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

e awarded because Officer L’s actions were not
authorised or condoned by DWP and so could
not be considered maladministration. We said
that ‘the Ombudsman may not share this view’.
A Jobcentre Plus Director then asked the special
payments team to reconsider their compensation
decision: he was concerned that Mr and Mrs A’s
distress and inconvenience had been caused by a
member of staff, and felt Jobcentre Plus must bear
some responsibility. Nevertheless, in April 2007 the
Chief Executive informed the MP that
‘I think it is reasonable to conclude that neither
Parliament nor the Secretary of State expects our
administrative functions to be connected with
the type of criminal activity involved in this case
and therefore this activity should not represent
maladministration’. Mr and Mrs A were dissatisfied
with that response and asked the Ombudsman to
investigate their complaint. Their complaint was
accepted for investigation in June.
What we investigated
We investigated Mr and Mrs A’s complaint that
Jobcentre Plus’s response had not addressed:
• the shock and upset they suffered, and the
effect on their health;
• their loss of faith in government agencies and
other providers; and
• the time and effort they had spent correcting
their credit record and the ongoing effort
involved each time they apply for any kind
of credit.
In trying to ensure their credit record was accurate
and correct, Mr and Mrs A had to co‐ordinate
correspondence with and between finance
companies and credit reference agencies. They
were also told that future credit applications were
likely to take longer to complete as their credit
reference records have been flagged to require
additional action. Mr and Mrs A have also been
refused credit, which they say never happened to
them before the above events.
What our investigation found
Jobcentre Plus did not take a customer focused
approach to Mr and Mrs A’s situation. Instead,
they went to extraordinary lengths to defend
their position. The question of whether they
had authorised or condoned Officer L’s activities
was not a reasonable test of whether she had
acted maladministratively (we would not expect
Jobcentre Plus to authorise or condone any
maladministrative action). Nor were Officer L’s
actions incidental to her employment. As for
the argument that her criminal actions were not
connected to administrative actions, the notes to
the then Parliamentary Commissioner Bill clarified
that a department’s administrative functions
covered everything involved in how they administer
their business with the public. Jobcentre Plus
also argued that they had reasonable safeguards
in place to prevent Officer L from using Mrs A’s
details fraudulently and so nothing more could be
expected of them. We were not convinced that
that was a proper test of whether something was
maladministration. In summary, we found nothing
by way of definition to prevent Officer L’s actions
from being considered maladministrative.
One of the Principles of Good Administration
(‘Getting it right’) is that public bodies should act
in accordance with the law and with due regard for
the rights of those concerned. In this case, Mr and
Mrs A applied to Jobcentre Plus for benefits
and supplied the information they had asked
for, in support of that claim; as a direct result of
90 Putting things right: complaints and learning from DWP | March 2009