Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2020 to Question 42141 on Universal Credit: Telephone Services, what the average waiting time for has been for claimants calling the universal credit helpline in each week since 6 January 2020.

Individuals making a Universal Credit declaration from 16 March to 23 June stood at 3.2 million (3,240,570)

The Average Speed of Answer for calls to Universal Credit in each week from 6th January 2020 is shown below in the format of hours:minutes:seconds.

Week Commencing -

06/01/2020 0:04:00

13/01/2020 0:03:34

20/01/2020 0:03:06

27/01/2020 0:02:14

03/02/2020 0:03:37

10/02/2020 0:03:31

17/02/2020 0:03:46

24/02/2020 0:02:56

02/03/2020 0:03:12

09/03/2020 0:03:34

16/03/2020 0:16:52

23/03/2020 0:43:08

30/03/2020 0:44:01

06/04/2020 0:29:32

13/04/2020 0:15:17

20/04/2020 0:23:05

27/04/2020 0:21:42

04/05/2020 0:10:30

11/05/2020 0:07:24

18/05/2020 0:04:30

25/05/2020 0:06:20

01/06/2020 0:02:35

08/06/2020 0:01:50

15/06/2020 0:01:44

22/06/2020 0:02:38

29/06/2020 0:03:54

The average waiting times change week on week and is demand led. To manage and improve increased waiting times due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Department implemented changes in processes in April and initiated a communication campaign to pro-actively call those with new claims. The Department also redeployed staff from non-business critical areas to front line delivery roles, made use of staff from other Government Departments, has recruited and continues to recruit significant numbers of new staff and has utilised contract and agency staff in certain roles.

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

Source: BT Historical Management Information (HMI), Serco, Capita