Tax Credits Complaint - How to Escalate?

olgadapolga

Hi,

Does anyone know how to escalate a complaint about the Tax Credits Office? I made a complaint against them in May, was told that the complaints team would be in touch within 3 weeks. They didn't get in touch, other than a letter of acknowledgement. After 4 weeks I had another letter saying that they are still looking into my complaint and need another 4 weeks. I rang them today (three weeks after last letter) and they haven't even looked at it yet. The person I spoke to today said that he would "chase it" for me.

What a waste of a phone call. Surely they cannot keep fobbing me off? I don't know who to escalate it to. Does anyone know?

Thanks

Icequeen99

The escalation route is Tier 2 complaints in Tax Credit Office and then the Adjudicator.

You could try writing to the Adjudicator but they are so backlogged they are likely to just bounce you back to TCO as you haven't exhausted the internal complaints procedure.

IQ

shedboy94

olgadapolga wrote: »

Hi,

Does anyone know how to escalate a complaint about the Tax Credits Office? I made a complaint against them in May, was told that the complaints team would be in touch within 3 weeks. They didn't get in touch, other than a letter of acknowledgement. After 4 weeks I had another letter saying that they are still looking into my complaint and need another 4 weeks. I rang them today (three weeks after last letter) and they haven't even looked at it yet. The person I spoke to today said that he would "chase it" for me.

What a waste of a phone call. Surely they cannot keep fobbing me off? I don't know who to escalate it to. Does anyone know?


Thanks

It certainly was a waste of a phonecall, especially since you phoned after 3 weeks despite being told it would take 4 weeks.....

olgadapolga

Well, indeed it could be seen like that, however, I had to speak to them about something else and I was advised to ring them by the TCO when I renewed my claim last week.

Besides, judging from what was said to me today, they haven't even started looking into my complaint yet, so there is no way they would do it in a week - it's already taken them 7 weeks to do precisely nothing.

[Deleted User]

If the complaint requires attention, for example they need to make changes to your claim as a result I'd keep going.

If you are after compensation and you have a good case, I'd keep going.

But if you simply do not agree with them or have been mistreated, I'd give up because they really do not care.

I have been waiting weeks to simply get through renewal and it's clear the system is in a mess. There must be billions of complaints :-)

mrcomment

'they didn't get in touch, other than....'

shedboy94

olgadapolga wrote: »

Well, indeed it could be seen like that, however, I had to speak to them about something else and I was advised to ring them by the TCO when I renewed my claim last week.

Besides, judging from what was said to me today, they haven't even started looking into my complaint yet, so there is no way they would do it in a week - it's already taken them 7 weeks to do precisely nothing.

Most complaints don't take long to be investigated, some may take 5 mins, some a few hrs, others a couple of days. The reason the overall process takes so long is because of the staff volumes. The staff who deal with complaints also deal with other aspects of Tax Credits, so aren't just sitting dealing with endless complaints. If there are 100 staff on complaints dealing with 10 a day then it will take weeks to get a case if there are thousands ahead of it.

davehughes182

assj wrote: »

If the complaint requires attention, for example they need to make changes to your claim as a result I'd keep going.

If you are after compensation and you have a good case, I'd keep going.

But if you simply do not agree with them or have been mistreated, I'd give up because they really do not care.

I have been waiting weeks to simply get through renewal and it's clear the system is in a mess. There must be billions of complaints :-)

I wouldnt call the system a mess. The reason you have been waiting to get through for a renewal is becasue there are also a lot of others ringing too. I would suggest filling the form in and sending it back and that will be a quicker and easier way to get your renewal dealt with unless you need to discuss your claim with someone.

dori2o

davehughes182 wrote: »

I wouldnt call the system a mess. The reason you have been waiting to get through for a renewal is becasue there are also a lot of others ringing too. I would suggest filling the form in and sending it back and that will be a quicker and easier way to get your renewal dealt with unless you need to discuss your claim with someone.

It's exactly the same situation with self assessment.

Because people are given 8 months to fill in a tax return, they leave it until the last minute, then when they realise they are missing some information, or they get stuck filling it in, or the online service is running slow because hundreds of thousands of people are filling in the return in the last days/hours before the deadline, it's obviously HMRC's fault.

The answer is simple. Send the form back as soon as you get it rather than waiting until deadline day to do it.

We are currently getting requests from people who want details of their income for the last tax year so they can fill in their tax credits form, or do the renewal on the phone. When we tell them it may not reach them in time (can be upto 15 working days to receive) it's not good enough and HMRC is at fault for them potentially missing the deadline.

Here's another idea. Take more care of the P45's, P60's and payslips your employers give you. Then you won't need HMRC to provide this information to you at the last minute.

compoff

It may help if you explain what you are complaining about, it may be able to be resolved using another mechanism, depending on the issue