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

an adequate service. In particular, they took
four months to recognise what had gone wrong,
despite clear and repeated contact from Mr V; and
they sent duplicate cheques for the outstanding
payment and failed to let him know what was
happening or to respond to his emails. (We
considered the possibility that Mr V’s emails after
April 2006 were not received, but found it more
likely that they were, given that he used an address
that had worked previously.) The Pension Service
also failed to identify Mr V’s correspondence as a
complaint and to respond appropriately.
Those failures amounted to maladministration and
Mr V suffered injustice as a result. He was put to
inordinate trouble (including the trouble of making
a complaint to the Ombudsman), and was caused
considerable frustration and financial hardship
(being denied timely payments of pension and
incurring additional bank charges).
Two of the Principles of Good Administration
(‘Being customer focused’ and ‘Putting things right’)
were particularly relevant to Mr V’s case. This case
demonstrates what can happen when mistakes
are not spotted and put right quickly: what
should have been a simple matter of rectifying an
unfortunate error led to months of difficulty for
Mr V and unnecessary work and rework for The
Pension Service; while the way in which Mr V was
dealt with after October 2005 fell far short of
reasonable expectations of customer focus. We
acknowledged that The Pension Service had a lot of
work outstanding during the period covered by this
complaint. Nevertheless, this complaint shows that
getting hold of a problem at the first opportunity
and dealing with it in a customer focused way
would provide better customer service, and be a
more effective and efficient use of The Pension
Service’s resources.
The investigation concluded in June 2007 and we
upheld Mr V’s complaint.
Outcome
In their initial response to the Ombudsman’s
investigation The Pension Service said they:
• now treat all emails as a priority and responses
from their International Pensions Centre are sent
within ten days;
• believed there to have been no more problems
with Mr V’s pension since they started to send
payable orders to HSBC Hong Kong which are
then transferred to Macau;
• had alerted staff to the error that occurred in
Mr V’s case, changed their processes to reflect
that and would give staff updated information
showing which countries can accept payment by
electronic transfer; and
• had given Mr V a named contact should any
further problems arise.
As a result of the recommendations in our final
report The Pension Service also:
• paid Mr V a further £100 by way of apology for
the anxiety they had caused; and
• paid him £17.25 to reimburse the bank charges he
had incurred as a result of their errors.
88 Putting things right: complaints and learning from DWP | March 2009