Maladministration: Compensation

(asked on 8th December 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the expected time for a decision to be made by the National Special Payments Team is; and what the average time taken for those decisions is.


Answered by
Tom Pursglove Portrait
Tom Pursglove
Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
This question was answered on 14th December 2022

DWP makes special payments to people who have incurred additional costs, losses and/or suffered other non-financial (personal) impacts, as a direct consequence of our maladministration. This is a discretionary scheme, but we routinely consider a special payment if our service has adversely affected a customer.

The vast majority of payments are made locally by a complaint resolution manager once they have investigated a customer’s issue. The role of the National Special Payment team is to consider the more complex cases which, by the nature of the complaint, may mean it takes longer to make the award. Throughout the award process we remain in contact with the customer providing them with regular updates.

The aim is always that Special Payment decisions should culminate in timely and appropriate redress for our customers and our expectation is that each case will be responded to within a reasonable timeframe. This will differ depending on the complexity of the case and the reason for the referral to the National Special Payments team. As such, the department does not have formal clearance measures; however, currently, across all referrals, the average clearance time is 9 days.

If there are any cases you are aware of, please let us have the details and we will look into these.

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