customer compliance officer visit

This topic seems to raise its head every so often so I thought I would just outline my most recent experience
I received a letter out of the blue saying a Customer Compliance Officer would be visiting me in a couple of weeks and that I should have to hand the following
Passport
Utility Bills.
Bank statements.
Pension details
Savings, any premium Bonds, rent or mortgage proof. Now this seems a great amount of info and for what reason I had no idea. I have never claimed income related benefit and my circumstances have not changed in many years. I am in the support group C.Based. So I decided to ring and ask. I got through to the actual Compliance officer due to visit. I asked him if he would explain a bit more about what the reason for the visit was. He looked at the file and said 'it is because you receive an occupational pension and we have been asked to visit. So I said yes I do but it should be protected under the transitional arrangements as I was in receipt of it in 1999, and my Incap benefit dates back to that year also and has been continuous since then. in 2010 I was migrated to ESA and after appeal was placed again in the support group. So he had a look and said 'yes you are right so I don't need to visit'!.
He then said 'they just send the request that we visit, we don't get told any other details much. How nonsensical is that, and what a waste of time and effort as well as a worry and stress to people who are quite ill, and or disabled. And even if my occupational pension was to be taken into consideration, I can see no need to look into the list of documents he asked for, unless of course they want to get people onto the income based benefit. ??

Thanks for letting us know about this experience Vicki, I'm glad that it turned out OK for you. It does seem that it is often people with occupational pensions who recieve these visits - I do hope that doesn't mean that I am on someone's list as it certainly sounds a stressful situation!

Yes it does seem that that particular dept covers everything from administarative requests to low level fraud,all I can say is if you are up to it , it is worth a phone call just to ascertain the reasons if possible.
I want to make a post about the the language used in the DWP and the Government guides to Decison Makers as they are horrendous in my view. Is it really neccessary to use language such as Case cleansing and Data Mining. I am not a frequent contributor to the site and wonder if this is the correct forum?

It is lucky that you new your stuff, they run rings around those who don't. They are notoriously bad at communicating, my cynical side says they are deliberately misleading. I hate the word 'invitation' in regards to PIP as it has given many of my clients the impression that they don't have to claim and their DLA will continue. The purpose of this forum is to ask advice not so much to discuss issues. However if you make a post it will be moderated and responded to.

Customer Compliance Officers perform all kinds of functions for the DWP. They are NOT part of the Fraud Team, but are often asked to visit, especially if reported by a neighbour, friend, relative etc.There role is to ensure that claimants of all social security benefits are receiving the correct rate of benefit.

In my role as a Welfare Rights Adviser, I have sat in on numerous CPO visits, and it's not uncommon for claimants to have their award increased after being visited by a CPO.

For example, my wife had a CPO visit resulting in her DLA LRC award being upped to MRC, and her 5 year award being increased to an 'indefinite' award.