Department for Work and Pensions

4. Ms G complains that the DWP’s Universal Credit (UC) policy means as a self-employed taxi driver she is required to report her income and expenses using a flat rate system of expenses instead of allowing her to declare her actual mileage and expenses figures.

5. She says the difference caused by the UC policy has negatively impacted her UC entitlement and has also had a knock-on effect on her access to other benefits, such as council tax support.

6. In bringing the complaint to us, Ms G is seeking a change to the UC policy so her claim can be amended to reflect her actual income figures.

7. In January 2023, Ms G began claiming Universal Credit (UC) due to health reasons while working part-time as a self-employed taxi driver (approximately 35 hours per week). This is when she says the issues with the calculation of her income and expenses under UC policy first began.

8. Ms G told us in January 2024, she raised her first concerns in her UC journal informing the DWP about differences between DWP's flat rate system for expenses and HMRC's actual mileage approach. She says she told the DWP at this time that she would seek advice from her Union and local Member of Parliament (MP) about her concerns.

9. Ms G says she raised further concerns in her journal in February and April, about the same issue. Ms G told us she also contacted HMRC who advised she contact us for advice.

10. At the end of October, Ms G contacted us for the first time. She was directed to raise her complaint formally with the DWP and was signposted to our website, which explains our complaints process, time limits, and the need for an MP referral.

11. Ms G informed us a few days later that she had referred to the DWP’s website for guidance on how to raise a complaint and queried if this was still the correct process. We advised this was the correct process and advised her to formally complaint to the DWP.

12. At the beginning of November, Ms G formally raised her complaint with the DWP. Ms G contacted us again in mid-November, when we advised her to wait for the DWP’s response.

13. At the end of November, the DWP responded to Ms G’s complaint. As she believed the response did not adequately address her concerns Ms G escalated her complaint to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE). ICE issued its response at the end of May 2025 and directed her to complaint to us via her MP should she remain unhappy.

14. A week later, Ms G emailed us to express her intention to complain about the DWP but was advised to approach her MP first.

15. Mid-June Ms G brought her complaint to us via her MP.

17. The Parliamentary Commissioner’s Act 1967 (the Act) governs how we work. Section 6(3) of the Act states that a person needs to make any complaint about the service they have received from a government department or agency to their MP in writing 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.

18. We recognise this was a difficult time for Ms G and do not underestimate the significant impact this has had. We have listened to and considered her reasons for delay alongside the timeline of the complaint and periods of delay identified.

19. Ms G says she became of her reason to complain in January 2024, when she first raised her concerns in her UC journal about the differences between DWP’s flat-rate policy and HMRC’s approach. We think Ms G would have been aware she had cause to complain at this time.

20. This means to be within our time limit she needed to approach her MP by January 2025. As Ms G did not ask her MP for assistance on this matter until June 2025, her complaint is outside of our time limit by five months.

21. As Ms G is outside of our time limit, we considered whether there are strong reasons she could not have approached her MP sooner. We have discussed this with Ms G to understand the reasons why she could not do so and considered the amount of time it took to resolve the complaint locally.

22. Ms G formally escalated her concerns to the DWP at the beginning of November 2024, ten months after she became aware of the difference between DWP’s flat rate system for expenses and HMRC’s actual milage approach. The DWP responded to Ms G three weeks later.

23. Ms G then escalated her complaint to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) in late November. ICE issued its response in May 2025, six months after it received the complaint.

24. We have next considered Ms G’s reasons for delaying in progressing the complaint.

25. We note Ms G told us that in January 2024, she had already been in touch with her Union and understood that her next step was to escalate her case to her to her local MP. She told us she also noted this in her journal for the DWP, in case she remained unhappy with its responses. This suggests Ms G was aware of how to escalate her complaint to her MP and was aware of the process at this point.

26. Ms G told us the delay in approaching her MP in June 2025, (seventeen months after becoming aware and advising the DWP this was her next step, and eight months after we advised her to do so in October), was as between April and July 2024, she had faced personal health issues because of a flea infestation in a neighbouring property and had been in communication with the Housing Ombudsman to remedy the issue.

27. While we recognise Ms G experienced personal difficulties, we do not think these fully account for the extended delays in approaching an MP. We have identified other significant periods during which Ms G could have acted sooner to address her complaint.

28. Ms G continued to contact the DWP between January and November 2024, when she formal raised her complaint (ten months delay). We believe this is a considerable period of time for Ms G to remain unhappy with the DWP’s communication without formally escalating her concerns.

29. Ms G told us HMRC advised her in April 2024 to contact us about her concerns. Given that Ms G had already raised concerns, we would have expected her to act soon after this advice. Ms G did not follow up or contact us until October (a six-month delay). We believe she could have done so at this time.

30. In October 2024, we provided Ms G with clear information about our complaint process, which included details on how to properly raise a complaint to us, the requirement of an MP referral, and our time limit. At this point Ms G would have been fully aware of the next steps she needed to take to progress her complaint. Despite this, she did not contact her MP or formally log her complaint with us until June 2025 (an eight-month delay).

31. We have carefully considered Ms G’s reasons and whether this may have prevented her from complaining sooner and would be a reason to put our time limit to one side. We acknowledge Ms G experienced some difficulties, particularly because of her neighbouring property and related health impacts, and do not underestimate how this may have affected her.

32. We can see throughout the timeline of events, Ms G was able to and continued to contact other organisations such as the DWP, HMRC and her Union about her complaint, and was clearly aware of our process. She was also able to liaise with another Ombudsman service during this period about a different matter so was likely able to pursue her complaint with her MP.

33. While we acknowledge the impact of Ms G’s complaint and experience during 2024, we have seen significant gaps where she took no clear action to pursue her complaint. We find the issues experienced do not account for or explain the overall delays in Ms G approaching her MP. Ms G was aware of and able to contact an MP at that time. We cannot see any clear reason why she could not have done so sooner.

34. We also think Ms G was aware of her complaint and of her options to contact us and so could have enquired about the complaints process or formally complained to the DWP sooner.

35. All of this means that, even if we discount the time taken to consider Ms G’s complaint and issue final responses, we cannot similarly discount Ms G’s initial delay in making the complaint, the delay in approaching our service for advice, or the delay in approaching an MP to start the complaint process. These delays, which were not the fault or responsibility of DWP or ICE, were the main reason her approach was not made to an MP within the required time.

36. Having considered Ms G’s reasons, we do not think there are strong enough grounds to put our time limit aside. The complaint is out of time, and we will not take any further action on it.

37. We recognise this will not be the outcome Ms G hoped for, and we appreciate this has been a challenging time for her. We must adhere to our statutory time limits and cannot justify setting them aside in this case.

38. While we cannot take this complaint further, we hope our statement sets out the careful consideration we have given to her reasons for the delay.

1. We have carefully considered Ms G’s complaint about the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). We are sorry to hear about the difficulties she has faced in accessing benefit support and managing her ongoing health issues. We understand this has been a difficult time for her.

2. We have decided not to consider Ms G’s complaint further. This is because the complaint falls outside of our time limit. We have not seen strong enough reasons to put our time limit to one side to consider it further.

3. It is important we consider and act within the law and we understand this decision may cause Ms G further frustration. We hope this statement clearly explains the reasons why we will not be considering the complaint further.