3. Mr N complains to us about the actions of the DWP in September 2018. He tells us he received incorrect information from the DWP, and this resulted in him being incorrectly awarded Universal Credit (UC). In addition, he says that when he raised concerns about this with the DWP, it did not investigate his concerns fully.
4. He tells us the DWP’s actions have left him feeling stressed and shocked and have resulted in financial hardship.
5. He would like financial compensation.
6. Mr N has complained to us about information he received from the DWP about which benefit he should claim during a telephone call in August 2018. He says that as a result of the ‘incorrect advice’ he received, he went on to apply for and claim UC as a joint claim with his wife. This in turn led to his wife’s Tax Credits being stopped once HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) became aware of the UC claim.
7. Mr N says that the incorrect information he received from the DWP led to him claiming UC and it is unfair his tax credits were stopped. He says if he had been advised at the time that his tax credits would be stopped if he claimed UC, he would not have done so. He was dissatisfied with the DWP’s response, so Mr N took his case to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) as the next stage of the complaints process.
8. In response to Mr N’s complaint both DWP and ICE said that when an individual decides to claim a benefit, it is up to them to decide which benefit will suit their individual circumstances. If an individual is not clear as to what benefits are available, they can view this information online on the DWP website, or alternatively speak with a consumer advocacy group like Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB).
9. Another option is for a benefit claimant to call the DWP and speak to an adviser about the different benefits. However, as the ICE report notes, the call handlers can answer questions put to them by the claimants, but they cannot advise them which benefit to claim. As mentioned above, it is for the individual making the claim to decide which benefit they apply for.
10. Mr N had a telephone conversation with the UC helpline on 23 August 2018 and the call notes show he said he wanted to ‘make a claim’. The law states that when an individual makes a claim for UC, they are no longer eligible for tax credits and cannot claim tax credits in the future.
11. In Mr N’s case when he applied for UC he did so as a joint claim with his wife who was in receipt of tax credits. Therefore, once Mrs A’s UC claim was commenced her tax credits were stopped. The ICE report notes that the DWP is obliged to administer benefit claims in line with the law. The ICE report went on to say it was not within its remit to comment on the legislation or the way it operates. If Mr N is dissatisfied with the law in this case, it advised it would be best for him to speak with his local MP, who does have the opportunity to raise his concerns.
12. Although Mr N was not able to have his tax credits reinstated, ICE made a recommendation for an apology and financial remedy from DWP to put right problems it had identified with the handling of his August 2018 call. Mr N was unhappy with the outcome of ICE’s investigation and asked his MP to refer his complaint to our Office.
Mr N received incorrect information from the DWP about his benefit entitlement and was incorrectly awarded Universal Credit (UC)
15. Mr N’s primary concern relates to the information he received during the telephone call he had with the DWP in August 2018. When Mr N called the UC helpline on 23 August 2018, he said he wanted to make a claim as his employer had informed him he had exceeded 28 weeks of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). Mr N told the call adviser his SSP had ended or was about to end. The records show this was not the case and his SSP entitlement did not end until December 2018.
16. The call records show that Mr N asked the adviser if he should follow the website’s instructions regarding Employment Support Allowance (ESA), which is a type of benefit, and he was advised he would need to claim UC. Mr N asked if that would apply to him, and he was told it would.
17. UC call handlers do not have a set script that they follow when dealing with calls to the helpline. The call handler’s role is to answer any questions a caller may ask but it should not direct an individual on which benefit they should claim, as set out previously. However, when Mr N called DWP its staff should have acted in line with the DWP Customer Charter, which states it will ‘try to understand your circumstances and follow processes correctly’. We can see indications they did not do so.
18. We understand from the ICE report and from DWP that Mr N should have been signposted to CAB who would be able to provide generalised advice on what benefits he may have been entitled to following the end of his SSP. If Mr N had been advised to contact CAB, it is likely that he would have been given information about UC and ESA. More importantly, it is likely he would have been told of the impact a UC claim would have on his tax credits.
19. We cannot give any view on the balance of probabilities what Mr N may or may not have done if he had been given all the relevant information during the August 2018 call, which means we cannot give any view as to what the outcome or impact may have been on his benefit entitlement.
20. Nevertheless, the evidence does suggest that Mr N did not receive all the information he should have during the call in August 2018. This is because he was not signposted to CAB as he should have been, in line with DWP’s Customer Charter. This omission means he was not given all the relevant information about UC and ESA and the impact these benefits may have had had on his tax credits. In our view, Mr N was not given the opportunity to make an informed choice and we think this missed opportunity and lack of information by the DWP indicates maladministration.
21. We have therefore considered the impact caused by this error. Mr N’s UC claim paid him around £200 more as a household per payment for the period from September to December 2018 than if he had not made a claim. UC payments are monthly as a single sum to one person in the couple and Mr N had previously said he and his wife managed their money separately, which he believed was important and would have factored in his decision-making process. Mr N says that if he had been aware he had the option to claim UC or take no action until his SSP ran out in December 2018, he may have asked more questions about the situation.
22. We have considered this. However, as we cannot say on the balance of probabilities what choices Mr N would have made if the mistake had not occurred, we cannot say what benefits he would have received. As such, the impact we have identified is not direct financial loss of his benefits, but the frustration caused by the lost opportunity to make an informed decision.
