What we can and cannot help with

When you come to us, we’ll always do our best to help. But if we cannot, we’ll try to point you to someone who can. This page explains what we can and cannot help with if you have a complaint about a UK government service.
Published: 22 July 2026
Last updated: 28 September 2026

Organisations we can and cannot look into

Organisations we can look into:

  • Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)
  • HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)
  • Jobcentre Plus
  • the Passport Office.

Organisations we cannot look into include:

  • judges and magistrates
  • education
  • local councils
  • Members of Parliament
  • police.

We have a list of the government services we can look into. We also have a list of organisations and issues we cannot look into. It explains who may be able to help if we cannot look at your complaint. If you’re not sure, call us on 0345 015 4033.

Legal action

Before we can investigate, we need to check whether you have (or had) the option to take legal action to resolve your complaint. For example, going to court or a tribunal. The law says we cannot investigate if this is the case. 

If you are looking for payment as an outcome from your complaint then you will need to have explored the option of taking legal action before you come to us.

We’ll help you work out the best option for your complaint. If legal action is possible, we’ll talk to you about your concerns and what outcome you’re hoping for. We’ll look at things like the cost and time involved.

If legal action could give you the outcome you’re looking for, we may decide this is a better option.

What we can and cannot recommend

If we find that an organisation got things wrong, we can recommend what it should do to put things right. 

We can ask an organisation to:

  • take action to put things right for you or others affected - this could include an apology, an explanation or a payment
  • look again at a decision - but only if it made mistakes, acted unfairly or did not follow the right process
  • improve its services to stop the same thing happening again - this could include reviewing policies, processes or guidance.

We cannot ask an organisation to:

  • fire or ‘strike off’ a member of staff
  • pay compensation in the way that courts and tribunals can
  • change a decision the organisation has the power to make (for example, a continuing healthcare assessment) or replace its decision with our own
  • change its policies, processes or guidance, or replace them with our own.