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638442

registered interest
date	17/11/2016
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	Social Security Benefits: 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 progress his Department has made on its review of the numbering policy pertaining to 0345 and 0800 telephone numbers provided for benefit claimants to contact his Department.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	53585
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/11/2016 answer text <p>The Department’s current policy is that calls to claim benefit by telephone should be free to a customer so it uses 0800 free phone numbers where these calls typically take longer.</p><p> </p><p>The Department uses 0345 telephone numbers where its customers call for other reasons, and these are calls that typically take less time to resolve. 0345 telephone numbers are included in many landline and mobile call minute packages. Where customers do have to pay to access our 0345 services it will never be more than the cost of a local call rate call.</p><p> </p><p>Where possible concerns are raised about call charges to our enquiry line 0345 numbers, we will offer to call a customer back.</p><p> </p><p>The Department is undertaking a review of the way its customers transact with the Department and the numbering policy is included within that. The review is exploring the introduction of alternative contact channels, which would be more cost effective for customers to contact us.</p> answering member constituency Romsey and Southampton North answering member printed Caroline Nokes question first answered 25/11/2016 12:29:51 answering member 4048 label Biography information for Caroline Nokes
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

638443

registered interest
date	17/11/2016
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	Social Security Benefits: 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 his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of making all social security telephone lines freephone.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	53594
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/11/2016 answer text <p>The Department’s current policy is that calls to claim benefit by telephone should be free so it uses 0800 numbers for these calls.</p><p> </p><p>The Department uses 0345 telephone numbers where its customers call for other reasons, and these are calls that typically take less time to resolve. 0345 telephone numbers are included in many landline and mobile call minute packages. Where customers do have to pay to access our 0345 services it will never be more than the cost of a local rate call.</p><p> </p><p>Where possible concerns are raised about call charges to our enquiry line 0345 numbers, we will offer to call a customer back.</p> answering member constituency Romsey and Southampton North answering member printed Caroline Nokes question first answered 25/11/2016 13:51:20 answering member 4048 label Biography information for Caroline Nokes
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

638444

registered interest
date	17/11/2016
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	Social Security Benefits: 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 discussions he has had with private telephone companies to ensure social security enquiry lines are maintained at the lowest possible cost to the caller.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	53595
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/11/2016 answer text <p>The Department’s current policy is that calls to claim benefit by telephone should be free so it uses 0800 numbers for these calls.</p><p> </p><p>The Department uses 0345 telephone numbers where its customers call for other reasons, and these are calls that typically take less time to resolve. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has not had any recent conversations with private telephone companies to negotiate a lower rate. This is because 0345 telephone numbers are included in many landline and mobile call minute packages. Where customers do have to pay to access our 0345 services it will never be more than the cost of a local rate call.</p><p> </p><p>Where possible concerns are raised about call charges to our enquiry line 0345 numbers, we will offer to call a customer back.</p> answering member constituency Romsey and Southampton North answering member printed Caroline Nokes question first answered 25/11/2016 13:57:43 answering member 4048 label Biography information for Caroline Nokes
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

638445

registered interest
date	17/11/2016
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	Social Security Benefits: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants made calls longer than (a) one and (b) two hours on non-Freephone lines relating to their claim for benefit for each Departmental benefit in the last year; and what the duration of the 50 longest telephone calls to each Departmental telephone line in the last five years was.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	53596
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/11/2016 answer text <p>The information is not available and can only be provided at disproportionate costs.</p> answering member constituency Romsey and Southampton North answering member printed Caroline Nokes question first answered 24/11/2016 14:55:03 answering member 4048 label Biography information for Caroline Nokes
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

576524

registered interest
date	05/09/2016
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	Social Security Benefits: 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 estimate his Department has made of the average length of time a person making an initial inquiry claiming social security benefit spent on the telephone in the last 12 months.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	44894
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/09/2016 answer text <p>The DWP's benefit claim lines handle calls both enquiring about claiming benefit and making a claim to benefit. The average length of calls to these lines for the period 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2016 was 00:12:56. For some benefits, systems require that the data collected includes time spent updating records after the conversation has ended.</p><p>Data sources: Operational Management Information System (OPMIS) and data supplied by outsource partners.</p><p>Please note this information is derived from the Department’s management information designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.</p> answering member constituency Romsey and Southampton North answering member printed Caroline Nokes question first answered 13/09/2016 11:12:17 answering member 4048 label Biography information for Caroline Nokes previous answer version 10037 answering member constituency Romsey and Southampton North answering member printed Caroline Nokes answering member 4048 label Biography information for Caroline Nokes
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens