I would like to add to this my experience. After several months of unsatisfactory replies to complaints to my jcp office I wrote to Mel Groves at Caxton House, the CEO. Again it took ages to reply and again there was a lot of prevarication, with important parts not receiving a straight answer. I then took matters to ICE (the supposedly Independent Case Examiner). This has been a separate saga in itself. My first letter (enclosing copious supporting documents) was on Feb 4 this year. I wrote again two weeks later with a related complaint. Instead of considering the matters together - as common-sense would have dictated - ICE insisted on treating these as separate complaints. There was a preliminary assessment - involving two separate officers - that lasted until September. ICE insusted on watering down my complaints to grossly over-simplified "heads" on the basis that all the relevant material would be available to the investigating officer. Until September I was told repeatedly that the case was delayed due to jcp's failure to send papers. Apparently ICE had no teeth to expedite the matter. In September both matters were finally referred to an investigating officer. Again there was a delay until mid November. I then received a letter with various enquiries. On examination most of these were already covered in my previous letters or the enclosures I had sent. It seemed the investigator was either too lazy or incompetent to read the data. Other items consisted of requests for information which he said the jcp had still not provided (despite the previous 6 months delay) but should have had. Other enquiries arose because the investigator could not fully understand the abridged complaint "head" with which his colleagues had insisted on replacing my earlier detailed explanation. So ironically I had to refer him back to my original letter for a full explanation. The process is still continuing after ten months and relates to jcp errors dating back to October 2008. The moral is that procrastination, incompetence and red tape are endemic both in the dwp/jcp and the organization supposedly set up to regulate it. I don't know if there is any conscious collusion between the two or how independent ICE actually is. As time goes on and the failure to provide redress becomes ever more protracted my doubts increase. I do get the impression that ICE is more concerned about red-tape and fairness to jcp than to myself, the victim of the jcp's incompetence. Clearly one cannot rely on speedy or effective redress from the regulator and no doubt jcp/dwp is aware of this and under no particular pressure to expedite its own complaint handling, since it knows that it will take so long complainants are likely to give up or the managers or staff being complained of to have moved or retired. Just don't heighten your expectations. On my experience, if you are on benefits due to illness when you start the complaints' process, the process iself will make you twice as ill, if not crazy, by its crass stupidity and slowness.

postgg how can they give medicals? well I guess we know - the answer is to save money at the expense of sick people.....this government's answer to everything!

I had this problem and was advised to write to the jcp manager asking for a deferral on health grounds. if you can get your gp or welfare adviser to do it or provide a supporting letter, you are more likely to succeed. I had help from a Mind adviser.