DWP
22. When considering a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation complained about made a mistake that had a negative effect. If so, we think about whether the organisation has taken appropriate steps to put things right. Having done so, we can see DWP has already done enough to put right the impact of the errors it made in its communication with Mr X.
23. We have considered why Mr X is still unhappy after the final response to his complaint.
24. He tells us while he understands it is not DWP’s fault it received a fraudulent application, it has not comforted him that there are steps in place to make sure this does not happen again.
25. He was not happy the matter was referred to the fraud team as no fraud has, or could have, taken place, and he thinks a different team should have been asked to investigate what happened and then inform him of the outcome. He is still unhappy DWP referred him to ICE about parts of his complaint that it was not able to consider, and he is unhappy with the time DWP has taken and caused him to spend in dealing with this matter.
26. DWP apologised to Mr X as it recognised it raised his expectations about the information it would be able to share with him after a fraud investigation.
27. It told Mr X the staff dealing with this may have been unclear about what to do because of the unusual circumstances of the third-party claim (because the third party would not have got any money even if the claim had been successful). It assured him this had been discussed with the members of staff in question and it had put measures in place to make sure lessons were learned.
28. DWP also said it should have divided his complaint into two parts before referring him to ICE. ICE could have looked at Mr X’s complaint about the phone service he got, but it could not look at how DWP handled the fraud investigation.
29. DWP accepted it did not tell Mr X what part of his complaint he could take to ICE, which caused him understandable frustration when ICE later told him that it could not investigate his complaint about DWP’s fraud policy. We agree that this is a sign of service failure.
30. We have considered the correspondence between Mr X and DWP carefully. We have also contacted DWP to make sure we fully understand its processes for dealing with reported fraud or identity theft, and to consider if it should have done anything different in Mr X’s case.
31. We can see DWP has accepted it should not have told Mr X that the fraud team would investigate and tell him about the outcome. We can see it did not act in line with its Customer Charter which says it will ‘do what we say we will do’ and that it will ‘provide you with the correct decision, information or payment’. These are also expectations we set out in our ‘Principles of Good Administration’. We consider this is a sign of service failure.
32. We can see DWP has accepted its error, apologised for it and explained how it will learn from the complaint. We are satisfied DWP has put things right, in line with its Charter’s commitments that it will ‘say sorry and put it right if we make a mistake’ and ‘use your feedback to improve how we do things’.
33. We can also see it has acted in line with our ‘Principles of Good Complaint Handling’ that say we expect organisations to be open and accountable by ‘taking responsibility for the actions of their staff’ and ‘seeking continuous improvement’. We will take no further action with this part of the complaint.
34. We have also considered whether DWP acted in line with its policies in the handling of the claim. DWP has explained to us that it uses the term ‘identity fraud’ to describe a claim made in someone else’s name, and that a Fraud Referral Form (FRF) must be completed when fraud is suspected. We have reviewed DWP’s staff guide for fraud investigations and we have seen that it defines identity fraud as including ‘both the creation of fictitious identities and the hijacking of another person’s identity or National Insurance Number’.
35. The guidance on dealing with a suspicion of identity theft goes on to confirm that a FRF should be completed. We have seen in DWP’s online guidance that it cannot share the outcome of its investigation, for reasons of security, which is in line with the information it later provided to Mr X after it apologised for its earlier mistakes.
36. We are satisfied DWP acted correctly and in line with its policies in referring the matter to its fraud team and in later telling him that it would not be able to update him. This is in line with its Customer Charter commitment that it will ‘follow processes correctly’.
37. As DWP has acknowledged Mr X’s circumstances are quite unusual, and we can see that many of its fraud policies do not appear to deal with an attempt of benefit fraud using their own details. We understand why this would be frustrating to Mr X and why he would feel his concerns have not been resolved.
38. We explained to DWP part of Mr X’s concern was this gap in policy, and we asked if it would consider this further. In response, DWP explained to us it does have a specific stolen identity team in place for false Universal Credit claim and it will look to increase the service more widely if it sees there is demand in other benefit areas. We hope this provides Mr X with reassurance that DWP is aware of the issue and has options for further policy development if evidence shows they are needed.
39. We have also asked DWP if it has additional checks in place if an application is received in the name of someone that has been the victim of attempted identity fraud in the past. It provided its assurances that it takes ‘the protection of citizens’ identities very seriously, especially where there has been misuse by third parties for financial gain. DWP has developed and implemented a number of mechanisms to protect citizens impacted by fraudulent activity.’
