Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answers of 22 November 2022 to Question 86473 and of 2 December 2022 to Question 101705 on Department for Work and Pensions: Complaints, if he will set a maximum target for the length of time taken to assign an Independent Case Examiner complaint to an investigator.

There is no service standard for the period of time a complaint is awaiting allocation to an investigator. This is because ICE has no control over the number of complaints it receives, which can vary significantly from month to month and year to year. Other factors which affect the rate of allocation of complaints are the complexity of the individual complaint to be investigated, the evidence required to do that, the available investigative resource and the volume of work on hand. The ICE office is, nevertheless, continuously reviewing its processes and operating model to improve productivity.