Independent Case Examiner's investigation of a complaint was fair and reasonable

What happened

When Ms N was due to start her university degree in autumn 2009, she visited her local Jobcentre Plus office to ask about benefits. She said she told Jobcentre Plus she was disabled and already received disability living allowance, but wanted to know if she could claim anything else. She said that Jobcentre Plus had told her she could not claim anything else. Ms N said that toward the end of her course in 2012, she had met another disabled student at university whose circumstances were similar. However, this student had received employment and support allowance and housing benefit the whole time she had been at university. Ms N said she had asked Jobcentre Plus to pay her backdated employment and support allowance and housing benefit because it had given her wrong advice. She said that Jobcentre Plus had refused her request. Ms N complained to ICE (the organisation that investigates complaints about Jobcentre Plus).

ICE investigated Ms N's complaint, but it was unable to find any evidence to support Ms N's account of events because any papers held by Jobcentre Plus were routinely destroyed after 14 months. It also concluded, on the balance of probability, that if Ms N had asked about benefits for disabled students Jobcentre Plus would have told her about employment and support allowance and housing benefit. Ms N was dissatisfied about ICE's decision to not uphold her complaint.

What we found

We did not uphold this complaint. Jobcentre Plus had indeed destroyed Ms N's papers as it had told ICE. But it was not possible to decide whether or not Ms N had been advised properly on the balance of probabilities because of the lack of any evidence. We concluded that the lack of any evidence at all meant we could not support Ms N's claim for the backdated benefits she wanted Jobcentre Plus to pay her.

Putting it right

We did not ask ICE to take any further action on Ms N's case, but we told it that while we agreed its decision had been right, we had found it not possible to decide Ms N's complaint on the balance of probability.