• did not put him on an appropriate carpentry course to help him gain the necessary qualifications to pursue that area of work and improve his employability
15. We have considered why Mr A remains dissatisfied after completing DWP’s complaints process and receiving ICE’s report. We understand Mr A continues to be disappointed with the course he was placed on after requesting funding via DWP. He tells us he wanted to be placed on a specific, three-day course through which he could have obtained his CSCS card. He says DWP placed him on a different course requiring a work placement to complete, and DWP did not help him with this.
16. DWP explained to Mr A that it did not enrol him on the course. It said it agreed to fund a training course he had requested. It told him any concerns about the course should be raised with the provider.
17. We made enquiries with DWP. We asked to see a copy of the original application requesting funding for the course in 2018. Unfortunately, this was no longer available due to the passage of time.
18. DWP gave us information about its LVP process. It explained a customer requesting funding should provide details of what they need and how it will support them into work. If funding is approved, the customer should ensure the training and qualifications meet their needs. DWP told us it has no responsibility to secure work placements for a customer as part of this process.
19. We have reviewed the relevant guidance for the Flexible Support Fund in use at the time of events, ‘Flexible Support Fund (adviser usage) Overview’. This says the Fund gives staff ‘flexibility and discretion to make awards that will enhance the employment prospects of the claimants’. It says staff ‘might access FSF’ to make an award for ‘training related costs’ and ‘removing barriers to work’.
20. We will not reproduce the entirety of the guidance here for length, but we have read it in full. We are satisfied it makes clear that DWP’s role in training courses obtained via this route is to consider funding it. It is clear DWP’s primary focus in considering a request like this is to determine if it is likely to increase the claimant’s employment prospects.
21. Based on the limited evidence still available, we can see Mr A applied for funding for a course to obtain his CSCS licence. DWP considered his request and agreed to fund this course for him. We cannot see the guidance sets any role for DWP in the content or delivery of courses pursued via this route. It also has no role in helping the claimant to fulfil the course requirements.
22. Furthermore, we have reviewed the Terms and Conditions for provision of a service via the Low Value Provision, which says:
‘In carrying out its obligations under this Contract the Contractor agrees that nothing in the Contract shall create a contract of employment, a relationship of agency or partnership or a joint venture between the Parties. The Contractor shall not say or do anything that may lead any other person to believe that the Contractor is acting as the agent of [DWP].’
23. We understand this to mean a provider of a service accessed via the LVP is not carrying out a function on behalf of DWP. In practice, this would mean DWP is not responsible for the actions of the training provider or the contents of its course. We would also understand to mean it would not be responsible for any complaints a service user had about the course.
24. We can also see despite it having no responsibility to secure the work placement for him, DWP did provide some help and posted possible opportunities in his UC journal on a number of occasions. This is good customer service, in line with our Principles of ‘being customer focused’.
25. We think DWP fulfilled its obligations in agreeing to fund the training course and had no further responsibility to Mr A in relation to it. We can also see, as set out above, it provided some assistance despite having no obligation to do so.
26. We know Mr A was very disappointed by the course he was enrolled on. Having thought about this carefully, we cannot see this is DWP’s fault. We will therefore take no further action on this part of his complaint.
• took too long to tell him the Job Centre would not help him in the way he wanted it to, and it did not progress his complaint in a timely manner.
27. We understand Mr A remains concerned about DWP’s handling of his concerns. He says that it took too long to for DWP to explain that it would not help him. He is also frustrated about the amount of time it took to respond to his complaint.
28. We can see Mr A first raised concerns that he did not feel DWP was helping him in December 2018. At this stage, as we found above, DWP was providing some help in his journal to draw possible placements to his attention. Mr A reiterated his concerns several times between then and August 2021, when he was told that DWP could not provide the level of support with securing a work placement that he wanted it to. It thereafter did not appropriately act on several requests to escalate his concerns as a formal complaint until November 2023.
29. After ICE upheld Mr A’s complaint and made recommendations to put things right, DWP agreed to provide an apology and a consolatory payment of £200. We agree there were unacceptable delays by DWP. This is contrary to DWP’s ‘Our customer charter’ which says it will ‘follow processes correctly’ and ‘deal with your request the first time you contact us’. Mr A does not think that DWP has done enough to put things right.
30. We have considered DWP’s payment of £200 in line with ‘Our guidance on financial remedy’. This falls into ‘level two’ of our ‘severity of injustice scale’. This recognises ‘poor complaint handling where there is a delay of more than a few weeks, up to around one year (or longer if we find that there was no substance to the complaint’.
31. We have considered this carefully. We can see DWP’s handling of his concerns will have undoubtedly added to Mr A’s frustration. We must also recognise a signification amount of his frustration was not because of any mistakes by DWP, as we have set out above. We therefore think that an award of £200 is an appropriate recognition of the impact on Mr A which were caused by DWP’s failings.
32. Taking all the above into account, we will not investigate Mr A’s complaint about DWP. We know this was a challenging period for Mr A, and we hope our explanation is helpful.