance enquiry form to a non-resident parent for which mistake they later partially compensated the complainant. They also badly mismanaged the enforcement of child support maintenance payments by the non-resident parent. After the Ombudsman's intervention CSA agreed to pay the complainant further compensation amounting to £6,050.88, which represented payments in respect of her financial losses, the interest on those losses and the extra expenses she had incurred in pursuing her application, together with a payment in respect of the gross inconvenience she had suffered as a result of their poor handling of her case.
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Errors in payment of the housing cost element of income support (IS) by the Benefits Agency (BA)
Mr A complained that BA failed to make correct payments of the housing cost element of IS to his mortgage lender, and that that led to the repossession of his home and other costs. BA's administration of Mr A's case was marred by delays and errors. BA accepted that two decisions which they had made to restrict Mr A's IS housing costs had been unreasonable, and that those decisions had contributed to the level of his mortgage arrears. BA apologised for their shortcomings. They made a special payment of £3,725.61 to Mr A, the amount which he owed the lender after the house had been sold. BA also paid Mr A £250 for gross inconvenience and £500 for severe distress.
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Refusal by the Child Support Agency (CSA) to defer collection of arrears of child support maintenance
Mr A complained that CSA unreasonably refused to defer collection of his arrears of maintenance, even though they had been caused by CSA's long delay in calculating his correct liability. The Ombudsman found that CSA had calculated Mr A's maintenance assessment incorrectly, so that the assessment had been much lower than it should have been. It took CSA 14 months to correct the error, and that resulted in Mr A being confronted with a large amount of unexpected arrears. The Chief Executive apologised for the errors made by CSA. CSA decided not to collect Mr A's remaining arrears which they put at £1,097.80, and they paid him compensation totalling £160.
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Delays and errors by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in handling an application for child support maintenance
CSA were unable to enforce payment under an interim maintenance assessment (IMA) because they had made an error in setting the effective date. That had made the IMA invalid. They also delayed making a fresh assessment and mismanaged the enforcement of child support maintenance payments by the non-resident parent. The Agency agreed to pay the complainant compensation amounting to £10,778.68 and to refund assessment and collection fees he had paid. The Agency also agreed to consider the case for further compensation in respect of the period covered by the invalid IMA.
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Mishandling by the Child Support Agency (CSA) of an application for child support maintenance
Miss Y complained of unreasonable delays by CSA in assessing her former husband's liability for child support maintenance and that she therefore received maintenance much later than she should have done. The Ombudsman found that CSA had taken no action on the case for 18 months, had taken a long time to make a maintenance assessment and had made mistakes in the calculations. It was nearly three years before Miss Y obtained child support maintenance. CSA made Miss Y the following ex gratia awards: consolatory payments of £150 and £250 for gross inconvenience and stress respectively; special payments amounting to £4,059.59 for outstanding and lost maintenance, and £573.45 in compensation for its late payment. CSA also paid Miss Y £10 towards her out-of-pocket expenses. The Chief Executive apologised for CSA's failings.
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Miscalculation of income support (IS) housing costs by the Benefits Agency (BA)
The Ombudsman partly upheld Mr J's complaint that BA had underpaid his housing costs. Over several years BA used incorrect mortgage balances and interest rates when calculating Mr J's housing costs. A series of overpayments and underpayments resulted, and an overpayment of £739.04 was classed as not recoverable from Mr J. BA began to make mortgage interest payments direct to Mr J's mortgage lender, but arrears accrued to his mortgage account. BA twice imposed a mortgage arrears deduction. Mr J queried why further arrears had accrued but BA did not fully investigate the matter. There was no conclusive evidence to show what had caused the accrual of further arrears, but BA were not primarily responsible. However their communications with Mr J could have been more informative. BA made an ex gratia payment of £119.24 as compensation for their delay in correcting wrongly calculated payments.
