4. Mr A complains that ICE failed to consider the anxiety and distress he felt because of ATW delays, when it recommended a financial payment of £75.
5. He says this has caused ongoing distress.
6. He would like ICE to recommend that DWP pays him more compensation.
7. DWP offers an ATW programme that gives advice and a financial grant for practical support to overcome work-related barriers for disabled claimants. ATW funding is not given until a claimant agrees the award DWP has offered and returns any relevant forms.
8. Mr A made an online claim for ATW on 7 January 2020 for a job he said he had worked in since August 2018 for 40 hours per week. He asked for an interpreter to help him at work with the communication barriers he faced due to being profoundly deaf (a person who is deaf and cannot speak) and dyslexic (a learning disability).
9. On 11 February, when he had not heard back from DWP, Mr A sent the same application in again. On 4 March his case was allocated to an ATW advisor, who emailed him the next day to request quotes for three different British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters and some information about his current job.
10. On 19 March Mr A provided two interpreter quotes but did not provide the other information requested. Mr A called DWP a week later and asked for a different ATW advisor. DWP replied on 30 March saying his query would be dealt with as soon as possible due to the ‘current circumstance’ (the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown). From mid-March 2020, applications from key workers were prioritised as part of DWP’s pandemic response.
11. Mr A chased his application on 15 April. On 24 April DWP passed his case to the allocations team and a request was made to allocate his case to the next available advisor.
12. On 1 May DWP wrote to Mr A to ask for some further information about his job role. It did this again on 13 May. Mr A responded on 26 May and provided all the information requested apart from the third interpreter quote (he had already provided two in March). Mr A replied the same day and said he had already provided three quotes.
13. An advisor spoke to Mr A on 5 June with an interpreter and immediately after wrote to Mr A’s employer for information needed to approve his application. His employer replied on 17 June explaining that Mr A was furloughed as the place he worked at was closed. DWP wrote to the employer a week later asking if Mr A had a return-to-work date set. His employer confirmed this would be 23 July. DWP told Mr A and his employer that his application could now be progressed.
14. Over the next month or so there was regular contact between DWP and the employer. It seems DWP was trying to decide how much support Mr A would need since he did most of his job alone. On 19 August DWP wrote to Mr A and said a funding award would be agreed once he gave evidence of the BSL support he had used between 11 February and 21 March. Mr A provided this and DWP made its funding decision on 24 August for interpreter support for:
• 18 hours from 11 February to 21 March 2020 at £52 per hour • eight hours from 25 July to 24 August 2020 for training required on return to work at £52 per hour • four hours per week from 25 July 2020 to 9 February 2023 for meetings at £52 per hour.
15. Mr A asked for a reconsideration (for the decision to be looked at again) of this on 28 August because he wanted a full-time interpreter, not the four hours per week allocated. He also provided some information to support his claim. On 28 September DWP replied and said it could not decide until his employer provided the job description it requested on 18 September.
16. On 30 September DWP changed the original funding decision and proposed allocating interpreter support for:
• 24 hours from 22 March to 22 July 2020 • a maximum cap limit of £60,700 at £52 per hour from 23 July 2020 to 22 July 2021.
17. Mr A replied on 2 October and said he agreed with the support proposed.
18. On 13 October Mr A complained to the DWP that:
• the funding decision took too long • there were too many advisors involved in his case • DWP staff showed a lack of ‘deaf awareness’ • he had been left for periods without interpreter support • numerous calls between ATW and his managers increased their workload and made him feel embarrassed.
19. He asked for service improvements and compensation for distress.
20. DWP responded on 21 October and said:
• due to COVID-19 it was short-staffed • due to lockdown it was not possible to keep a single advisor assigned to each case • the advisor on his case had been given deaf awareness training in response to his complaint • it was sorry for the level of service he had received due to the pressures of COVID-19.
21. Mr A was unhappy with this and on 27 October replied asking for £1,000 compensation. He said delays with his application had caused his post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to get worse, damaged his reputation, caused him to miss out on extra shifts and he had funded interpreters at personal cost.
22. DWP declined his request for compensation and said its position was the same as that explained on 21 October.
23. On 19 January 2021 Mr A repeated his complaint to DWP. DWP replied on 11 February saying its position was unchanged. Mr A escalated his complaint to a separate complaints team. The team wrote to him on 1 April and repeated the same position. But, it did say a bit more on periods of delay it felt were caused by Mr A failing to provide information that was requested.
24. Mr A complained to ICE, who did not uphold his complaint because it was not critical of DWP’s role in the time it took to approve his application. It explained that the COVID-19 pressures DWP described were reasonable explanations for the delay, and there were periods of delay which were caused by failures to respond to requests for information by both Mr A and his employer.
25. It saw that ICE made a duplicate request for information from his employer in June 2020. It reflected on the fact that DWP had apologised for the handling of his case, but not specifically for making duplicate requests.
26. ICE recommended for DWP to apologise to Mr A for not replying to this complaint specifically. It also recommended that DWP apologise to Mr A for not quickly replying to a complaint he made in February 2021 and to pay him £75 to address both service failures.
29. Mr A complains that ICE failed to consider distress and anxiety caused by delays in his ATW application when it recommended only £75.
30. Our ‘Principles for Remedy’ say that where maladministration (fault) or poor service has led to injustice or hardship, the organisation responsible should take steps to give an appropriate and fair solution.
31. ICE found delays and errors in DWP’s complaints handling from 2021 onwards (after the funding was in place) and recommended it pay Mr A £75 to put right the distress this caused him. It is clear this payment did not consider the distress Mr A says he felt as a result of the ATW application delays. But, the question is whether it should have considered this.
32. In line with our Principles, we would only expect an organisation to compensate a complainant for injustice which was caused by maladministration.
33. As we have explained above, ICE did not find that the delays with Mr A’s ATW application were caused by any maladministration by DWP. It seems reasonable and in line with our Principles to say that ICE did not consider the claimed impact when it recommended the payment. The payment was meant to put right a separate impact which ICE found was linked to mistakes by DWP.
34. But, Mr A also said he disagrees with ICE’s decision that DWP was not to blame for the ATW delays. He feels DWP was to blame for the delays and for the distress and anxiety he says he felt as a result.
35. We recognise Mr A felt anxiety and embarrassment due to the delays with ATW. We do not doubt how difficult it must have been for Mr A to continue with his employment without the support he felt he needed.
36. But, the evidence does not seem to suggest that DWP was to blame for these delays.
37. From what we can see, the delays were caused mainly by unavoidable staffing pressures because of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and failures by Mr A and his employer to provide the information needed to process his application.
38. While it is important to note that there were a couple of times where DWP made duplicate requests for information, the actual impact of this on the timescale of the application seems minor.
39. Our ‘Principles of Good Administration’ say that when making decisions organisations should balance the available evidence, take account of all relevant considerations and ignore irrelevant ones.
40. In making its decision ICE balanced the few minor administrative mistakes by DWP with the bigger impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and how quickly it got information it asked for.
41. We think ICE’s decision is in line with our Principles so we will take no further action. That is not to say we do not think Mr A had a difficult experience.
1. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint about the Independent Case Examiner (ICE). We recognise Mr A has been involved in a very longstanding dispute with ICE about delays with his Access to Work (ATW).
2. Based on the evidence we have seen we think ICE was correct to decide that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was not to blame for these delays. We also think ICE was correct not to recommend that DWP compensate him for the impact of the delays.
3. For these reasons, we will take no further action.