Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to (a) reduce waiting times on her Department's helplines and (b) prevent calls from being cut off after long waiting periods.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
(a) Reduce waiting times on Department's helplines
DWP reviews forecasted telephony demand and plans resourcing accordingly to keep wait times down. Wait time performance is frequently reviewed and where DWP’s telephony is delivered by an outsourced provider we use the Key Performance Indicator of percentage of calls answered. All DWP customer telephone lines are Freephone numbers.
The Department is investing in a new capability that aims to better route customers to the right offer at the right time. This will help to reduce waiting times by supporting customers to utilise digital alternatives where appropriate and enables telephony agents to speak to our customers that really need to speak to someone. If a customer indicates they may be at risk of physical or mental harm e.g. suicide, terminal illness, homelessness, and clinical mental health, they will be routed to a telephony agent in as short a journey as possible.
The Department offers a wide range of reasonable adjustments for customers, including production of communications in a range of alternative formats. We are currently testing further digital solutions for British Sign Language interpreter connectivity within our jobcentre environment.
(b) Prevent calls from being cut off after long waiting periods
Regarding disconnections, while mobile phone contracts may disconnect after a certain time period, we do not intentionally cut off customers after long wait times. We do not have anything configured in our Contact Centre platform to automatically cut customers off after any time threshold, or period of waiting.
We do, however, inform customers when they are in a queue and we know their call won't be answered before the line closes, and request that they call back.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help those with (a) severe health conditions and (b) disabilities complete the Personal Independence Payment application process.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is regularly in contact with claimants who are vulnerable. Many, particularly those with severe heath conditions and disabilities, already have support in place from third parties (friends, relatives or appointees for example). However, for those who don’t, DWP provide a range of information and services to support customers through the application process.
Applications for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) are normally registered by telephone. To support hearing and speech impaired applicants, DWP uses the Video Relay Service to communicate in real time through a British Sign Language interpreter over a video connection. DWP also uses Relay UK, previously known as Next Generation Text, to correspond through typed messages via a BT agent.
DWP offers a claims completion service over the telephone to help PIP applicants without support from another source.
For the most vulnerable customers, support – including help with form completion – is offered through the Visiting Service:https://www.gov.uk/support-visit-benefit-claim
DWP has also produced a series of videos to support understanding of and navigation through each part of application and assessment: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/personal-independence-payment-customer-journey-films