23. We have considered whether the actions of DWP and ICE go far enough to put right that frustration. The DWP investigated Mr N’s complaint and decided a £50 consolatory payment, which recognised that he should have been informed of ESA earlier, was appropriate. However, the DWP did not agree he had been misdirected, as Mr N has said.
24. After its consideration of his complaint, ICE said the call handler did not answer his questions appropriately and provided very definitive advice, without all the information he needed to make an informed decision on what to claim. If Mr N had been given the relevant information, ICE concluded he would have been able to establish his correct position regarding his SSP and this in turn would have led him to make a more informed decision, as we have also concluded for the reasons set out above.
25. In recognition of this, ICE upheld this part of the complaint and agreed that Mr N had been misdirected on 23 August 2018. It awarded a consolatory payment of £350 for the service failings it had identified regarding which benefit he should claim. In addition, ICE recommended that the DWP apologise to Mr N and recognise that its actions had caused him to suffer worry and distress.
26. The DWP has acknowledged and accepted the findings of the ICE report and agreed to pay the £350 consolatory payment recommended by ICE. 27. Mr N remains dissatisfied with ICE report’s recommendations and says the DWP’s actions have caused him stress and distress as well as a financial loss because of the impact of the tax credits being stopped. Mr N maintains that the sum recommended by ICE is inadequate and says he ‘financially struggled’ when he and his wife were ‘put on Universal Credit’.
27. The £350 offered by ICE was in recognition of the stress Mr N experienced when he was not given all the relevant information during the August 2018 call. It is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a financial remedy to compensate the loss of Mr and Mrs N’s tax credits. This is because ICE could not make any finding that DWP’s actions had led to the loss of their tax credits, only the loss of opportunity to make the best decision for him and his family.
28. The service failing Mr N experienced in August 2018 when he was not given all the relevant information by the call handler was acknowledged by the DWP, and it has apologised for this. Although Mr N did not receive all the relevant signposting in his August 2018 telephone call, the DWP has made this right by accepting the recommendations ICE has put to it in its report.
29. This is in line with our own Principles of Good Complaint Handling, section ‘Putting things right’, which says ‘where a public body has failed to get it right and this has led to injustice or hardship, it should take steps to put things right’. The DWP has demonstrated that it has done this by accepting the ICE recommendations for remedy.
30. As part of our consideration, we have looked into the possible impact of the inaccurate information Mr N received during his call in with UC in August 2018, as can be seen above. We cannot speculate as to what decisions Mr N might have made, and the injustice we and ICE have identified is the distress caused by loss of the opportunity to make an informed decision. This will leave Mr N wondering what might have been different.
31. With this in mind, we are satisfied the likely injustice is a period of frustration and distress which falls within Level Two of our own Severity of Injustice scale. This indicates that in most cases an apology and a financial remedy of the size DWP has provided will be sufficient remedy to put things right.
32. Therefore, as we can see the DWP has taken proportionate steps to put right the impact of frustration we have identified, we will take no further action.
Delays to DWP’s investigation
33. Mr N is also unhappy with the DWP’s response to his complaint when he first raised concerns about the information he received in August 2018. He complained to the DWP on 24 September 2018 and said he had been incorrectly advised and told by DWP advisers that if he claimed UC, his tax credits would not be affected.
34. As part of its investigation the DWP spoke with the work coach Mr and Mrs N had met on 4 September 2018, as Mr N said they had also misadvised him. However, due to the time that had passed the work coach said they had no recollection of either Mr or Mrs N and could not recall what was discussed during the meeting. As Mr N was dissatisfied with the response, he escalated his complaint to Tier 1 and received a response on 3 October 2018.
35. As part of the Tier 1 investigation the complaints resolution manager (CRM) contacted HMRC for further information and HMRC confirmed the tax credits could not be reinstated as Mr N had applied for UC. Mr N was told of this in the response to the Tier 1 complaint, dated 25 October 2018. The response went on to say the CRM accepted that the advice Mr N received on 23 August 2018 could have included more about ESA, so the DWP awarded a consolatory payment of £50.
36. Mr N was unhappy with this response and escalated his complaint again, and he was issued with a response on 11 December 2018. The response apologised for the delay in replying and explained his complaint had not been upheld.
37. The DWP apologised for the time taken to provide the Tier 2 response and therefore ICE did not uphold this part of Mr N’s complaint. We have considered the timeframe and can see that there was a period of less than two months between DWP’s Tier 1 and 2 responses.
38. We do not consider this to be a significant period of time, especially when DWP was clearly considering the complaint, so we cannot see that on this occasion the service provided was so poor as to fall outside of the DWP Customer Charter commitment to ‘Keep you informed’. However, we are glad to see that DWP recognised Mr N had been frustrated by the waiting time and apologised, which is appropriate, and customer focused.
39. We hope the details set out above fully and openly explain to Mr N how we have considered his complaint. For the reasons we have explained in this statement, and having looked at everything carefully, we have decided to take no further action.
1. We have carefully considered Mr N’s complaint about the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Having looked at the evidence available to us, and the standards which set out what should happen in cases like this, we have decided not to take further action. This is because we can see that DWP made mistakes in Mr N’s case, but we can also see it has taken appropriate steps to put things right.
2. We understand the complaints process has been stressful for Mr N and he remains unhappy with DWP’s response. The evidence available to us indicates that it has considered and responded to his concerns in line with the applicable standards, and we hope this statement clearly sets out why this is. We explain further below.