E-mail Complaint address

[nukecad]

See Also - DWP email for disabled customers.

Occasionally someone asks if it is possible to email a complaint to the DWP.

There is no email address given on the government 'How to complain' website.

However I have done some searching and below are valid (at April 2019) email addresses for escalating complaints to the DWP.

You can use these to make an email complaint about-
ESA, JSA, Universal Credit, Income Support, Incapacity Benefit, Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit

You should use 'normal' complaint channels (ie. telephone the DWP) before resorting to one of these complaints teams.

When sending an email complaint the email header should just say "Formal Complaint" and nothing else.
Then put just what you are complaining about in the first line of the message.
See my example at post #2.

These are the regional Complaint Resolution Teams (CRTs):
NOTE- It appears that these regional teams may not be operating during covid?

SURREYANDSUSSEX.OPERATIONSCORRESPONDENCETEAM@DWP.G OV.UK – Surrey and Sussex. (There's no space between the G and O, not sure why the forum is showing it like that?)

SEG.OPERATIONSCORRESPONDENCETEAM1@DWP.GOV.UK - Southern England CRT (covering Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire)

NORTHWEST.COMPLAINTSRESOLUTIONTEAM1@DWP.GOV.UK – North West CRT (covering Manchester, Liverpool, Cumbria and the lakes, Cheshire, Wirral)

SCOTLAND.COMPLAINTSRESOLUTIONTEAM1@DWP.GOV.UK – Scotland CRT

WALES.COMPLAINTSRESOLUTIONTEAM@DWP.GOV.UK – Wales CRT

N-EMIDLANDS.CRT@DWP.GOV.UK - N-East Midlands CRT (East Anglia, Leicestershire & Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland or Midland Shires).

WESTMIDLANDS.CRT@DWP.GOV.UK - West Midlands CRT (Mercia, Black Country or Birmingham & Solihull District).

NEE.CRTNORTH@DWP.GOV.UK – North East CRT (North) – (covering Durham, Tyne & Wear, Teesside, Northumbria)

NEE.CRTSOUTH@DWP.GOV.UK – North East CRT (South) – (covering Yorkshire & Humberside)

LHC.CRTTEAM1@DWP.GOV.UK – London and Home Counties CRT (covering Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Berkshire)



On receipt of DWP’s response, if you remain unhappy or need further clarification you can escalate your complaint to stage 2, through:
(You can also use this if the address above has been changed).

Correspondence@dwp.gov.uk – a single address covering the whole of operations. This is effectively the Director General’s support staff you’re writing to.

DWP have given a commitment to reply to emailed complaints within 15 working days, usually by telephone. (So including weekends allow 21 days for a reply).


Other email addresses for complaints that I have found:

Social Fund
socialfund.complaintresolutionteam@dwp.gov.uk

Personal Independence Payments
bootledbc.qualityteam@dwp.gov.uk
yorkshiredbc.pip@dwp.gov.uk

Pensions Service/Disability Living Allowance/Carers Allowance
correspondence@dwp.gov.uk


Maximus and Atos

CHDA (Maximus) email address: customer-relations@chdauk.co.uk

Atos email address: PIP-customerservice@atos.net

[nukecad]

You may have seen in another thread that the DWP have made an error and not given me any NI credits for the last six years.

After spending ages today on hold on the phone (and using up all my PAYG credit) I decided that as this is not an urgent matter I would try using the email address above.

EDIT-
You can use this as a template to make a complaint yourself if this has also happened to you.
It worked as you can see in my next post.
Send it to your regional complaints centre as listed above, it will only get redirected to them anyway if you send it to the central address.

{email header}- Formal Complaint.

{email text}-
Re: National Insurance credits not automatically awarded in respect of ESA claim.

{Your Name and address.}
{Your Date of birth.}
{Your NI Number.}

Dear DWP,

I have recieved a statement of My National Insurance contributions record from HMRC.

This shows that no NI credits have been made since the tax year {whatever the last year was on your NI statement that has full payments/credits

I have been a recipient of Employment Support Allowance since {date you claimed ESA}, and as such Class 1 NI credits should have been added to my contribution record for the whole period since then.