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Procedural errors and mishandling by the Child Support Agency (CSA)
Mrs R complained on behalf of her husband that CSA had taken too long to discover that they had miscalculated his maintenance assessment and generally mishandled his case. CSA had made several procedural errors and careless mistakes, and although they properly dealt with most of the changes in circumstances reported by Mr R, their communications with him were inadequate. CSA made a compensatory payment of £950 for distress and £150 for gross inconvenience. They also paid a total of £290 in respect of medical expenses Mr R had incurred because of stress, and in respect of telephone, fax, postage and administration costs. CSA also refunded to Mr R £464.44 in overpaid maintenance, but in the meantime he had paid for essential items by credit card, accruing interest of £380 along the way. CSA paid £380 as compensation for the delayed payment of the refund and agreed to make further payments for loss of earnings and medical costs if suitable supporting evidence was forthcoming.
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Delays in making Income Support payments because of the confusion by the Benefits Agency (BA) and the Contributions Agency (CA) of the personal details of two customers of BA
Mrs Z complained through her local Citizens Advice Bureau about delays and errors on the part of BA and CA, both agencies of the Department of Social Security (DSS) in dealing with problems arising in connection with her national insurance number. The Ombudsman found that after an initial error by BA, which had resulted in the confusion of Mrs Z's personal details and national insurance number with another customer of the same name, both BA and CA had taken too long to resolve the problem satisfactorily. DSS made a consolatory payment of £100 for severe distress to Mrs Z and paid her other ex gratia payments totalling £102.27. The Permanent Secretary of DSS and the Chief Executives of BA and CA apologised to Mrs Z.
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Delays and errors by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in securing child support maintenance
Mrs X applied to the CSA in August 1993. The non-resident parent did not cooperate, but CSA delayed for fourteen months before imposing an interim maintenance order. CSA then imposed a deduction from earnings order which secured payment of child support maintenance. CSA, however, did not begin to collect contributions towards the arrears for 15 months after Mrs X had asked them to do so. In February 1997 the non-resident parent retired from work and provided the information necessary for a full maintenance assessment, which CSA then calculated. Over the following eight months CSA revised the assessment three times, giving Mrs X different estimates of the position with regard to arrears of maintenance each time. Mrs X had asked for compensation but CSA, having taken no action for a year, did not make their decision to refuse compensation until two years after her request. On the Ombudsman's request, CSA reconsidered that decision. They then paid Mrs X compensation of £1,221.32 (including interest) for loss of entitlement to child support maintenance, and £170 for expenses and gross inconvenience.
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Refusal by the Child Support Agency (CSA) to defer arrears of child support maintenance (CSM)
Mrs A complained on behalf of Mr X that delays by CSA in reviewing the CSM payable by him had caused substantial arrears to accrue and that CSA had declined to implement the recommendation of the Independent Case Examiner to defer collection of some of those arrears. The Ombudsman's investigation revealed failings on the part of CSA when dealing with Mr X's case. They were responsible for the accumulation of his CSM arrears, caused by their delay in reviewing his maintenance assessment after he had notified them of a change in his circumstances. The Chief Executive of CSA apologised for the delay in completing a review. CSA paid Mr X compensation of £175 for gross inconvenience and the costs which he had incurred. They also deferred arrears totalling £384.86.
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Failure by the War Pensions Agency (WPA) to backdate an increase in allowance for lowered standard of occupation (ALSO)
On 22 February 1995 Mr G wrote to WPA seeking an increase in his ALSO from 30 April 1981. WPA subsequently lost his papers before they had taken action on his letter. Despite enquiries by Mr G, it was not until March 1996 that WPA began action to deal with the situation. On 24 July 1996, after reconstructing the file, WPA increased Mr G's ALSO with effect from 7 February 1996. On 3 December they told him that his request for backdating the increase to 30 April 1981 had been refused. After the Ombudsman's intervention, WPA found that the decision to increase the ALSO had been flawed and withdrew the increase, thereby rendering the question of backdating otiose. The Ombudsman criticised WPA for the loss of the papers and their delays in dealing with the case but found no fault with WPA's consideration of Mr G's claim for backdating.
