subject access request

Hi to all. Well I submitted an appeal to go from wrag to sg and made a subject access request, this was back on April 4th. The appeal was acknowleged but nothing was mentioned about the information I had requested. I wrote to them again in June and rang them at the end of July. Finally at the end of August I sent a recorded delivery which was signed for and received, requesting the decision makers info etc. I have heard nothing.
I am wondering if it goes on like this, and my appeal actually comes up, will I be able to ask for an adjournment until I receive the information I need to prepare my appeal. Also should I consider complaining yet, and if I do should it go to the manager of the benefits dept dealing with the appeal or should it go to someone like the Information Commissioners Office? any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Thanks for that will do so in the morning and take it from there.

Well things don't get any easier dealing with the DWP. Today I rang to discuss my subject access request and why it was taking in excess of 5 months (April 4th and ongoing) to get me the information. I was put through to the customer services dept where a lady did her best to help but was clearly scratching around to find anything useful. Finally she said nothing has been entered on the computer since a note about receiving the request back in April. She said the original decision to place me in the wrag group was based on one sheet of A4 written by , she thought , someone from atos. Since I did not attend a medical, and reading between the lines, it seems a decision was made, based on my past info and my ESA questionnaire, to transfer me from IB to contribution based ESA. She then said she would send me the sheet of A4. I asked about my appeal and had it been looked at, or had any reconsideration been done,she said if I had not heard anything and since there was nothing on the computer, it was probable that they had not looked at it yet. This leaves me wondering how to deal with it all from here. Do I continue to wait and see if they write to me about my appeal(they received the paperwork on April 4th) along with the SAR, or do I complain at another level and to whom? thanks

vicki wrote:

Well things don't get any easier dealing with the DWP. Today I rang to discuss my subject access request and why it was taking in excess of 5 months (April 4th and ongoing) to get me the information. I was put through to the customer services dept where a lady did her best to help but was clearly scratching around to find anything useful. Finally she said nothing has been entered on the computer since a note about receiving the request back in April. She said the original decision to place me in the wrag group was based on one sheet of A4 written by , she thought , someone from atos. Since I did not attend a medical, and reading between the lines, it seems a decision was made, based on my past info and my ESA questionnaire, to transfer me from IB to contribution based ESA. She then said she would send me the sheet of A4. I asked about my appeal and had it been looked at, or had any reconsideration been done,she said if I had not heard anything and since there was nothing on the computer, it was probable that they had not looked at it yet. This leaves me wondering how to deal with it all from here. Do I continue to wait and see if they write to me about my appeal(they received the paperwork on April 4th) along with the SAR, or do I complain at another level and to whom? thanks

Hi V,

Your options are the two links provided by Gordon previously,

or, The Information Commissioner's Office :

www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public.aspx

If you read the information contained in the document on the first link of :

Complaining to the DWP

You will see that you must have exhausted the DWP complaints process, before you can escalate to The Independant Case Examiner (ICE).

bro58

thanks for that bro58, will read the form on complaining to DWP for next step and look at the ICO stuff as well, many thanks.