Independent Case Examiner: Complaints
(asked on 14th May 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken to reach a determination on a complaint escalated to the Independent Case Examiner was in 2018-19.
When the Independent Case Examiner’s Office accept a complaint for investigation, attempts will initially be made to agree a solution between the complainant and the relevant business area, without having to request evidence to inform an investigation – this is known as “resolution”. If it’s not possible to resolve the complaint, the evidence will be requested and the case will await allocation to an Investigation Case Manager (ICM). Cases are dealt with by dedicated teams and are usually brought into investigation in strict date order.
The table below provides information on the average time taken to reach a determination on a complaint escalated to the Independent Case Examiner during the 2018/19 reporting year:
In those cases that were resolved | 7 weeks - from the point the complaint was accepted for investigation |
In those cases that were investigated | 21 weeks - from the point the case was allocated to an investigation case manager |
End to end average clearance time for all cases | 65 weeks - from the point at which the complaint was accepted for examination (this includes the time complaints wait to be brought into investigation) |