3. Mr L complains that between January 2023 and February 2024 ICE refused to accept his complaint about the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) for consideration, even though he had told it about his difficulties in getting a response from CMS.
4. Mr L believes that CMS’s actions have harmed his mental and physical health, and ICE’s delay in accepting his concerns for investigation have compounded that harm.
5. By bringing his concerns to us Mr L would like financial compensation.
6. Mr L has paid maintenance to his ex-wife through CMS for several years. He has made several complaints about actions CMS has or has not taken throughout this time. In January 2023, he attempted to escalate these concerns to ICE.
7. ICE replied to Mr L and explained that its policy was that it would only accept the complaint when he had received a final response from CMS signposting him to ICE. Mr L emailed ICE on a more occasions until April 2023, either directly, or copying ICE in one correspondence with CMS, the courts and others.
8. In November 2023, Mr L contacted ICE again by email and phone. ICE replied a few days later. It explained that in exceptional circumstances, such as when a customer had made significant and protracted attempts to obtain a final response, it could accept a complaint for investigation without a final response. ICE referred to Mr L’s earlier attempts but could not locate a record at that time.
9. Mr L emailed ICE on further occasions between December 2023 and January 2024. ICE wrote to him on 11 December after it located his earlier correspondence with its office. It acknowledged that it should have checked the status of his complaint with CMS and apologised for not doing so.
10. On 26 February ICE wrote to Mr L to say that it was aware that CMS was in the process of dealing with his complaint and that it could accept it for investigation on receipt of the final response if he remined dissatisfied. The next day Mr L provided a copy of his final response and ICE accepted the complaint for investigation.
13. Before we decide if we should investigate a complaint in more detail, we look at whether there are signs the organisation concerned has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. If what happened fell far short of what should have happened, we call this a failing. When we see indications of a failing, we next look at whether that failing had a negative impact on the person in question. If we think it did, we will go on to consider what, if anything, the organisation has done to try to put things right.
14. Having done this, we think that, ICE did enough to put things right by acknowledging it could have done more when Mr L brought his complaint to it in early 2023, and apologising.
15. ICE publishes information in its guide called ‘How to bring a complaint to the Independent Case Examiner’. This tells complainants ‘do not contact us until you get a final response from the business you have complained to that says you can bring your complaint to us’. However, as it told Mr L, it can consider accepting a complaint that has not received a final response from CMS in exceptional circumstances, if a customer was able to demonstrate significant and protracted attempts to obtain a final response over a period of time.
16. ICE did not initially recognise the struggles Mr L was having in getting a response from CMS. It acknowledged that it should have realised sooner that it could have done more for him. This was, undoubtedly, frustrating to Mr L.
17. Our Complaint Standards say that wherever possible, colleagues explain why things went wrong and identify suitable ways to put things right for service users. In acknowledging that it could have done better, and apologising, we think ICE did enough to put right the frustration its delay likely caused Mr L.
18. It was clear when we spoke to Mr L that he is very upset about the events relating to his child maintenance case and was frustrated by an apparent delay in CMS responding to his concerns. He told us this is harmed both his mental and physical health as well as his employment prospects. Although Mr L says ICE’s delay compounded this, we are unlikely to be able to fairly and robustly conclude that this was the case. Mental and physical health issues are often complex and can be impacted by a great number of things. That being so, it would be incredibly difficult for us to say that this delay alone was a sole or significant contributing factor to Mr L’s health issues.
19. If ICE had contacted CMS earlier in 2023, we do not know what would have happened. This could have resulted in CMS contacting Mr L sooner about his complaint, or ICE may have decided to investigate his concerns sooner, or something else may have happened. We think an apology goes far enough to put this right in line with our Standards. This means we have decided not to take any further action on Mr L’s concerns.
1. We have carefully considered Mr L’s complaint about ICE. We have decided ICE has already done enough to put right any shortfall in its service by apologising for not taking action in early 2023 about his concerns.
2. We were sorry to hear about Mr L’s struggles with stress linked to his child maintenance case. Our decision is not intended to detract from this.