Jobcentre Plus carried out a reasonable investigation, but the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) did not

What happened

The water company told Jobcentre Plus that Miss P owed it money. Jobcentre Plus began taking amounts from her benefit and giving them to the water company. Two and a half years later the water company told Jobcentre Plus that incorrect amounts had been deducted and paid to it. The water company has now refunded this money to Miss P.

Miss P complained to Jobcentre Plus and ICE and was not satisfied with the outcome.

What we found

Neither Jobcentre Plus nor the water company had kept the records of the transfer, so we could not say what had happened. There was not enough evidence to find against Jobcentre Plus and we did not uphold the complaint about it.

ICE did not get information from the water company to enable it to draw robust conclusions about Miss P's complaint, which was maladministrative. We did not find that the maladministration linked to any of the injustice claimed.

Putting it right

We made no recommendations because ICE's maladministration did not link to any of the injustice claimed.