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1222650

registered interest
date	09/07/2020
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	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.
tabling member constituency	Edmonton
tabling member printed	Kate Osamor
uin	71835
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2020 answer text <p>Individuals making a Universal Credit declaration from 16 March to 23 June stood at 3.2 million (3,240,570)</p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p>Week Commencing -</p><p> </p><p>06/01/2020 0:04:00</p><p>13/01/2020 0:03:34</p><p>20/01/2020 0:03:06</p><p>27/01/2020 0:02:14</p><p>03/02/2020 0:03:37</p><p>10/02/2020 0:03:31</p><p>17/02/2020 0:03:46</p><p>24/02/2020 0:02:56</p><p>02/03/2020 0:03:12</p><p>09/03/2020 0:03:34</p><p>16/03/2020 0:16:52</p><p>23/03/2020 0:43:08</p><p>30/03/2020 0:44:01</p><p>06/04/2020 0:29:32</p><p>13/04/2020 0:15:17</p><p>20/04/2020 0:23:05</p><p>27/04/2020 0:21:42</p><p>04/05/2020 0:10:30</p><p>11/05/2020 0:07:24</p><p>18/05/2020 0:04:30</p><p>25/05/2020 0:06:20</p><p>01/06/2020 0:02:35</p><p>08/06/2020 0:01:50</p><p>15/06/2020 0:01:44</p><p>22/06/2020 0:02:38</p><p>29/06/2020 0:03:54</p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p><em>Source: BT Historical Management Information (HMI), Serco, Capita</em></p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 17/07/2020 13:39:55 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
tabling member	4515 label Biography information for Kate Osamor

1193663

registered interest
date	06/05/2020
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason the opening times of the universal credit helpline have changed; and if she will ensure that the (a) UK Government and (b) universal credit websites are updated with the new information.
tabling member constituency	Arfon
tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
uin	43840
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/05/2020 answer text <p>Since the start of the pandemic, we have received unprecedented levels of claims for Universal Credit. This was accompanied by a significant increase in call volumes which was impacting our ability to support customers, particularly those making new claims.</p><p>To enable our people to pay customers their benefit, we implemented a temporary pause to the handling of general queries through the telephony service at the beginning and end of the day. The purpose of this change was to allow case managers to focus on progressing claims during these times.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>New claim appointments and new claims by phone remained open as usual.</p><p> </p><p>At the moment, people making new claims for Universal Credit do not in fact need to call the Department as part of the process and we have communicated that widely. Once they have completed their online application we will call them if we need to check any of the information they have given us.</p><p>The Universal Credit helpline returned to our normal operating hours from 11 May (8am-6pm, Monday to Friday).</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 15/05/2020 10:37:59 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince previous answer version 20796 answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1192346

registered interest
date	01/05/2020
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average waiting time is for claimants calling the universal credit helpline.
tabling member constituency	Edmonton
tabling member printed	Kate Osamor
uin	42141
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/07/2020 answer text <p>The average waiting times change week on week and is demand led.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 08/07/2020 13:15:19 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince previous answer version 20794 answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
tabling member	4515 label Biography information for Kate Osamor

1169824

registered interest
date	09/01/2020
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she will make it her policy that all universal credit claimants making phone calls to her Department should be informed that staff can phone them back free of charge.
tabling member constituency	East Ham
tabling member printed	Stephen Timms
uin	1663
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/01/2020 answer text <p>The Department takes seriously the need to support claimants, and wants Universal Credit to be easy to access. It is designed to be a ‘digital-first’ service, ensuring we make best use of technology to deliver a modern and effective working-age welfare system. This allows our staff to concentrate on those people who require additional support through different channels.</p><p> </p><p>Since 29 November 2017 all Universal Credit telephone lines are Freephone ‘0800’ numbers. Once connected to this service, a virtual telephone network will route the call to the most appropriate agent available with required skills to support the caller. Should a claimant call a previous chargeable Universal Credit telephone number, they will be redirected to our current numbers and the call will terminate.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 14/01/2020 15:19:44 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
tabling member	163 label Biography information for Sir Stephen Timms

1169826

registered interest
date	09/01/2020
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of universal credit claimants who have been offered a free of charge call back by her Department have accepted that offer in the latest period for which figures are available.
tabling member constituency	East Ham
tabling member printed	Stephen Timms
uin	1664
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/01/2020 answer text <p>The Department does not hold the data requested.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 14/01/2020 15:22:58 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
tabling member	163 label Biography information for Sir Stephen Timms

1140594

registered interest
date	19/07/2019
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) average and (b) longest response time was to answer universal credit freephone numbers; and how many complaints about telephone response times for those numbers have been made in the last six months for which figures are available.
tabling member constituency	Newport East
tabling member printed	Jessica Morden
uin	279395
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>Universal Credit is a 24 hour, seven days a week, digital service that allows claimants to manage their own data and account online at a time which is convenient for them. Via their account, claimants can check their Universal Credit benefit payments, notify us of changes and record notes via an online journal facility. In addition, established claimants who call the Freephone Universal Credit helpline are connected directly to the person or team who are dealing with the case.</p><p> </p><p>For June 2019 the average speed of answer for a call to the Universal Credit helpline was 2 minutes 39 seconds. The longest response time was 55 minutes 33 seconds. In June we answered 1.2 million calls. The longest response time refers to a single caller and is not reflective of the experience of the majority of our customers.</p><p> </p><p>The average speed of answer measure is 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 prior to answer.</p><p> </p><p>The information requested about telephony complaints is not available in the format requested and doing so could only be provided at disproportionate cost. We do not capture data specifically on complaints about response times for answering the Universal Credit helpline.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 03/09/2019 16:18:26 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
tabling member	1548 label Biography information for Jessica Morden

1132410

registered interest
date	17/06/2019
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether there is a freephone number that universal credit claimants can use when attempting to make phone contact with her Department from abroad.
tabling member constituency	Brighton, Kemptown
tabling member printed	Lloyd Russell-Moyle
uin	265570
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/06/2019 answer text <p>You can dial all of the 0800 numbers from abroad using the 0044 prefix. If a claimant does find themselves needing to dial an 0800 number from abroad, then they may incur charges at the standard international rate. This cost will vary depending on where they are calling from.</p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 25/06/2019 12:30:10 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
tabling member	4615 label Biography information for Lloyd Russell-Moyle