Putting things right: complaints and learning from DWP - the ...

Mr Q’s complaint about Jobcentre Plus
and the Child Benefit Office
In the case of Mr Q, Jobcentre Plus’s efforts to inform widowed fathers that they could claim
bereavement benefits, following a change in the law, were inadequate. As a result, Mr Q remained
unaware that he was eligible for widowed parent’s allowance and so did not make a claim for over
four years.
Background to the complaint
Before 9 April 2001, bereavement benefits were
only available to married women whose husbands
had died. Following a change in the law, widowed
mother’s allowance was replaced by the new
widowed parent’s allowance from 9 April 2001,
which was payable to widows and widowers alike.
One of the eligibility criteria was that applicants
had to be entitled to child benefit for at least one
qualifying child. Claims could only be backdated
three months at most.
In general, unless asked, there is no onus on
Jobcentre Plus to inform people that they may be
eligible to claim a particular benefit. This is not
the case, however, when a change in statutory
provisions gives rise to new entitlements.
In such cases, departments should act reasonably
in taking such steps as may be practicable to
identify those with an entitlement and either pay
them that entitlement or invite them to claim.
This is set out in a 1979 report by the then Civil
Service Department, Legal Entitlements and
Administrative Practices. In the lead-up to the
April 2001 changes, Jobcentre Plus considered
how to tell existing widowers about the changes.
Most of the papers relating to this work have
been destroyed but it is clear that Jobcentre Plus
decided first that they would conduct a ‘scan’
of the child benefit database to try to identify
existing widowers whom they would then
write to, and secondly that they would run a
publicity campaign.
Informing widowers of the April 2001 changes –
Jobcentre Plus’s publicity campaign
Jobcentre Plus considered a variety of options,
including coverage in national, women’s and
regional press; advertorials and advertisements in
local and regional press; national press advertising;
and a dedicated leaflet distributed in the wider
community. Although they thought about how
best to target men, we saw no evidence that they
gave any consideration to the question of how
best to target publicity to bereaved men. The
extent of the final publicity campaign was unclear,
but Jobcentre Plus were able to provide us with
only 21 press cuttings for the 8 months following
the change in the law that mentioned it, and of
those several were reports of a charity’s statement
warning that there had been insufficient publicity.
In March 2001 another charity, which offers help to
bereaved people, wrote to the Secretary of State
about the ‘minimal publicity for the new benefits’,
and expressed concern that without publicity
some potential claimants were unlikely to claim the
benefits, particularly men with dependent children
who had been widowed for some time. There is no
record of any reply.
Informing widowers of the April 2001 changes – the
Child Benefit Office scan
The child benefit database was not designed
to identify widowers and so the scan was not
a straightforward exercise. A first scan looked
for claims with a sole male payee with a
cross‐reference to another child benefit number
(the original claim would usually have been made
26 Putting things right: complaints and learning from DWP | March 2009