Annual Report 2007-08 - the Parliamentary and Health Service ...

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10Case StudyFailure to address maintenancearrears led to financial hardshipAs in previous years, a high percentageof complaints against DWP in 2007-08related to the Child Support Agency –although the number of complaintsaccepted for investigation was downto 18 from 68 in 2006-07. This decreasepartly reflects our decision to take a morestrategic approach and accept only themost appropriate cases for investigation.There have also been some signs ofprogress in complaint handling at theAgency, coinciding with the extendedremit of ICE last year. The Agency has alsopublished clear written guidelines in theleaflet How do I complain about theservice I get from the Child SupportAgency?. If we receive a new complaintabout the Agency, we check whether ithas been through the various stages ofthe Agency’s complaints procedure, andin particular whether it has been throughICE. If it has not, then we generally referthe complaint to ICE.Notwithstanding these improvements,we are still investigating cases thathighlight serious administrative failingsin past years. An example is the case ofMiss D. The Agency allowed significantarrears of child maintenance to build updespite repeated requests from Miss Dto resolve the problem. We note thatadministrative failings such as these arebeing addressed in the current reformof the child maintenance system with theestablishment of the Child Maintenanceand Enforcement Commission.Miss D complained that since December 2003 the ChildSupport Agency (the Agency) had failed to reassess childmaintenance on three occasions, which led to a build upof arrears. She also complained that the Agency failed to takeadequate action to collect the arrears from the non-residentparent. (By November 2006 the outstanding maintenancearrears owed to Miss D were £10,229.90.) She sufferedinconvenience and financial hardship.We upheld Miss D’s complaint. The Agency delayed acting on,or failed to act on, three specific requests by her for it to reassessthe maintenance liability, following changes in the non-residentparent’s circumstances. On the occasions the Agency did reassessthe maintenance liability of the non-resident parent it did notask him to make any payments towards the arrears. In 2006 thenon-resident parent appears to have gone abroad and so wasout of the Agency’s jurisdiction.In the light of the evidence that the non-resident parent hadalways paid the amounts of maintenance that the Agency haddemanded from him and had continued to pay maintenance fora period after its jurisdiction had ended, we found that he wouldhave made the payments towards the arrears that the Agencyhad failed to pursue effectively. However, there was insufficientevidence that the Agency could have secured more than the£30 per week interim maintenance assessment that he paid afterbecoming self-employed in July 2005.Miss D lost the opportunity to receive the maintenance she wasdue. At our recommendation, the Agency agreed to make her anexceptional advance payment of £6,480.16 for the arrears that ithad failed to pursue effectively. It also made an additionalconsolatory payment of £70 (on top of £220 it had alreadyawarded earlier for delays she had suffered) in respect of delaysin assessing and collecting arrears after Miss D’s first review requestand for the inconvenience of having to pursue her complaintthrough us.24
Parliamentary and health service ombudsman annual report 2007-08Occupational pensionsTrusting in the Pensions PromiseAs was reported last year, theOmbudsman’s March 2006 report onthe role of government bodies in thesecurity of final salary occupationalpension schemes led to judicial reviewproceedings brought by four complainantswho were unhappy with the Government’srejection of the findings and most of therecommendations contained in ourreport. As directed by the High Court inits judgment on those proceedings, theSecretary of State for Work and Pensionsreconsidered the Ombudsman’s centralrecommendation – that the Governmentconsider whether it should makearrangements to restore the full pensionentitlements of those who had lost allor most of their pensions when theirscheme wound up.As a result, on 17 December 2007 theSecretary of State announced that theGovernment had decided to extendthe scope of the Financial AssistanceScheme. The aim of the Government’sproposals was to give to all those wholost their pensions through no fault oftheir own, including members of solventemployer schemes, benefits that werebroadly equivalent to those availableunder the Pension Protection Fund.These changes both greatly improvedthe compensation available and alsoextended it, beyond those membersof insolvent employer schemes whowere within fifteen years of retirement,to all those who have lost their pension.The relevant legislation to effect thesechanges is now in place. We understandthat payments are now being made tosome of those previously excluded fromthe Financial Assistance Scheme.The Ombudsman welcomed thisannouncement, which constitutes fullcompliance with the key recommendationmade in our report and which remediesthe deficiencies in the Financial AssistanceScheme that were also identified in thatreport. The Public Administration SelectCommittee, in its Annual Reportpublished on 17 January 2008, said thatthis ‘represents a real achievement forthe Parliamentary Ombudsman, thetireless campaigners, and the politicalprocess as a whole’.As was also reported last year, aspectsof the judgment of the High Court inthe judicial review proceedings were thesubject of appeal proceedings, in whichthe Ombudsman played an active part.On 7 February 2008 the Court of Appealhanded down its judgment, holding that,while the Ombudsman’s findings were notbinding on the public bodies within herjurisdiction, the relevant body must eitheraccept such findings or establish cogentreasons for not doing so.The special relationship between theOmbudsman and Parliament was alsounderlined within the judgment, whichsaid that ‘the work of the ParliamentaryOmbudsman generally was both highlyvalued and entitled to respect’. Inaddition to assisting Parliament in holdingthe Executive to account, the role of theOmbudsman was said to be ‘vigorouslyto alert Parliament to an injustice whichhas occurred through maladministration’.25
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