Mandatory Reconsideration

ABC Comment: We have just received the result of a Mandatory Reconsideration lodged by letter on the 6^th May 2016 with a reply received on the 21^st September. The matter was about a late Travel-to-Interview payment.

Either the DWP are receiving so many complaints that this accounts for a colossal backlog; or the long arduous road to get a response to DWP failings is deliberate - in order to frustrate people who, have genuine heart-felt grievances with the way that things are being run or how they have been treated.

Either way, it is time this abuse of the public, who fund the system, was stopped.  

Civil Servants contracts require them to act honestly, impartially and fairly.

Mandatory Reconsideration’s and the way the DWP manage them is contrary to this ethos. The irony is, the only people who can bring complaints against civil servants are other civil servants. Unless you want to work for the DWP in the Orkney Islands, or lose that valuable civil service pension, we suspect it might be easier to go with along with the crowd. Or are we just being cynical? 

Mandatory Reconsiderations are an abuse of the public, and while the system itself has merit, perhaps the DWP should be required to respond in the time allowed for the pubic to make a complaint, just 30 days. Or at least acknowledge complaints within a four to six week time-frame.