Universal Credit: Telephone Services
(asked on 11th December 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many calls made to the universal credit helpline in each month from September 2016 to date were abandoned.
The numbers of calls received and abandoned are set out in the table below.
| Calls received | Of which, calls abandoned |
September 2016 | 752931 | 107647 |
October 2016 | 672617 | 74729 |
November 2016 | 707690 | 91348 |
December 2016 | 607582 | 60856 |
January 2017 | 860875 | 105893 |
February 2017 | 779433 | 102557 |
March 2017 | 894979 | 84618 |
April 2017 | 692843 | 51493 |
May 2017 | 751837 | 55915 |
June 2017 | 763052 | 96626 |
July 2017 | 754367 | 99094 |
August 2017 | 790936 | 124427 |
September 2017 | 780989 | 121939 |
October 2017 | 849779 | 123556 |
The ratio of calls relative to caseload has fallen from 1.8 calls relative to caseload in September 2016 to 1.3 calls per case in October 2017. That reflects our success in encouraging claimants to deal with us on-line. The numbers of calls abandoned reflects that also claimants call and realise, through our messaging that they can deal with their enquiry on-line and do not need to continue with their call.