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Mishandling by the Benefits Agency (BA) of a claim to income support (IS)
When Mr A claimed IS in 1990, BA failed to follow their established procedures for valuing his shareholding and did not give him a written decision or tell him of his right to appeal. Mr A made a late appeal in January 1994 and was awarded IS backdated for one year. In February 1996 BA awarded IS backdated to November 1990. Mr A asked for compensation because two properties had been repossessed in the meantime, but BA refused. In June 1998, after the Ombudsman's intervention, BA realised that Mr A had not, in fact, satisfied the conditions for entitlement to IS between November 1990 and April 1993. They decided the overpayment of £11,549.38 IS that he had received was due to official error and was therefore not recoverable from him. BA also realised that they should have paid £2,067.26 of the housing costs element of the IS arrears direct to his building society. They made good the sum to the building society, inviting Mr A to repay it, but did not pursue the matter when he did not reply. BA apologised for their serious shortcomings in handling Mr A's case.
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Mishandling by the Child Support Agency (CSA) of a non-resident parent's child maintenance affairs
A non-resident parent made two applications to pay child support maintenance in respect of his two sons by his former wife. CSA had no option but to abandon action on the applications after his former wife refused to co-operate; but the Ombudsman found that they failed to follow the correct procedure for closing the case. In February 1997 CSA made a maintenance assessment in respect of the non-resident parent's daughter by his former partner. In December 1997 CSA decided that new legislation, effective from 13 January 1997, applied to the case and reduced that assessment. They made the non-resident parent an ex gratia payment of £1,914.18 representing a refund of overpaid maintenance; and, after the Ombudsman's intervention, paid interest of £25.92 on that sum. The Ombudsman found no grounds for seeking further redress.
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Serious delays by the Child Support Agency (CSA)
The Ombudsman upheld Miss D's complaint that CSA had seriously delayed making a maintenance assessment and had failed to respond to her correspondence and telephone calls. They had also made mistakes in their enquiries of the non-resident parent and had inexplicably sent active papers into storage. CSA secured a first payment of child support maintenance in October 1997, some two and a half years later than they should. CSA decided to compensate Miss D, with interest, for the arrears of child support maintenance which had unnecessarily accrued, and to make a consolatory payment of £150; in all that amounted to £6,398.85.
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Delays by the Benefits Agency (BA) in making Income Support (IS) payments and delays in handling an appeal to a Social Security Appeal Tribunal (SSAT) by BA and the Independent Tribunal Service (ITS)
Mr Q complained that BA had interrupted payments of IS to his parents, and that both BA and ITS were responsible for delays in their handling of an appeal to a SSAT. He also complained about BA's delays in paying IS arrears to his parents. BA and ITS offered Mr Q apologies for the delays which had occurred. BA accepted that they needed to revisit the calculations associated with his parents' IS payments, and agreed that they needed to examine whether they had followed their own guidance about the valuation of shared property. BA made ex gratia payments of £100 for delays and £50 for postage expenses, and agreed to reconsider their decisions about IS, and then to reconsider whether further compensation was payable.
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Errors and delays by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in calculating and enforcing the maintenance due from two non-resident parents
The Ombudsman upheld most aspects of Mrs T's complaint about failings by CSA, although he did not find made out her complaint that CSA should have taken enforcement action against one of the non-resident parents even though he was complying with the terms of an arrears agreement. CSA apologised to Mrs T for their poor performance and made an ex gratia payment of £150 to her in recognition of gross inconvenience which they had caused. CSA also said that, subject to Mrs T agreeing that any subsequent payments made by the appropriate non-resident parent for the relevant periods would be payable to the Secretary of State for Social Security, they would make lump sum payments totalling £1,225.08 to Mrs T in respect of arrears which had accrued as a result of their errors and delays, along with a further payment of £125.78 to compensate her for the late payment.
