It doesn't matter what the ICE say on their website, complain to them NOW, and they will ask the DWP if their lethargic complaints process has been exhausted, they say no, and then the ICE tells the DWP to grow up and look at the complaint.

The DWP won't respond, you're dealing with a broken corrupt government department, until they are forced to respond by a separate body, then they just laugh at us.

They have forced you to take it above their heads, as for your MP, regardless of the fact they're selfservative, STILL complain to them, not all selfservatives are happy committing democide, mind you I've yet to meet a politician yet who has any moral compass, least of all one that works!

Bazooka Boo.

Spoke to the ICE office today.

A very helpful gent.

He could not act on my behalf at this stage as I have not yet received any reply/response to my letter sent to DWP Dec 18th.

He has instructed me to contact the Director General of Operations, Andrew Rhodes in London to investigate, which I will be doing shortly by email.

The gent I spoke to at ICE did say that the Debt management section of DWP (who wrote to me in Dec to say the amount they'd be deducting from my ESA).

can lower that amount until this situation is resolved (although no-one at DWP told me that).

I have just rang them and they ARE going to reduce it to £11 per wk rather than £35 per wk !.

The gent did state his concern that I have received no response to even the Mandatory Reconsideration or SARS request I sent in August, he finds that very strange.

He said that to be honest, the mail handling dept at Wolverhampton (where I sent my letters) just stamp job lots of mail, but it's no guarantee that the mail has even reached the right person or dept.

Doesn't give one much hope does it.

There was a time when I could just ring the DWP (2 miles from my house) and get this sorted pretty quickly.

The system is broken.

If you ring the DWP Wolverhampton where their mail is sent from,

you are put into a (long)'queue and then a recorded voice butts in asking you to state briefly what you are ringing about,

it then records what you say and puts you back into the queue.

This is obviously to direct your call to the correct dept.

I tried this a few wks ago, gave up after being in the queue for 25 mins !.

Absolute waste of time.

Yet I got through to their Debt Management dept within 20 seconds today.

I shall update here as and when I have any news.

PS. I have just managed to get through by phone to the DWP. I began by stating that I have spoken to the ICE office today above and my next step is to contact the Director General.

Spoke to a very helpful (maybe because of the mention of the above), lady who found that the reason I have had no response to my letter of from Aug or to the SARS request or request for Mandatory Reconsideration is-wait for it....my letter was classed as 'White Mail' (?), has been inputted onto their computer system and no-one has responded because I did not write 'Mandatory Reconsideration ' at the TOP of the letter, even though further down the letter (1 A4 sheet) I typed Mandatory Reconsideration in bold type!!..

Have you ever heard such nonsense ?. So does mean that whoever got the letter didn't READ any of it ?. She apologised as she couldn't answer that. She also informed me that they received my latest letter on Dec 27th (delivered to their Wolverhampton office but then sent on to their Birkenhead Liverpool office who deal with my area (am I supposed to know this? ). She is now passing it to the Decision Maker who will ring me either today before 6.30pm r tomorrow. I will update as and when.

I've found involving the ICE generally has the effect of making DWP deal with stuff, and I do believe that often no one actually reads what is sent in.

Have you ever heard such nonsense ?. So does mean that whoever got the letter didn't READ any of it ?..

To answer both your questions, the answer is YES.

This is the DWP we're talking about, corrupt and rotten to the core, just like the politicians who run it.

Further to my early Jan post.

Spoke to ICO who do NOT get involved until a response has been received from DWP.

As I have received NO response yet, they cannot get involved

-that would only happen once I have had a response and that response was unsatisfactory to me.

They talked me through all of their procedures and the next steps to take.

Their advice was

-my next step is to contact the DWP Director Generals office in London (Andrew Rhodes).

I have sent him an email, really hoping he can get this sorted.

It's ridiculous I have to go to these lengths to rectify what is a simple problem.

Watch this space.

