Ombudsman awards compensation to mother after incorrect address is sent to three government departments and her child support wrongly docked
The Parliamentary Ombudsman has criticised three government departments for failing to put right a mistake that led to a woman's personal and financial information being revealed to her former partner, and her child support payments being reduced without her knowledge.
The errors, investigated by ombudsman Ann Abraham, concern HM Revenue & Customs, the Child Support Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions, and date back to 2006, when one of the government agencies incorrectly updated her records to show her living at her former partner's address, although she had never lived there. The error was then spread across a network of government systems linking the records of HMRC, the CSA (now part of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission) and the DWP.
After discovering that her details had been changed, the complainant, referred to in the ombudsman's report, "A breach of confidence", as Ms M, tried to find out why and sought an assurance that they had been corrected. Each government agency denied responsibility and passed her to another, so she sought help from her local MP, who referred her to the ombudsman.
The ombudsman "found it likely" that the chain of events stemmed from an inputting mistake by an officer at the tax credit office in December 2006, which was then picked up by other HMRC computer systems. The tax credit office also sent final award notices relating to Ms M and her former partner's joint tax credits claim for the 2005-06 tax year, confirming how much money had been due to them as a couple, to her former partner's new address.
When Ms M contacted the tax credit office to query the whereabouts of her tax credit renewal form, the office told her they had "slightly the wrong address". But although the tax credit office corrected her address on its own systems, the error then escalated, with the CSA sending notification of a reduction in Ms M's entitlement to the address of her former partner. She only learned of it months later when the reduction was implemented.
Upholding the complaint, Abraham expressed concern that the network of computer systems used by the three government departments could make changes to Ms M's personal data without her knowledge or consent, but could not locate the source of errors on those systems. She criticised the agencies for blaming each other and taking the view that as the mistake had been made by "the system", they could do nothing to rectify it.
"While HM Revenue & Customs, the Child Support Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions have computer systems that are networked and communicate with one another, the agencies themselves clearly do not," she said. "No single agency took responsibility for looking at those problems that cut across their organisational boundaries and their respective computer systems. Each agency focused on their own territory and their responsibility for the maintenance and interrogation of their own systems. Once data (incorrect or otherwise) left their system, they took no further interest."
Ms M said that trying to sort out this problem had made her distressed and had had an impact on her family life. She felt she could not move on from her separation from her former partner, as the address mix-up provided a constant reminder of an unfortunate episode in her life. Ms M said she was particularly concerned because she took a lot of trouble trying to separate their financial affairs when they separated, so that her credit rating was not adversely affected by his debts.
She is still concerned that there may be some link between her and Mr A's affairs within a government department, which may cause her problems again in the future.
The ombudsman recommended that the agencies apologise to Ms M and pay her �2,000 compensation plus provide an assurance that her details have been checked on every database owned by the government departments. She also suggested that the DWP, HMRC and CSA, in discussion with the Cabinet Office, agree a customer-focused protocol to deal with complaints of this kind, and that guidance be sent to all government departments.
Abraham added: "There is an important warning here for all public bodies. The lessons from Ms M's experience and my investigation are not only about information sharing. Public bodies need to learn to get their administration right, to be customer-focused, be open and accountable and to work together to put things right when mistakes occur. Unless all this happens, public bodies run the risk of making other people feel the way Ms M told me she feels: that she will never be able to trust a government agency again."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/jan/12/parliamentary-ombudsman-criticises-government
Higher education England cricket team Soap opera Iran Christmas Northern Ireland
No comments:
Post a Comment