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Delay by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in collecting child support maintenance (CSM) and in implementing recommendations of the Independent Case Examiner (ICE)
Mrs H applied to CSA in October 1996 for CSM but CSA did not make a maintenance assessment until August 1997. After Mrs H had complained to the ICE about CSA's poor performance CSA were very slow to explain why, notwithstanding a recommendation of the ICE, they had decided not to offer compensation. Their decision not to do so overlooked the fact that action on a linked case involving the non-resident parent had been suspended. The non-resident parent did not cooperate with CSA, but CSA were slow in their efforts to enforce payment and they made procedural errors. It was not until August 1998 that CSA obtained a first payment of CSM from the non-resident parent. In the light of the Ombudsman's investigation CSA agreed to pay Mrs H a total of £2,487.03 in compensation for loss of arrears of CSM, and a consolatory payment of £150. CSA also promised to consider further compensation for the stress that Mrs H said she had experienced if she produced appropriate evidence.
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Misdirection by the Benefits Agency (BA) concerning entitlement to housing benefit
In March 1997 Miss D asked BA for an estimate of benefits to which she and her partner, Mr H, might be entitled should she give up work to care for her children. BA advised Miss D that she might be entitled to housing benefit of £91.95 a week, but also said that entitlement to housing benefit was for the local authority to determine. Around September 1997, after Miss D had committed herself to taking an unpaid career break from her employment, Mr H applied to the local authority for housing benefit but was told that his entitlement was nil. In the absence of housing benefit the couple found themselves in financial difficulties. The Ombudsman found that, although the couple should have made enquiries of the local authority before Miss D gave up work, BA were partly responsible for Miss D's decision to stop work. In the light of the Ombudsman's findings BA agreed to make Mr H an ex gratia payment of £2,664.60 by way of compensation.
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Excessive delay by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in dealing with an application for child support maintenance
The Ombudsman upheld Ms V's complaint about excessive delay by CSA in dealing with her application for child support maintenance. CSA's computer records show that they sent a maintenance application form to Ms V in August 1994, and that she enquired about her case on a number of occasions in 1995, 1996 and 1997. CSA computer records do not indicate that any action was taken on her case, and CSA have found no case papers. Ms V's solicitors wrote to CSA on her behalf in July 1997, but both Ms V and the solicitors had to make a number of enquiries before CSA took any action, and a full reply was not sent to the solicitors. CSA were unable to find the case papers and in March 1998 they decided to reconstruct the file. They sent a duplicate application form to Ms V at an incorrect address. Ms V completed a further application form in May, and in September 1998 CSA made a maintenance assessment with effect from June 1998. The Director of Operations at CSA apologised personally to Ms V for the very poor level of service she had received, and CSA paid her compensation of £1,865.48 for her lost entitlement to child support maintenance (including interest), and £200 for the gross inconvenience she had suffered.
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Mishandling of a review by the Child Support Agency (CSA)
The Ombudsman upheld a complaint from Mr K against CSA who failed to conduct a periodic review due in September 1994, or a change of circumstances review due from March 1995, until August 1996. By that time, because of alterations in maintenance assessments, the complainant's arrears were calculated to be over £2,500. After the Ombudsman's intervention CSA agreed to waive the bulk of arrears (of some £2,900) which had by then accumulated, and which were considered to be due to the Secretary of State and not the parent with care; and they also made a consolatory payment of £100 to Mr K. CSA subsequently sent Mr K £509.33 they calculated he had overpaid, but discovered on closer examination that that had been another error; and that part of the £2,900 had properly been due to the parent with care. The Chief Executive apologised for those further mistakes and gave assurances that Mr K's arrears were nil and that he would not be asked to refund the payment sent to him in error. CSA also undertook to compensate the parent with care for any amounts due to her.
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The handling of recovery of benefit from a deceased person's estate by the Benefits Agency (BA)
The Ombudsman found elements of maladministration by the Recovery from Estates (RFE) section of BA in their handling of the recovery of an overpayment of income support from the estate of the complainant's late mother. Grant of probate was issued in January 1996, eight months after the woman had died, but within some two weeks of the application by solicitors; there was no surviving evidence of when the probate registry had passed the details to BA. In June RFE told the solicitors that BA had a legal claim on the estate, but it was not until April 1997 that they told the complainant (as the executor) that £1,882 in income support was recoverable from the estate. The Ombudsman found that there had been unacceptable delay by RFE between January and April 1997 in reaching a decision.
