Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what measures are in place to ensure that up-to-date information is publicly available on the (a) number and (b) outcome of complaints to her Department about poor customer service.

The Department defines a complaint as, ‘any expression of dissatisfaction about the Department’s service which is not resolved by operational staff as normal business.’

At the end of each quarter of the financial year, the Department publishes transparency data, which sets out the cumulative total of customer complaints received about our services. In addition, data is published which confirms the number of complaints received - and accepted for investigation - by the Independent Case Examiner (ICE).

Data in relation to complaint numbers can be viewed by accessing the following link to www.gov.uk:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-dwp-financial-year-2020-to-2021

The Department does not routinely publish statistics in relation to complaint outcomes.

The Department also publishes complaint volume data – and information about how customer feedback is used to improve our level of service - in our Annual Report and Accounts publication. This provides details of the full complaint journey which includes the outcomes of ICE and Ombudsman investigations. The reports can be viewed by accessing the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-annual-report-and-accounts-2019-to-2020