Please confirm that this error will be corrected, the missing credits added to my NI record, and further credits added for as long as my ESA award continues.

Please confirm receipt of this email.

Regards

{Your Name}
{Your email address}

Just for clarity that {date you claimed ESA} is the date that you put on your ESA application form, (not the award date).
If you don't have the exact date then the month and year, or just the year, should be enough.

[nukecad]

Success.

Today I got a reply to my complaint email. (17 days after sending).

It had been passed from the central email address I had used to the North West regional complaints team, who investigated and replied.

Here is their reply-

Good Morning

I am writing in response to your email dated 26 September 2017 regarding National Insurance Credits, which were not showing on your records form 2011.

I have been assigned to respond in my capacity as complaints resolution manager on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Complaint Resolution Team, North West England.
Since receiving your email, we have been conducting enquiries with the relevant departments in order to ascertain the position. Those enquiries are complete and I can now provide you with the following information.

I am unable to confirm why our record system was not updated at the earliest convenience, however, our ESA team has now updated the National Insurance Recording System with your NI credits from 2011.

The DWP is committed to providing customers with the best standard of service at all times, however, the Department delayed in updating your records. Please accept my sincere apologies for this delay.

If you remain dissatisfied with the way your complaint has been handled you can write to Andrew Rhodes, Director General, Operations, at PO Box 50101, London, SW1P 2WU within six months of the date at the top of this letter. He will then arrange a response from an appropriate officer within the Department. Alternatively, you can telephone our Correspondence Team on 01253 331418 / 01253 337591 or email Correspondence@dwp.gsi.gov.uk. The team will register your complaint and arrange for a response from the appropriate team. The telephone lines are open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday.

Regards
Tracey Mitchell

Tracey Mitchell l Complaints Resolution Manager | North West Region | Department for Work and Pensions | Kinglake House | Shenstone Street | Liverpool | L7 3PF | 01928 853710|

So that shows that the email addresses for complaints are valid and do get a response.

[David69]

Thats great. They could do with learning plain english

[nukecad]

They could do with learning plain english

I particularly laughed at:
"I am unable to confirm why our record system was not updated at the earliest convenience"

Who's "convienence" would that be then?
And they should not have had to be "updated", they should have been credited correctly from the start.

So the translation is- "We have no explanation for why we did not do our job correctly in the first place".
Of course that would be admitting in plain language they make mistakes, and they don't like doing that.

"we have been conducting enquiries with the relevant departments in order to ascertain the position."
Translation - "We've been asking what happened".

I'm guessing that Tracy is a graduate of the DWPs "how to pretend you're a lawyer" course, there seems to be a lot of them.

[crazychris]

Hey thanks Nukecad. Going to fire them an email off as nothing's been done with 3 phone calls.

[robbie66]

Hi sent a email of to the southwest of England office back in late nov 2017 not heard a thing from them was thinking of exculateing the email to the next one up what do you think ?

[nukecad]

As their own commitment says that they aim to reply within 15 days then first of all I would check your email spam box to make sure it's not in there.

If it isn't in your spambox then email it again but this time to the central team.

Add a note at the begining that you sent it to southern CRT at such an address on such a date but have had no reply.

Remember that these regional teams are for complaints not for anything else.

If this was about your back pay for the transfer then they have probably passed it to whoever is dealing with that whole mess, but someone should have told you so.

[robbie66]

Thanks for the info yes it was about the back pay was really angry at the time as you can imagine it’s been a real struggle over the years with having to pay for prescriptions and pads for incontinence being wrongly put onto esa con based yes did check the spam folder but not a thing strange how they put me onto the right benefit after only 10 days of sending the esa 3 form inn

[nukecad]

As you know there is a big issue with them getting these transfers from IB wrong and they have a lot of them to look at again.
I am aware that they are trying to use a convoluted legal fiction to try and avoid backpaying the full amount due.

This is being challenged and may what be holding up backpayments.

I'll start a new thread with more details about this and links to letters, etc.