40. We understand Mr X’s frustration that there is not a system at DWP for the specific type of identity theft he experienced. We can see DWP has acted in line with its Charter by following processes correctly, and in line with our Principles that organisations are ‘getting it right’.
41. Mr X also complained about the time DWP took to investigate his complaint. As we have seen, DWP’s fraud team does not provide updates to members of the public. This means it does not have internal service standards that we could apply to this part of Mr X’s complaint.
42. In terms of its consideration of his complaint, DWP does not have any service standards on when a complainant can expect to get a final response. We have referred to our ‘Principles of Good Administration’, that say ‘Public bodies should behave helpfully, dealing with people promptly, within reasonable timescales and within any published time limits’.
43. Mr X did experience poor customer service when his calls were not returned. We can see DWP recognised this poor service, apologised, and paid financial compensation to put things right. We agree that not returning calls caused Mr X some frustration, which the apology and payment puts right.
44. We can see DWP has tried to deal with Mr X’s concerns and has done so in a timely way. We cannot see there were any significant periods where DWP was not dealing with him, or that the time taken was not balanced against the amount of work it needed to do to answer his concerns.
45. It has provided detailed responses to his concerns and discussed them with him at length in several phone calls. We can see DWP has acted in line with our ‘Principles of Good Complaint Handling’ in ‘being customer focused’ by listening to Mr X’s views and making sure it fully understood his concerns. We can also see it has acted in line with our ‘Principles of Good Administration’ by responding in reasonable timescales.
46. We will take no further action with Mr X’s complaint about DWP. We hope that Mr X finds our explanation and the assurances we have got from DWP helpful.
ICE
47. We have considered why Mr X is still unhappy after ICE’s response to his complaint about its own service. He has told us he is unhappy about the time it took ICE to tell him that it could not consider his complaint, and he does not understand why it took so long to give its decision.
48. ICE explained to Mr X it cannot consider complaints relating to DWP’s policy and suggested he raise such issues with his MP. It acknowledged its contact with him had been outside of its Service Standards and it apologised for this. It explained it had received a significant increase in complaints and that had affected its ability to deal with complaints as quickly as it would like.
49. We can see Mr X complained to ICE about his outstanding concerns on 19 November 2021 and it acknowledged his complaint on 23 December. It explained that it normally aimed to review and discuss the different elements of complaints to find out what it could consider within ten working days, but it had been unable to because of a backlog it was working through in date order.
50. It apologised for the delay and said that it would contact him once the complaint had been reviewed. ICE then wrote to him again on 7 February 2022, and it explained that it could not consider his complaint about DWP’s fraud team as this was a complaint about DWP policy.
51. After receiving its decision, Mr X contacted ICE to tell it he was unhappy with its decision and the time it had taken to tell him. ICE wrote to him on 17 February 2022 and repeated it was DWP’s policy to refer fraudulent claims to the fraud team and it could not consider a complaint about a policy.
52. It repeated its previous explanation that it had received a significant increase in demand which had impacted its ability to deal with complaints as quickly as it would like, and it offered a further apology for the delay.
53. We agree that ICE has not met its Service Standards in the time taken to acknowledge the complaint, and this is not in line with our ‘Principles of Good Complaint Handling’ that expect organisations to be customer focused by dealing with complaints in line with published service standards. There is no service standard for providing a decision not to investigate.
54. This does not necessarily mean that ICE has acted wrongly, if there is a good reason for it being unable to meet its target time and if it explained why it has not been able to do so.
55. We can see ICE acknowledged the complaint as soon as it could, despite this being outside its Service Standards by 14 working days, and it gave an explanation and apology for the delay. It explained it was not able to act any sooner due to capacity issues. We consider the delay in acknowledgement and providing its decision is not significant or unreasonable.
56. We do understand why Mr X felt frustrated, particularly as he was later told ICE could not consider his complaint.
57. We have seen ICE explained to Mr X why it did not feel it could consider his complaint, and has done so consistently. We are satisfied it has complied with our Principles by ‘being open and accountable’ about what it can and cannot consider, and why, and we can see no signs of a service failure in its decision and its explanation to Mr X.
58. We will take no further action with this complaint. We know that Mr X is worried about any future dealings with DWP and ICE, so we hope the explanations set out above are clear and helpful to him.