Department for Work and Pensions: Telephone Services

(asked on 1st November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average waiting time was for calls to her Department’s telephone lines for (a) attendance allowance, (b) the Child Maintenance Service, (c) personal independence payment, (d) the State Pension and (e) debt management in each month from January 2021 to October 2021.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 4th November 2021

The average call waiting time (Average Speed of Answer) for calls to DWP Service Lines for (a) attendance allowance, (b) the Child Maintenance Service, (c) personal independence payment, (d) the State Pension and (e) debt management in each month from January 2021 to September 2021 is shown in the table below in the format of hours:minutes:seconds.

The figures provided for Debt Management have been split between the Pay and Recovery lines.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

Personal Independence Payment New Claims

00:02:50

00:03:41

00:02:16

Personal Independence Payment New Claims Reassessment

00:02:40

00:03:33

PIP New Claims & New Claims Reassessments

00:02:59

00:05:06

00:06:51

00:03:28

00:02:56

00:07:47

PIP New Claims Special Rules for Terminally Ill

00:03:06

00:03:53

00:04:00

00:04:08

00:03:59

00:05:01

00:05:36

00:06:00

00:05:11

PIP Enquiries

00:23:17

00:19:19

00:16:50

00:19:24

00:17:40

00:28:01

00:30:44

00:23:30

00:21:46

PIP Reassessment Enquiries

00:00:35

00:00:52

00:00:21

00:00:17

00:00:25

00:00:42

00:00:32

00:01:07

00:01:35

State Pension New Claims

00:21:55

00:21:31

00:15:21

00:10:13

00:12:35

00:04:39

00:06:37

00:26:39

00:17:51

State Pension Changes

00:21:05

00:21:37

00:21:56

00:20:53

00:21:14

00:20:08

00:21:18

00:20:26

00:21:51

Attendance Allowance Total

00:14:05

00:14:48

00:13:57

00:19:27

00:15:18

00:14:22

00:12:35

00:15:05

00:14:57

State Pension Enquiries

00:04:12

00:02:37

00:09:26

00:13:30

00:09:17

00:01:02

00:03:24

00:03:41

00:05:10

Child Maintenance Service

00:20:02

00:20:23

00:16:11

00:15:07

00:16:43

00:17:15

00:19:27

00:19:22

00:20:59

Debt Management "Pay"

00:54

00:51

01:57

0.14

00:29

02:00

00:26

02:01

02:04

Debt Management "Recovery"

06:47

07:05

07:55

05:53

04:40

02:25

05:13

04:40

04:13

Data Source: BT - Historical Management Information (GI2 – HMI) Serco, G4S

PIP New Claims & PIP New Claims Reassessment lines were combined for reporting purposes from April 21.

The telephony system does not use the term “waiting time” but instead provides data on the average speed that the call is answered.

Average Speed of Answer is the average customer wait time from the point of entering a queue to connection to an agent. This figure excludes any time spent in pre-queue messaging and any wait time for calls ultimately abandoned by callers.

October data has not yet been compiled.

The data supplied is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.

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