Complaints
Chippenham Benefit Centre
Jobcentre Plus
Rowland Hill Close
Swindon
SN99 8AF

Re: Complaint, Steven Sheehy, JR527404A

To whom it may concern

I am writing to complain about the level of service I have received with regards to my Jobseekers Allowance claim over the past year. My claim is dealt with by both the Winton Jobcentre Plus and the Chippenham Benefit Centre.

I have recently started work on the 26th March 2012 after having been unemployed 'on and off' for the last three years, claiming Jobseeker's Allowance when not working during those years. My new employment is likely to be sustainable and naturally I am thrilled with this. However, I have had incredible difficulty both during my claim and after it to the extent that I now feel I need to complain about the poor level of service. I have written my complaints in chronological order so that you may better understand my situation.

Firstly I wish to complain about the difficulty in keeping the Jobcentre updated with my circumstances. I work with an agency and worked for one day of pay at minimum wage for about £30; this was not recurring employment and was a 'one off'. I informed the Jobcentre Plus Winton immediately about this on my next sign on date and filled out forms which I was assured by my advisor would update my claim accordingly and deduct the necessary amount from my next benefit payment.

Instead, I received no payment of any sort for the next two months. This was, to say the least, surprising and when I finally phoned in it was explained to me that they thought I was working and had suspended all payments. No effort was made to contact me about this, it was apparently assumed that I would be in contact and I explained the situation once again to someone from the contact centre.

I later received 3 payments of Jobseeker's Allowance in two days. I assumed this was backpay from the missing pay and thought no more of it - while it had been irritating and I ran the risk of running into debt in the meantime, the issue was finally resolved and I assumed that would be the end of it; this was not the case as you will later understand.

The second issue I have is with the Work Programme. The Work Programme provider I was with is called Prospects. Prospects apparently "lost track of me" and did not contact me for three months. This meant that nobody at all was helping me with my job search. I needed only attend 2 week "hand in appointments" at the Jobcentre Plus Winton requiring no advisor conversations to simply hand in a form detailing jobsearch activity to receive benefit payments.

This is an excellent situation for someone who wishes to claim benefits indefinitely with no interference; but very upsetting for myself. In fact, I finally had to submit an official complaint to the Work Programme to force them to acknowledge their error after repeated phone calls to their office provided fruitless and make them start booking appointments to see me. This second issue is not a complaint with the DWP in and of itself as it was raised and resolved by the Work Programme Provider; however I suspect you will find this feedback informative when assessing future contracts.

My third issue comes when I signed off of work from the Jobcentre in the last three weeks. I expected to receive a P45 in the post in due course as is normal procedure in order to update my employer and receive the appropriate tax. This has not arrived and I phoned up your contact centre to find out why. This in itself was a little frustrating as I now work 9 - 5 and the contact centre is available from 8 - 6; the issue comes in that when I phoned the contact centre I was advised "the right person to contact will phone you back in 3 hours - they get in at nine" so I had to take a phone call at work which my employer was gracious enough to allow in spite of it running contrary to their data protection policies; hardly ideal when I'm trying to stay employed.

However the person on the phone, when I was called back at work, was rather confused as to why I had not received it. He said the reason I had not received my final payment of Jobseekers Allowance before signing off, and indeed the reason I had not received my P45 as well, was because they did not have information about my employment while claiming Jobseekers; i.e. the "one off" I had done now nearly six months ago and took care to try and resolve several times as raised in my first issue. He sounded as incredulous as I did.

This is inexplicable to me as not only did I inform the JCP on numerous occasions in several different ways, I had received payments of Jobseekers in the meantime, so apparently the claim was sastisfactory, only for someone to then decide that in fact it is no longer sastisfactory at the very end of my claim.

In this instance I explained to the advisor on the phone, yet again, the work I had done four months ago was a one off for approximately £30 and that I had filled out forms and in fact had this very same problem before. I asked him if he could please send out a P45 and maybe send the final payment as well now that he understood my situation. He assured me that this would be done.

So far I would not consider this cause to complain. It is understandable that sometimes administrative affairs can be difficult and things can get 'lost', and although it has been irritating everyone has been courteous if confused when I have spoken to them and this is to their credit.

However, I today received in the post not a P45, but a form asking me to detail the part time work I was doing. The letter is clearly written as if I am still claiming Jobseeker's Allowance which is intriguing as it is dated 4 April 2012 and I closed down my claim before then. There is no way I can send this form back because the questions on it do not make sense to answer: "do you have a job?" - yes, but this isn't what they're actually asking, they want to know according to the cover letter about money I receive from "Part Time/Voluntary work", which I don't actually do. This finally spurred me to complain.

My final issue is with how Jobseeker's Allowance interacts with HMRC. I learned from a HMRC advisor that the DWP does not send statements of benefit to HMRC automatically. I wish to understand why this cannot be done and why the onus should be on the receiver of benefits to chase these statements from the Jobcentre to then give to HMRC so they can complete my tax records and check for tax returns; it appears to be a pointless 'middleman' situation.

At this stage I am rather fed up with the confusion and just want my P45 and final Jobseeker's Allowance payment. I am at a complete loss as to why my claim has been thrust into administrative limbo for making the effort to actually work even on a temporary basis.

I believe I will receive my statements of benefit earned for 2009/2010, 2010/2011, 2011/2012, P45 and final Jobseeker's Allowance payment within the next couple of weeks, but I felt the need to highlight the poor service and understanding on part of your employees. I have made every effort to be cooperative and keep you updated when I suspect it would have been a lot easier if I had just said nothing at all.

I look forward to hearing your response - I believe you have 15 days from the receipt of this letter to reply - and would be grateful if you could shed any light on why my claim has been so difficult for you to process.

Yours faithfully,




Steven Sheehy