Ps. I forgot to say at beginning of prev post, that after my phone conversation on Jan 8th with DWP office where I was told the Decision Maker would be ringing me either later that day or the next day to sort this mess out, NO-ONE rang and NO-ONE has rang since, why am I even surprised.

Quick update.

I sent my email to the Director General last night and received a reply this morning stating that my complaint has now been passed to DWP Northwest Complaints Resolution Team and that I should receive a reply within 15 days.

Feb 2nd, quick update.

Since last week,

a different DWP office has sent me yet another blank SARS request form to fill in !. (so that's 2 now).

Then today,

to my surprise,

I received a phonecall from a very nice staff member from the Liverpool office.

He said he had rang to apologise to me for all of this hassle I've had.

He said to shred the 2 SARS forms I'd received as he had tracked down the original one I sent to them in August of 2017 and was dealing with it.

He also agreed with me that I AM exempt from my Occ Pension being taken into account for ESA purposes, he said that I probably know the rules better than he does.

He also said that the Complaints and Resolution Team are investigating everything now and that they will get to the bottom of it.

When I told him about the 'white mail' comment made to me on Jan 8th by a DWP staff member, as the reason for why no-one had dealt with my case or responded to my letters,

he said how am I as the customer supposed to know what white mail is (my point exactly) and that he wasn't sure himself,

except that he knows it's up!oaded or Xeroxed onto their system and not classed as urgent or needing any quick response !.

At least now someone is dealing with my case,

but I suspect that's only because the Director General's offices contacted them on my behalf because I complained !.

Watch this space, will update as and when I know more.

Well done, lets see if they can finally deliver!

Okay, here we go.

Following onto my letter to Director General at DWP, who passed my details and my complaint to the 'Complaints and Resolution ' team, I have received by signed for delivery from 3 different DWP offices, separate letters totalling around 300 A4 sheets of info dating back to 2001.

On one sheet from one office it states that them taking money back from me re my Occ Pension and ESA is a 'mistake ', it simply has 'mistake' typed into a box in a page from one office.

On another page from a different office it states (get this) that I did not inform them in 2013 that I had been transferred from DLA onto PIP ! (are these people for real). So I'M supposed to inform THEM the DWP of being migrated from DLA onto PIP when it's they who sent me the letter instructing me to apply for PIP and then awarded me the PIP !.

The point about this is : they now state that they made a mistake and that I DON'T owe ANY money back from 2013 (the £500), that I'm quite correct about this as I was protected by the Transitional Arrangement (which I've been stating since August 2017) so my Occ Pension shouldn't have been taken into account for ESA purposes and my ESA shouldn't have been reduced.

But they then sent me a separate letter from Liverpool offce from the Complaints dept stating that because I was migrated from DLA onto PIP in November 2017 (and didn't 'inform' them of it), my transitional protection ended when my DLA ended and I therefore now owe £116 back to them. In other words, they've totally misinterpreted their own rules and the meaning of Transitional Protection.

THIS is the Complaints Resolution dept and they do not understand the point of Transitional Protection !.

The point being, that I've been pointing out since last August, is that the Transitional Protection is there to PREVENT exactly what they have been trying to do, which is taking my Occ Pension into account and reducing my ESA accordingly.

How on earth they can misinterpret this is beyond me, especially when I sent them the relevant sections of their DM guide stating this in black and white !.

I also note from the old info they sent me that I am further protected by Transitional Arrangement due to the fact that my Incapacity Benefit began before JAN 2001 (I had thought it began in April 2001). It actually began in April 2000. So I have Transitional Protection on 3 separate counts.

:

1) I was in receipt of High rate DLA in both Care and Mobility prior to migration from Incapacity Benefit to ESA.

2). I was already entitled to Incapacity Benefit prior to conversion to ESA.

3). I started on Incapacity Benefit prior to January 2001.

Therefore I am exempt on 3 counts from having my Occ Pension taken into account for ESA purposes.

How many more times must I make these points before these people 'get it', I am furious and it takes a lot to annoy me.

