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
- DfC’s response
- Complaints resolution manager response
- Senior manager response
- Independent Case Examiner.
To start your PIP complaint, you should contact the Department for Communities (DfC). You can do this in the following ways:
- In writing (use the address at the top of any PIP letter from the DfC).
- Phoning the DfC.
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 DfC:
- 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
DfC’s initial response
Once you have made a complaint about PIP, the DfC 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 DfC’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 DfC manager.
Senior DfC manager
The senior DfC 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 DfC response you can take your complaint to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) – which is separate from the DfC. You must contact them within six months of getting the DfC’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 DfC investigated it. If they find that the DfC 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.
