The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has seen a 38% increase in just three years in the number of claimants making official complaints against it. Moreover, the head of the independent body responsible for dealing with claimant complaints has slammed the DWP for ” simply not doing what its own processes and procedures say they should”. It comes amid a startling 83% increase in the number of complaints accepted by the independent body, too.
Perhaps the best summing up of the situation is to be found in one DWP complaint, where it told a dying claimant that they owed it £89,000 – when they didn’t actually owe anything at all.
Nearly 50% of DWP complaints upheld
The Independent Case Examiner’s (ICE) 2023-2024 annual report offers insight into the complaint-handling process within the DWP. It outlines recurring patterns of administrative errors, delays, and the inadequate treatment of vulnerable claimants. All this suggests that DWP has not fully embraced the principles of accountability and effective service delivery.
The ICE office serves as a mediator between the public and the DWP, tasked with investigating complaints of maladministration. For the reporting year, the ICE office experienced a 38% increase in complaints compared to the past three years, highlighting a growing dissatisfaction among claimants. Among the complaints accepted for examination, nearly 50% were fully or partially upheld, a figure indicative of consistent service failures.
The report asserts a commitment to fostering improvements within the DWP. However, the patterns observed – such as poor communication, lack of prompt action, and insufficient redress – raise questions about DWP’s ability to enact meaningful change based on ICE recommendations.
Chaos across the DWP
The ICE report documents various categories of complaints, such as Universal Credit, disability benefits, debt management, and child maintenance, among others.
Universal Credit:
Universal Credit remained the most complained-about benefit, reflecting its complexity and the impact of policy decisions such as mandatory recovery of overpayments caused by administrative errors. It also had one of the highest rates of complaints being upheld.
However, Universal Credit was also subject to one of the most shocking complaints about the DWP.
In May 2021, Customers A and B made a joint Universal Credit claim but received no payments as their income exceeded the entitlement threshold. B declared a serious health condition and later claimed New Style Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). In early 2022, A reported that the couple would soon receive capital exceeding £16,000, which temporarily affected their Universal Credit claim, requiring a DWP decision on whether the claim should close or the capital disregarded.
The DWP took three months to decide, initially miscalculating capital and incorrectly applying nearly £89,000 from the start of the claim. Although the error was corrected the same day, delays led to a £300 Universal Credit overpayment, which was referred for recovery without notifying A. The claim was eventually closed mid-2022, and Debt Management later contacted A and B to recover the overpayment.
A challenged the overpayment, citing distress due to B’s terminal condition. DWP’s subsequent errors included sending a letter erroneously claiming a debt of £89,000.
After further review, DWP acknowledged the mistake and revised the debt to nil. However, their errors caused significant distress during B’s final days. The DWP offered just £200 in compensation – despite A saying that the DWP’s actions had hastened B’s death.
Universal Credit’s framework’s rigidity and lack of proportionality in overpayment recovery indicate structural deficiencies. Vulnerable claimants, unaware of overpayments, are disproportionately penalized, undermining the principles of fairness and trust.
Disability Benefits:
The transition from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and related issues in communication exacerbated hardships for claimants. For example, a parent contested DWP’s abrupt change in the appointee for their child’s DLA without notification. Despite prolonged distress and inconvenience, DWP delayed in resolving the issue, later reinstating the rightful appointee and arrears under ICE’s direction.
Procedural lapses in notifying stakeholders and delayed responses expose a failure in safeguarding the interests of dependent and vulnerable groups, violating procedural justice.
Debt Management:
Debt management, a critical area of claimant dissatisfaction, highlighted inconsistencies in application processing and lack of proactive communication. For example, a claimant requesting Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) faced months of delays due to repeated administrative missteps. Despite escalating financial hardship, the DWP failed to address urgent needs until ICE’s intervention.
The neglect of claimants’ immediate financial crises underscores systemic inefficiencies. Such failures question the robustness of the DWP’s operational oversight.
Structural and systemic failures
The ICE report identifies systemic weaknesses within the DWP:
- Lack of Vulnerability Safeguards: Across multiple cases, the DWP’s failure to identify and accommodate claimant vulnerabilities had profound negative effects. For example, vulnerability markers were either ignored or inadequately addressed in significant decisions, such as withholding payments.
- Delays and Inefficiencies: The average time to conclude investigations highlights a mismatch between the urgency of claimant needs and the DWP’s procedural timelines. Some claimants waited years for resolutions, as seen in cases involving arrears payments and benefit reinstatements.
- Insufficient Accountability: Many of the consolatory payments and apologies issued seemed inadequate compared to the distress and financial harm inflicted on claimants. For instance, in cases of severe procedural failings, consolatory payments as low as £50 were deemed insufficient.
The report commends the DWP’s incremental changes, such as revised guidance for vulnerable claimants and improved debt management procedures. However, the critical lens reveals these measures as reactive rather than preventative. ICE’s Service Improvement Observations (SIOs) repeatedly cite issues stemming from outdated policies or failure to act on past recommendations.
- Proactive Policy Design: The DWP must prioritize proactive identification of vulnerabilities, ensuring automatic safeguards are in place to prevent procedural missteps.
- Improved Communication Channels: Clear, timely communication with claimants is essential. Automation without adequate human oversight has exacerbated errors, necessitating a hybrid model of digital and manual checks.
- Enhanced Compensation Framework: Consolatory payments and redress mechanisms must reflect the severity of claimants’ hardships. Current practices undervalue the real-life consequences of maladministration.
The DWP: simply not doing what it’s supposed to
Head of ICE Joanna Wallace said of the DWP:
Given that there is some delay between the events a customer is complaining about, and my office seeing a complaint, it can be frustrating to still see complaints about things I know DWP have addressed.
She particularly noted that Universal Credit was an issue, saying:
Overpayments to students would be one example from this last year – I raised this concern and the action DWP had taken to stop repetition in my previous annual report, but these customers with these concerns have continued to come to my office and some of these cases have been amongst the most concerning I’ve seen.
In no small part this is because Universal Credit procedures require all overpayments to be recovered, regardless of their cause. This can mean that a customer can do absolutely everything they should have done in terms of telling DWP about their circumstances, but due to administrative error be overpaid.
And overall, Wallace said:
I agreed with a customer’s view that they had not received the service they should, and that DWP hadn’t recognised that fully, in about half the cases I saw during this last year. Most often, as I’ve commented before, this is due to the department simply not doing what its own processes and procedures say they should.
The 2023-2024 ICE report underscores persistent challenges in DWP’s complaint-handling mechanisms – but also its overall conduct.
While incremental improvements are evident, the prevalence of service failures, particularly affecting vulnerable groups, demonstrates an urgent need for systemic reforms. Claimants’ case studies expose a troubling pattern of indifference and inefficiency, further showing that the department is barely fit for purpose.
Featured image via the Canary
