We’ve had a request from a member to publish a guide about how to complain to the DWP.
Before deciding whether to go ahead, we’d like to ask our readers for your opinions and experiences.
Have you ever made a complaint in connection with your benefits?
If so, what was the outcome.
If not, what stopped you from doing so?
Were you worried that complaining might lead to being targeted by the DWP for unfair treatment or that it might affect an appeal you were pursuing, for example?
A guide to complaining about the DWP will inevitably have to cover complaining about the companies that the DWP contract out work to.
And that would particularly include:
- Atos
- Capita
- Maximus.
And then there’s the issue of complaining to your MP.
And to the Independent Case Examiner.
We’d be interested to hear about your experiences, if you have been involved in complaints to any of these agencies.
Is there information you didn’t have but which would have helped?
Are there things you wish you had, or hadn’t done?
Please do post a comment below the line and let us know what you think.
Comments
When I got my assessment for pip I should really have got high care as I have no feeling below my waist due to nerve damage and feet numb.
I was told that I shouldn’t complain as I might be wiped, and then get nothing.
It’s the fear factor ....that you have got something and you don’t want to lose it. Something is better than nothing!
Mental health assessment chaired by Joan Ryan on 22nd january 2019
"We would not assess a blind person with a paper form and we would not assess a deaf person over the phone, unless there was somebody at the other end to interpret for them. Why should it be any different when assessing somebody whose difficulties are related to severe anxiety and the inability to cope with going out the door and taking a bus on their own? They are told to go to an address they have never heard of, in a place they have never been to, to find their way there by a bus that they do not know exists, by a time set by the assessors, and to pay their own way there.... Then we wonder why people think the system is rigged against them." - Peter Grant- Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Europe)
Atos apologised. I complained to the NMC while I was at it too. No joy there yet and waiting on ICE
Maximus just done the same, tried to call me in for WCA ignoring my GPs evidence so MP intervened and will do on paper
A Complaint Guide would empower all of us to place our complaints in the correct way to the correct addresses and addressed to the correct people... Hopefully all the complaints would fall into correct softwarw codes od Assessment complaints, poor treatment, missing medical data or incorrectly record, etc etc etc.....
I believe now more than ever we need a Complaint Guide please..
It is very understable how we are so stuck in the complex system and appeal we cannot see how to seperate the complaint from the ongoing situations.. and many of us have ongoing complaints tbat keep effecting are onvoing live claims.
A New Guide Complaints would help us to seperate the difficult situation, keeping one area focused on our claim paperwork, points, assessments, mandatory reconsideration s and Tribunal Appeals and the maze and difficulties with those that your very wonderful step by step guides already help us to follow those difficult and very challenging situations. The complaint Guide would show us all there is a actual printed procedure for each one, dwp, atos, maximus, capitahelp us ait would help keep us mindful and guided with the correct complaint process... and hopefully our complaints would be then in tje correct complaint departments and in there complaint procedures whichhave to be followed....
I think it is obvious from all our comments there is a feeling our complaints are not dealt with... The Guide would help us to understand are we complaining in the correct way, following the correct complaints systems and procedures....
I know none of us want more paperwork, but i think unknowingly we are alread putting our complaints in our claims... I know i am guilty of that. i believe a guide with sample complaint letters please will actually help me and many others to seperate my/our complaints and send it so it can be clearly seen... What we all should remember if its on separate paperwork following dwp, Atos, Maximus, Capita complaints procedures we can also attach it within our claims and any Mandatory Appeal or Tribunal submission... It is also clear many of us fear complaining.
The sooner the better please, Benefits and Work!
their response was you can go look it up on the internet;
I asked give me a form - they said the above.
I said you can do it for me - they said the above.
I asked them to write the Internet Link down - they gave a general web site.
They seemed threatening to me, as if to get the guard to push me out -- they wanted to make me shout but I stayed calm !
2. I finally wrote a letter to them. It took over the 15 just under the 15 days to get a reply - they actually gave a receipt of receiving it on the computer account.
3. Their response was bull .. they simply said that they are not responsible for changing any decisions or cannot change any decisions. OK. I know this, we all know we have to challenge decisions, as necessary via Secondary Reconsideration , Appeal, MP etc
4.Thus they did not answer or follow up my Complaint Real Complaint of badly managed responses, not getting back to me in a reasonable time frame, ignoring my remarks and directions which I had given to multiple people ...
5. all in respect of U.C. - Backdating - now at Appeal / S.M.I. Loan - Re-Start (already receiving in the past , stop, no work, re-start) - now at Secondary Reconsideration.
6. Actually, I complained that they gave me incorrect advice - SMI - that I could only go to MP, however, I told them that I could go to : :Secondary Reconsideration , Appeal, MP ... if necessary
This was part of my Complaint.
etc etc.
7. Thus they simply ignored my complaint letter by simply saying that they do not have any part to play in any decisions ! well, again we all know this, but we also know that this is not what I was actually complaint about !
8. It was their tactics of not wanting to help , and of not wanting to get any complaints, and their poor help and incorrect help and degrading psychology used in their so called advice / non-advice.
Thankyou. M.
A guide would be great - if only so that we can have some sort of unified approach, common problems etc.
DWP likes to claim that it receives few complaints: I'm sure they know that insofar as this is correct it's because (1) some claimants with a legitimate complaint lack literacy/confid ence to complain in writing; (2) email addresses are very hard to get, and a posted letter requires more effort and cost, and takes longer (and if disabled, just posting a letter may entail obstacle; (3) it's unclear if one can register a complaint by phone, and if so, what numbers.
i HAVE complained to DWP: most recently this was because it seemed not to be following its own guidance on the offering of ESA assessment home visits. DWP probably did not classify it as a complaint as it was worded as a 'representation ', though should reasonably have been considered as a complaint.
Briefly, I was consistently informed (as agent to my sister) that a home visit required justificatory medical evidence. I explained that the GP charged for this, making it unacceptable; that they are required to consider other evidence, such as carers'; and that the current PIP claim includes award for the mobility criterion that the claimant needs accompanying to any unfamiliar place, and the usual 'accompanier' was now disabled and unable.
Rather than being told that this was accepted and a visit would be authorised, the appointment was simply made (I expected to be told before hand that my 'case' had been accepted - ie admission that they were wrong to have refused it).
This should've been recorded as an upheld complaint - but I doubt it was...
A basic form and some idea of 'just what we ca' complain about about. As in general examples of what would be bad practice by DWP as a guideline.
As everyone knows just dealing with this department is at best hard work and fraught with confusion!
As a result of all this I did not reapply for PIP for a number of years yet when I did was awarded the daily element immediately without even needing a MR!!!!