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Mishandling by the Benefits Agency (BA) of the recovery of social fund (SF) loans
Mr W received two SF loans from BA, the first on 17 January 1992 and the second on 19 January 1994. BA badly mishandled the repayment of the two loans. Their mistakes misled Mr W about his repayment position and their inaccurate records could have resulted in him repaying more than was properly due. BA's failure to deal properly with his enquiries prolonged the satisfactory resolution of the case. BA made Mr W an ex gratia payment of £100 to compensate him for the inconvenience which their failures had caused him.
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Delay and confusion by the Benefits Agency (BA) in undertaking a review of a disability living allowance (DLA) claim
The Ombudsman upheld Ms X's complaint about delays by BA in completing a review of her daughter's entitlement to DLA which she had requested in May 1997. He found that those delays had largely been caused by BA's own confusion over procedures and the fact that they had given inaccurate advice to Ms X. Following a successful appeal by Ms X, BA paid arrears of DLA in October 1998 for the period from June 1997. BA apologised for their errors and delays; paid compensation to Ms X for the late payment of the arrears and £50 in consolation for the gross inconvenience caused by their actions; and agreed to consider Ms X's claim for worry and distress should she submit appropriate evidence.
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Errors and delays by the Child Support Agency (CSA), including failure to take prompt enforcement action
The Ombudsman upheld Mr L's complaint that CSA had failed to take adequate enforcement action against the non-resident parent. In particular, three attempts to secure a liability order against her had had to be halted as a result of CSA identifying errors while preparing their applications. CSA apologised to Mr L for their errors. They made ex gratia payments totalling £155 to him to cover his telephone costs and in recognition of the gross inconvenience they had caused. They also agreed to make a lump sum payment to cover the outstanding arrears of £1,563.58 owing to him, along with £190.03 to compensate him for the loss of use of those arrears and of arrears which by then the non-resident parent had already paid to him.
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Failure by the Benefits Agency (BA) to return documents
Mr X was the executor of the estate of his deceased brother. He reported his brother's death to BA, and sent them the death certificate and other documents. In May 1997 Mr X sent BA the money due to them from his brother's estate, but BA did not return the documents to him. Mr X asked for the return of the documents a number of times in correspondence with BA between July 1997 and March 1998, when BA told him that a thorough investigation had failed to locate the documents. After the Ombudsman's intervention BA found the missing documents and returned them to Mr X. The Chief Executive apologised to Mr X for the poor service he had received.
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Delay by the Benefits Agency (BA) in paying arrears of reduced earnings allowance
The Ombudsman upheld Mr Z's complaint that BA had not compensated him for failing to identify in March 1996 that they should not have replaced his reduced earnings allowance by retirement allowance in October 1994. The decision to replace his reduced earnings allowance had been in accordance with the intention of the legislation but, after subsequent Social Security Commissioners' decisions had indicated that Mr Z should have continued to receive reduced earnings allowance, his case was missed from a trawl undertaken by BA to identify and review all affected cases. BA reviewed Mr Z's award in March 1998. They extended the award of reduced earnings allowance to 30 March 1996 and paid him arrears of £2,157.09. In February 1999 BA agreed to make an ex gratia payment of £156.13 to compensate Mr Z for the two-year delay in identifying that arrears had been due to him.
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Alleged misdirection by the Child Support Agency (CSA) over the eligibility of a loan
A non-resident parent complained that CSA had told him that a loan taken out to buy a mobile home would be eligible to be included as housing costs in his child support maintenance assessment. He said he had bought the mobile home only to be told by CSA that the loan was not eligible. After the Ombudsman's intervention, CSA established that the non-resident parent had signed the loan agreement before asking their advice about eligibility of the loan. His complaint was therefore not upheld.
