Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total expenditure was on the operation of telephone helplines at his Department in each of the last 12 months.

The Department for Work and Pensions operates a virtual telephony platform which enables it to manage fluctuating call demands by increasing or decreasing the number of agents it uses to handle calls. As the Department manages call demand in this manner it is not able to identify the resource costs of operating its helplines.