Mr V’s complaint
8. The Parliamentary Commissioner Act, 1967 (the Act) gives us the powers to consider complaints. Section 6(3) of the Act says a person needs to make their complaint to an MP within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints raised with an MP after one year, unless we can see there is a good reason to do so. In considering these reasons, we look at whether there was any practical barrier, or any extenuating circumstances, that prevented someone making a complaint sooner.
9. We have explored this with Mr V to understand the reasons why he did not complain about the actions of CMS sooner. We can see that Mr T became aware on 26 July 2019 that he had cause for complaint about CMS’ decision to reclaim outstanding arrears, as this was when CMS informed him of its decision.
10. While Mr V did express his disagreement with the decision and the rationale on which it was based, he did not contact an MP for assistance on the matter until November 2021. This means his complaint is outside of our time limit by a year and four months.
11. Where someone has not complained to their MP within 12 months, we consider the reasons why they were not able to do so. It is only if there are strong reasons to explain any delay that we are able to put the time limit to one side
12. We have therefore considered Mr V’s reasons as to why he was unable to bring his complaint to us sooner and the time it took for him to complete the local resolution process. We can see that Mr V sought clarification from CMS and communicated with CMS between August and September 2019. Mr V called CMS on 3 October 2019 to discuss his concerns and then raised a formal complaint on 9 October 2019, via his representative. CMS responded to Mr V’s complaint, via his advocate and in writing, on 31 October 2019, explaining the reasons as to why it was recovering the arrears.
13. No contact was made between Mr V and CMS until March 2020 when CMS telephoned Mr V to discuss his concerns. The Independent Case Examiner (ICE) said CMS’ call to Mr V was in response to the call he made on 3 October 2019. However, we understand from Mr V that he was not expecting this call, and he believes it was unprompted.
14. Following this call, Mr V called CMS again on 3 June 2020 to discuss the arrears. Mr V and CMS communicated from June 2020 to October 2020, at which point communication stopped. Mr V was informed by CMS in October 2020 that collection of the arrears would not start until October 2021. However, in April 2021, CMS sent Mr V a revised payment plan which confirmed collection of the arrears would begin in July 2021.
15. This prompted Mr V to raise his concerns again on 18 August 2021 and raise a further formal complaint on 13 October 2021. Mr V says CMS did not respond to his complaint or update requests. This lack of response is what prompted Mr V’s representative to contact his MP in November 2021, who contacted CMS on 7 June 2022.
16. CMS sent a final response to Mr V’s MP on 14 June 2022 and the ICE accepted Mr V’s complaint for investigation on 15 September 2022. Mr V contacted us about his complaint in May 2024, one month after ICE’s response.
17. We can see the local resolution process took a considerable amount of time. We can also see there were gaps in the local resolution process, specifically between: October 2019 and March 2020; March 2020 and June 2020 and, October 2020 and April 2021.
18. We enquired about the gaps with Mr V and why Mr V did not raise his complaint with his MP sooner. Mr V said he and his representative were preparing for and submitting his bankruptcy claim between November 2019 until January 2020. Mr V also believed following CMS’ call in March 2020 that the decision to collect the arrears was being investigated but when Mr V he did not hear anything, he contacted CMS in June 2020.
19. We are very sorry to hear about frustration and stress Mr V has experienced. We recognise that financial matters, in their nature, are stressful so we do not underestimate Mr V’s experience. What we must consider is whether there was a barrier to Mr V pursuing the complaint with his MP. We can see that Mr V was able to pursue a number of complaints with CMS with the assistance of his representative, and so we believe he was able to contact us and an MP sooner.
20. We understand Mr V continued to raise complaints with CMS because he remained unhappy with its decision and was informed by CMS it would look into his concerns. We have thought carefully about this. We do ask that the local resolution process is exhausted before complainants bring their complaints to us, but we can see there were opportunities for Mr V to contact his MP earlier.
21. Having considered the evidence, it also seems that Mr V did not intend to pursue further action until CMS called him in March 2020 and again in April 2021. This contact appears to have prompted Mr V to raise his concerns again with CMS, suggesting that the follow-up call and revised payment plan led to his decision to reopen the matter.
22. Based on the information above, we have seen there were no barriers which prevented Mr V from contacting his MP earlier. Therefore, we are not able to put the time limit aside and we will take no further action.