We
are committed to keeping your information secure. As part of that
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decided that when we send you information by email we may have to remove
some details. This includes information that may identify you, or any
other person and sometimes the organisation complained about.
Dear Sir
Our reference:
EN-200225 (please quote in any further correspondence)
Thank
you for copying us into your email of 22 August 2014 about Jobcentre
Plus (JCP). You complain that JCP owe you over £1000.00
in Jobseekers Allowance payments. I was sorry to learn of your concerns.
Our
role is to consider complaints that government departments, agencies or
organisations in the UK have not acted properly or fairly, or
have provided a poor service.
At
this time we have decided that we should wait until you have completed
JCP’s complaints process before we look at your concerns
further. This is because we often find that organisations themselves are
in the best position to resolve complaints about their service quickly
and effectively. It is also important for organisations to have full
opportunity to resolve complaints themselves
before we become involved.
I have provided a link to JCP’s complaints procedure below:
In
addition to their internal complaints process, JCP also have a second
tier to their complaints procedure called the Independent
Case Examiner (ICE). Their role is to look at how JCP deal with their
cases. We expect you to have been to ICE and received their final
decision before you bring your complaint to us.
If
ICE is unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can
then return to the Ombudsman. If you do need to return
to us, it is important that ICE have provided you with their final
response to your complaint, and confirmed that there is nothing further
that they can do to try to resolve your concerns. I have provided a web
link which provides further information about
ICE:
If
you are still unhappy after you have received the final response from
ICE, you will need to ask a Member of Parliament (MP) to pass on your
complaint to us. This
is because the law says we can only consider a complaint once an MP has
asked us to do this on your behalf.
You can find out who your local MP is by using the following website:
www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/ or by telephoning the House of Commons Information Office on: 020 7219 4272.
If you need to return to us, the easiest way to bring your complaint to us is by completing our complaint form, and then passing
it to your MP to sign, which can also be downloaded from our website at:
www.ombudsman.org.uk.
If you do re-approach us please make sure you give us as much information as you can in particular, you will need to:
- explain what was wrong with the response(s) you have received to your complaint from ICE;
- say what you want us to achieve for you;
- send us copies of any relevant correspondence and papers that you have;
- give written permission for us to obtain any papers and records connected to the complaint; and
- confirm whether you are taking legal action about it (because, by law, that may prevent us from looking
at the complaint).
You also mention your housing benefit payments and the local council. It is not clear whether you have a complaint
about the council, however it may be helpful if I explain we
are unable to help with a complaint about a council as they do not fall within our
remit. The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) can consider complaints about councils and can be contacted using the details provided below:
The Local Government Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH
I hope this information is clear and assists you in taking your complaint forward.
Yours faithfully
Geeta Patel
Customer Service Officer
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
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Our review process
If
you think our decision is wrong, you can request a review. To enable us
to review our decision you must provide us with evidence that our
decision was based on inaccurate
information; or you have new information that was not previously
available to us; or we overlooked or misunderstood your complaint. To
request a review, you can complete a ‘What to do if you think our
decision is wrong’ form, which is available on our website:
www.ombudsman.org.uk.
Alternatively, you can contact us for the form. You would need to
submit your review request form to us within three months of the date of
this letter.
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