Department for Work and Pensions complaints have skyrocketed 38 per cent. The Independent Case Examiner’s (ICE) 2023-2024 annual report warns over “an overall increase of 38 per cent in customers coming to us,” and and a “very signifcant 83% increase in the number of cases we have accepted for our review.”
Universal Credit (UC) is the main beneft that customers below State Pension age claim if they are on a low income, out of work or unable to work. UC is now DWP ’s primary beneft – in October 2023 over six million people were claiming UC.
Head of ICE Joanna Wallace said: “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.”
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“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,” she said.
“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.”
She went on, saying: “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.”