Your Right to Apply for an Independent Review
How to Apply for a Review
What the Review Involves
Alternative Services
Available
The Inspector will
Decide
How long will it
Take?
The IRS Review
Your Right to Apply for an
Independent Review
You have the right to
ask for an independent review of the decision on your community care grant,
crisis loan, budgeting loan or overpayment decision if:
- you have had a
decision about your social fund application; and
- the decision has
been looked at again by a reviewing officer; and
- you are still not
satisfied with it. This can be because you have been refused payment or because
the payment you received was not enough.
How to Apply for a Review
Regulations require that all applications for a review
by a Social Fund Inspector must be sent direct to the IRS. You can write to the
IRS on the IRS1 leaflet or in a letter, using our FREEPOST
address, explaining why you want a review. However, if an application is sent
to the Jobcentre Plus by mistake, they will arrange for the application to be
forwarded to us.
The Jobcentre
Plus office should send leaflet IRS1 to you with the decision made by the
Reviewing Officer. IRS1 gives further information about the review but the main
points are that you can ask for an independent review about;
- community care
grants
- crisis loans
- budgeting loans
- overpayments from
the social fund.
You can ask for an
independent review after you have had your application reviewed at the
Jobcentre Plus. The law does not allow a Social Fund Inspector to review a
decision that has not already been reviewed.
It is important that you do
each of the following as not doing so may delay your review:
- Make your request
within 28 days of the Reviewing Officer's decision. The Inspector can allow
more time if there are special reasons. You will need to tell us why your
request has been made late.
- Say why you disagree
with the Reviewing Officer's decision.
- Sign your review
request and send it to us at: FREEPOST, Independent Review Service. It
does not need a stamp.
When we receive an
application for an Inspector's review, we acknowledge its receipt and contact
the relevant Jobcentre Plus office as a matter of urgency to arrange for them
to send all the papers to us. Please allow a few days for the papers to
arrive at the IRS before enquiring about the progress of a review.
As soon as we receive the papers, the Inspector will contact the
customer within to set out the relevant issues in the case and ask any relevant
questions.
What the Review Involves
Your case will usually be given to an Inspector on the
day the paperwork from Jobcentre Plus arrives at this office.
Step 1 -
Unless your application is for a crisis loan for very urgent needs, like food
or fuel, the Inspector dealing with your case will send an initial letter to
you. The letter sets out:
- the important
aspects of your case;
- the facts the
Inspector already knows about you; and
- any questions the
Inspector has.
Step 2 - You then
have the opportunity to comment on your case and answer any questions raised.
You can also give the Inspector any extra information that you think is
important.
What does the Inspector need to know?
It is very important that you
read the Inspector's letter and try to answer any questions asked. You should
also tell the Inspector if evidence is missing or if there is anything else you
think is important.
You can reply to the Inspector:
- using the reply form
and pre-paid envelope he sends to you; or
- by telephone on 0800
096 1926 (between 9:00 and 16:30). Your call will be free from a landline. Your
call will not be free if you use a mobile phone, but we will be able to call
you back.
If English is not
your first language, and you would like to reply by phone, we can do this using
Language Line. See our Other Languages page in the Translation Services section
for more information.
Step 3 - When the Inspector
receives your response he or she will make a decision on your case.
The Inspector will Decide
Whether the local decision was reached correctly and
whether it was the right one in all the circumstances of your case. The
Inspector will decide this by looking carefully at the facts of your case, how
the Reviewing Officer made his decision, the reasons for that decision and what
you are unhappy about.
The Inspector will change
the decision if it is wrong. The Inspector will tell you the reasons for his
decision.
If the Inspector decides that a payment should be made
on your application the Jobcentre Plus office will make the payment.
Payments are not sent out by this office.
How long will it
take?
We aim to
clear all cases at the earliest opportunity. Our service standards set out the
details of how quickly you should receive the Inspectors decision on your
application.
If the Inspector needs to send you an initial letter
(Step 1), he will aim to do this within three working days of when we receive
the papers from Jobcentre Plus.
If you apply for an urgent
need such as food or fuel, we aim to issue a decision within 24 hours of your
application being received at this office.
In 95% of
cases for other needs we aim to issue a decision within 12 working days of your
papers being received at this office.
In the year April 07 to
March 08 Inspectors dealt with 87.9% of urgent cases within 24 hours and 99.7%
of other cases within 12 days. The urgent cases that missed the target did so
because Jobcentre Plus had not gathered enough evidence to make a decision, so
the Inspector had to make enquiries by post if the applicant could not be
contacted by phone.
Do you have a complaint about the IRS or a query
about the decision?
If you are
unhappy or have a query about the Inspectors decision or the service we have
provided you can contact our customer service team.
 By telephone on 0800 096 1928 (between 9:00 and 16:30) or fax
on
0121 606 2184; or
 Send an e-mail
to: sfc@irs-review.org.uk
 Or
you can write to the Customer Service Team at this address:
Independent Review Service
4th Floor, Centre City Podium
5 Hill Street Birmingham.
B5 4UB
Alterative Services
Available
 Deaf or hard
of hearing customers who have a textphone can call us on 0800 096 1929
(between 9:00 and 16:30)
 Visually
impaired customers, who want a copy of our leaflets or decisions in Braille, on
audiotape or large print can call us on 0800 096 1927 (between 9:00 and
16:30). Go to our Visually
Impaired page for more information.
If English is not your
first language, and you have difficulty in understanding the information about
your review, we can send you copies of the most important documents in your own
language. See our Translation Services page for more
information.
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