Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints her Department has received in each year since 2010 regarding (a) customer service and (b) incorrect decisions from the Child Maintenance Service; and what the average response times to those complaints has been in each of those years.

Complaints about customer service delivery are routinely published on a quarterly basis which can be viewed here: DWP complaints data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk

The Department logs a complaint under benefit type along with specific categories that focus on identifying broadly where service has failed. The category ‘You got it wrong’ would capture most complaints relating to incorrect decisions from the Child Maintenance Group. The Department does not measure complaints as described in the question and to determine this request, we would need to examine each individual case, which the Department considers to be a disproportionate cost to provide.

The Department aims to contact customers within 15 working days to clear their complaint or agree how to investigate it if it will take longer.