Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the waiting time for processing complaints; and if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of his Department's adherence to the Independent Case Examiner guidance on dealing with a backlog of complaints.

Our aim is to deal with complaints as quickly as we can and we will contact customers within 15 working days to resolve their complaint or agree on next steps if that is not possible. We always inform customers if there may be a delay in answering their complaint and give priority to vulnerable customers who may be at risk, and those with benefit payment issues.

We value the service the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) provides for our customers, and whilst they are independent of the department and don’t have specific guidance on dealing with backlogs, we do work collaboratively to improve the overall customer journey.