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Alleged muddle and delay by the Benefits Agency (BA) and the Redundancy Payments Service (RPS) of the Department of Trade and Industry over the repayment of social fund loans
The Ombudsman only partly upheld a complaint by Mr and Mrs F that they had been pressed for a number of years to repay social fund loans which, so they contended, had already been repaid by the recovery of them from a redundancy payment made to Mr F by RPS. The evidence available to the Ombudsman suggested that the recovery made by RPS had properly been to recover unemployment benefit paid but, given BA's failure over a number of years to explain that to Mr and Mrs F, they could not have known the true position. As RPS have since destroyed the case papers the matter can no longer be determined conclusively. RPS had repaid to Mr F the sum deducted from Mr F's redundancy payment even though there was no conclusive evidence that he had otherwise repaid the unemployment benefit from which he had benefited.
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Delay by the Benefits Agency (BA) in replacing an income support order book and in deciding a Social Fund application
The Ombudsman upheld Mr S's complaint that BA had taken far too long to replace his income support order book and had failed to follow correct procedures. The Ombudsman also found that BA had been too slow in deciding one of Mr S's Social Fund applications. BA paid the income support arrears owing to Mr S and apologised for their delay. BA also made an ex gratia payment of £5.20 to cover Mr S's postage costs, and agreed to consider claims for reimbursement of other expenses if he provided supporting documentary evidence.
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Refusal by the Benefits Agency (BA) to pay compensation for a delay in paying attendance allowance (AA)
The Ombudsman upheld Mrs X's complaint that BA had wrongly refused her compensation for a delay in paying her daughter AA. After a Social Security Appeal Tribunal had decided that Mrs X had made a claim for AA, on behalf of her daughter, in 1984 and that the records had been lost within the department, an adjudication officer had awarded her daughter AA from 2 January 1984 to 2 May 1990. BA eventually paid the arrears due (£7,014,65) and, after Mrs X had made a claim for invalid care allowance, they paid her arrears of £6,834.75 along with £3,581.34 to compensate her for their late payment. However, BA rejected Mrs X's request for compensation for the loss of use of the arrears of AA until the Ombudsman intervened, when they agreed to make her an ex gratia payment of £3,788.95.
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Errors and delays by the Benefits Agency (BA) in handling a request for the review of a disability living allowance (DLA) application
The Ombudsman only partly upheld Mr Z's complaint that BA had failed to act on a timeous request for a review of their decision to refuse his application for DLA, but upheld his complaint about their errors in preparing for the subsequent appeal. BA apologised for failing to give Mr Z the opportunity to provide evidence that he had made a timeous request for a review, but he offered no such evidence to the Ombudsman. In parallel with his appeal, Mr Z had made a fresh application for DLA and BA failed to carry out the correct procedures for dealing with the two applications in parallel. However, as neither application resulted in the award of DLA, Mr Z was not financially disadvantaged by BA's poor handling of his case.
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Errors by the Benefits Agency (BA) in handling a disability living allowance (DLA) claim
BA did not receive Mr A's application to renew his entitlement to disability living allowance but, as they continued to make payments for some five months after his entitlement had ceased, he was unaware of that until his order book was abruptly withdrawn. BA apologised for their errors, classified the overpayment as non-recoverable as it was the result of official error, made an ex gratia payment to Mr A of £247.25 to cover the period during which he had had no entitlement to DLA, and agreed to consider any evidence he wished to submit to substantiate a claim for compensation for anxiety and distress.
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Mishandling by the Benefits Agency (BA) of adult dependency increase (ADI) of severe disablement allowance
BA withdrew the complainant's ADI instead of reducing it, when his wife became entitled to a retirement pension. Despite enquiries from the complainant and his wife, and a review of the case, BA did not correct their mistake for two years; when they did so they made a further mistake resulting in an overpayment of ADI. After the Ombudsman's intervention, BA corrected the ADI; paid arrears of £321.70; and made the complainant a consolatory award of £100.
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