Telephone Compliance Interview

js19

I am due a telephone compliance interview in 3 days time. Asking me to have bank statements/tenancy agreement/previous pay slips to hand. I have all these.
I have also just received a letter from Housing Benefit saying my payment is suspended until I contact them by phone.
I'm not overly worried as I have no change of circumstances and presume this is a random check.
However, could anyone tell me if the compliance telephone interview is the reason my Housing Benefit is suspended?
Do the two go hand in hand?

poppy123456

HI,

To answer your question would be a complete guess at this point, it may or may not be to do with the compliance interview. Best thing you can do is to ring your local council first thing Monday morning and they will tell you what's going on.

js19

Thanks. I plan to do that after the compliance interview on Monday. Maybe then I'll have a better idea of what's what. I did show the compliance  letter at the job centre. She was not much interested and just said that "as it's a phone interview it's not under caution. (I had to Google to find out what that means).  It could be a random interview or they might have a specific question.  If it were an actual interview face to face, under caution, then that would mean there was a problem?" 
Not that helpful. It's only worrying to me as I have no idea what it's about and to have housing benefit suspended too just adds to the mystery.
The only thing I have done out of the ordinary is to renew a Hackney Plate with the council in May. I was a taxi driver and plan to go back to doing that, probably only part time, but not sure yet.
In renewing the plate, I realised my DBS and Medical check had also  expired. All council linked so maybe that's raised a flag?
I haven't informed the job centre of my plans yet because I haven't done any work and am not sure exactly when I'll be able to start ie: still waiting for DBS check to come thru. Maybe I should have said about this??

atlas46

Hi @js19

I would chill out and let Monday arrive.

A compliance phone call, might have been triggered by the computer system, as part of the audit process.

Same with the taxi, they are about your potential future plans, nothing more.

I doubt very much that your council, will not have a matching service for DWP data base.

Let us know how you get on.

js19

Will do. Only worry when you've got something to worry about!

Adrian_Scope

Hello @js19 and a warm welcome to the community. 
Best of luck today, please let us know how you get on with the interivew.

benjamintolmer

Hello... All the Best for your interview
Share your experience with us after interview

js19

Compliance phone call:
All went fine. The reason for the call (as I half guessed) was that I'd contacted the Hackney Taxi Dept at my local council to renew my medical, police check and plate on the car, with the view to perhaps returning to work, albeit part time driving. I had already told the job centre of my plans a few weeks ago. This, in turn, was flagged up on the dwp side of things. Hence the Compliance call. Seems to me that all departments within the council are linked. Any query in one department alerts all the rest...a kind of domino effect.
I then rang Housing Benefit as they had suspended my payments. They'd had the same flag.
The upshot is that my Housing Benefit was reinstated straight away  whilst I was still on the phone to them, plus all is well with everything else.
That is my experience regarding a compliance call.

For those about to go through the same thing and  are are worried....don't worry. They were very nice on the phone. Polite and they came straight out with their reason for the call after the usual confirming of your name, dob, address etc.
The bottom line is...if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to worry about. 

Hope this helps anyone about to have a compliance call.

atlas46

Hi @js19

Thanks for your feedback and it will good for future reference.

Its also good to know your council has a “matching” service that links into DWP.

HMRC have a matching service with DWP, that identifies people getting interest on savings, but claiming they have’t got.

As you say, if you done nothing wrong, there is nothing to worry about.

Hope you can get back to work, if that’s what you want.