12. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to an MP within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to an MP after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so. We have considered the reasons Ms H told us she did not complain sooner as well as the time the complaints process has taken.
13. We initially considered the date Ms H became aware she had reason to complain. Ms H explained this was in June 2017.
14. She told us, she contacted DWP in June 2017, to ask about making an ESA for Mr L. At this point Mr L had experienced two strokes and two TIAs. Ms H says she was acting on his behalf as he had no money. She told us, DWP pressured her into stating they were a couple on her application form so that Mr L could access ESA.
15. We have discussed the date of knowledge with Ms H as it is unclear when she would have become aware of any consequences of claiming as a couple. Ms H confirms June 2017 was her date of knowledge as it was at this point she questioned whether to put that she and Mr L were a couple on the ESA form.
16. If we take June 2017 as the date of knowledge, Ms H should have complained to her MP by June 2018. The earliest recorded complaint we can see is from the ICE final response which refers to a letter dated 11 November 2018. We note the DWP has no record of this letter or responding to it.
17. According to DWP records Ms H initially complained to DWP on 8 January 2020 when she told DWP that she and Mr L were not a couple. She requested DWP amend this so that they were listed as solo claimants. She then sent in supporting evidence to prove this.
18. We have discussed this date with Ms H, and she told us that she contacted DWP between 2017 and 2020 to complain but she does not have any record of this. We also asked DWP to provide its records of Ms H’s contacts with it during this period. We have seen no further evidence she raised a complaint during this period.
19. We acknowledge DWPs contemporaneous records retention policy did not require it to keep records for longer than 14 months.
20. If we consider Ms H submitted her initial letter of complaint in November 2018. This means her complaint was already five months outside of our time limit when she initially complained to DWP. We note that without further evidence, we cannot say she submitted a complaint earlier than this date.
21. DWP considered Ms H’s request dated 8 January 2020. DWP accepted that Mr L and Ms H were not living together as a couple and explained it would treat them as separate households from 20 January 2020.
22. Ms H submitted an ESA claim on behalf of Mr L in July 2020 and requested this be backdated. DWP backdated the payment three months but did not backdate it to January as per Ms H’s claim.
23. On 8 July, a complaint resolution manager (CRM) wrote to Ms H and responded to her complaint regarding misinformation provided during a phone call in May 2017. The response did not uphold her complaint and directed Ms H to write to the director general’s office within six months if she was unhappy with this decision. There is no evidence Ms H did this.
24. Ms H then challenged DWP’s decision on backdating Mr L’s ESA payments to January 2020 through a mandatory reconsideration of the decision. In September DWP decided it would not change its decision not to backdate the ESA payment further.
25. Following this, Ms H challenged DWP’s decision through His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Services (HMCTS). The tribunal decided DWP should reassess Mr L’s claim, made by Ms H, from the date she notified DWP (8 January 2020).
26. Ms H challenged this decision. She said she had initially notified DWP she and Mr L were not a couple in her call dated May 2017. HMCTS did not uphold the complaint as it said this issue had not been raised at tribunal. It advised her to go back to DWP with this complaint.
27. In February 2021, Ms H raised her complaint with HMCTS appealing to its upper chamber. On 19 April, HMCTS refused her appeal on the grounds that the first-tier tribunal had made no error of law.
28. On 7 June, Ms H wrote again to HMCTS and asked for permission to appeal. Within this correspondence, Ms H also first referenced the letter she says proves she raised her complaint that she and Mr L were not a couple on 11 November 2018 and again in July 2019. As we state above, DWP has no record of these letters.
29. In July 2021, Ms H wrote to HMCTS and asked for it to set aside the upper tribunal’s decision. HMCTS refused this request five days later.
30. Ms H first raised her concerns with her MP in March 2024. At this point Ms H’s complaint was five years and nine months outside of our time limit.
31. The MP wrote to DWP to raise a formal complaint on 6 March. DWP responded to the complaint on 27 March. Ms H provided comments and DWP shared its final response on 22 April.
32. Ms H raised her complaint promptly with the ICE in April, and it responded on 4 March 2025. Ms H then raised her complaint to us on 19 April.
33. We also considered how long the complaints process took. From the letter Ms H says she shared with DWP on 11 November 2018, we can see the complaints process took place between 11 November 2018 to July 2020. In total this process was a maximum of eight months.
34. We can see that Ms H continued to pursue her complaint within HMCTS, but this was the wrong avenue. HMCTS only looked at the decision not to backdate Mr L’s ESA payment to the date she notified DWP in January 2020. Therefore, we have not considered this period as part of the complaints process.
35. Therefore, even if we take off the time it took Ms H to complain, her complaint is still over five years outside of our time limit. We have spoken to Ms H to understand the reasons why she did not explain sooner.
36. We appreciate she was Mr L’s carer during this period. She explained to us how difficult this was for her as they changed accommodation and as they struggled financially. We have fully considered the information Ms H shared with us, despite this we can see Ms H was able to continue her complaint with HMCTS during this period and so we do not consider this is a good enough reason to explain why she did not complain to her MP sooner.
37. In conclusion, we have decided we have not seen a good reason to put aside our time limit for this period of time. Therefore, we will not consider this complaint further.
38. We thank Ms H for raising her complaint. We appreciate the difficult situation she has been in and that she has provided care to Mr L when he most needed it. We hope that we have explained our decision clearly.