The letter from the Complaints investigation/Resolution dept also states that my recorded delivery letter of August 2017 was never received by the dept I sent it to and they have been unable to find out what happened to the letter (which was signed for !).

They also state that the 'person' who made tbe original 'mistake 'in stating that I owed back £500 from 2013 has been 'sent for re-training' and they apologise for the delays and non-responses.

Meanwhile stil! making the mistake themselves in this new letter of totally misinterpreting the meaning of 'Transitional Protection '!!.It beggars belief.

I received this letter from Complaints Resolution Team today, the letter told me to ring them if I needed to discuss anything. I rang their office at 3.30pm and was told that the person who had investigated and sent me this letter finishes work at 2.30pm and won't be available until Monday.

I shall therefore be ringing him Monday to point out that they STILL haven't resolved the issue and even misinterpreted their own rules regarding Transitional Protection and that the whole point of this rule in the first place is to protect people like myself from the very thing they have been attempting to do ! We shall see what his response is.

I will also follow up that conversation with another letter outlining the points discussed and his response.

If I get no satisfaction, I shall be back to the Director General's office to proceed my complaint further.

I will NOT be giving up. I am appalled that after everything, all of my communications with DWP, they have STILL got their facts wrong.

It should never even have progressed to this stage as it's quite a straightforward point to clarify if they knew what they were doing in the first place.

Update to follow, as and when.

I also think that the fact that 3 different offices are all holding different pieces of information is ridiculous and goes some way to explain why the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing and why there is no consistency.

PS. Did anyone notice that I mentioned on FEB 2nd that a nice man had rang me from Liverpool office that day and told me he had my SARS request, was dealing with it and to shred any other blank SARS forms sent to me ?.

Then the letter I got today from Complaints Resolution states that my AUG letter with the SARS request and Mandatory Reconsideration letter was never received and they can't trace it ?!.

So that is a blatant untruth from Complaints Resolution and very convenient for them as an excuse for the 'non-responses' to my letters, until the Director General's office became involved.

I'm sure if it wasn't for his involvement, they would have continued to 'not respond '.

And the gent who rang on FEB 2nd HAS dealt with the SARS as promised and sent me around 200 sheets of info which I'd requested, so proves that my AUG 'signed for' letter WAS received.

Well done for persevering with your issue. You should win at the end of the day. As said the DWP seem to make up rules as they go along.

MARCH 7TH....SUCCESS AT LAST !

Around 2 wks ago I rang the DWP office to speak to the chap who had 'investigated ' my complaint and he wasn't on duty. I then rang back a few days later and was told he was now off indefinitely so I spoke to another DWP staff member who offered to help (this was at the Birkenhead office).

This lady listened to the long, drawn-out story and suggested that SHE now fill out a Mandatory Reconsideration form on my behalf, which I agreed to. She also sent me a copy of the accompanying internal letter she submitted explaining everything to the Decision Maker.

Today I received a letter informing me of the decision and stating that I am correct : I am exempt, for the reasons I stated and do not owe the DWP ANY money !.

It also states that all the money they have taken from me will be refunded (£327) and my ESA will be raised back up to the original amount I was receiving before this 'mistake ' last July.

So this has taken nearly 8 mths to sort out when it should never have happened in the first place, due to total DWP incompetence and a total lack of understanding of their own rules.

I also received a phonecall today from the Complaints Review Manager who is arranging a Conciliatory (compensation) payment to me (don't know how much yet) for all the hassle they have put me through. I will also receive a refund for the £19.35 I've spent sending DWP recorded delivery letters.

Furthermore, as my complaint reached Tier 2 level, she advised that I can now complain to ICE (Tier 3 complaint) and they will further examine this whole situation and may then decide to compensate me further financially.

So my persistence has been worth it, although it's been stressful and not something I wish to go through again !

My advice-if you know you are correct-stick to your guns.

Thanks to those who have helped or commented.

Excellent news, Vixen and well done for hanging on in there. I'll amend your thread title to show the result.

HB

wow great result

Excellent well done, DWP defeated yet again!