Making a complaint about PIP
You can make a complaint about your Personal Independence Payment (PIP) experience. You should make a complaint about PIP for the following reasons:
- The people dealing with your PIP claim were rude
- The people dealing with your PIP claim were unhelpful
- You were denied a PIP assessment at home
- It’s taking too long to get a PIP decision
- It is taking too long to receive your PIP payment
- The PIP medical report is incorrect.
The outcome of your PIP complaint will vary due to several factors, such as the severity of the claim and its impact on you.
Making a PIP complaint
There are several stages to a PIP complaint:
- Making a PIP complaint
- DWP’s response
- Complaints resolution manager response
- Senior manager response
- Independent Case Examiner.
To start your PIP complaint, you should contact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). You can do this in the following ways:
- In writing (use the address at the top of any PIP letter from the DWP)
- Phoning the DWP (Monday to Friday 9am-5pm): Telephone: 0800 121 4433. Textphone: 0800 121 4493. Relay UK - if you cannot hear or speak on the phone: 18001 then 0800 121 4433
If you are making a PIP complaint by phone, you should keep a record of when you called, who you spoke to and your complaint reference number.
You will need to tell the following to the DWP:
- Your national insurance number
- Your full name, address and contact number
- What you are making the complaint about, when it happened and how it affected you
- What outcome you are looking for
DWP’s initial response
Once you have made a complaint about PIP, the DWP will phone you to discuss your complaint. If they can’t get through to you, they will send you a letter.
If you’re not satisfied with the DWP’s response, you will need to ask for your complaint to go to a complaints resolution manager.
Complaints resolution manager
Once the complaints resolution manager has received your complaint, they will contact you, usually by phone, to discuss your complaint and agree with you how to proceed with the investigation.
They will contact you again within 15 working days to tell you of their outcome to your complaint or explain when you can expect a response if it will take longer to investigate.
If you’re unhappy with the outcome to resolve your complaint at this stage, you can ask for the complaint to go to a senior DWP manager.
Senior DWP manager
The senior DWP manager will ask for an independent internal review of your complaint. They will contact you within 15 working days to tell you their outcome or when you can expect a response if it will take longer.
If at this stage you’re not happy with the DWP response you can take your complaint to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) – which is separate and independent from the DWP. You must contact them within six months of getting the DWP’s final response and send them a copy of it.
Independent Case Examiner
If the Independent Case Examiner takes your complaint on, they will act as an impartial referee, and won’t charge you for their service.
They will look at what your complaint was and how the DWP investigated it. If they find that the DWP should have done more, they will ask them to compensate you accordingly.
If you don’t agree with the response from the Independent Case Examiner, you can ask your MP to send your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
