Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of written complaints to her Department’s Debt Management team were answered within 15 working days in (a) August (b) September (c) October and (d) November 2020.

The proportion of written complaints answered by Debt Management within 15 working days for the months requested are set out in the table below:

It is important to note the caseload of people on UC has increased since March from around 3 million to 5.8 million. Deductions were paused at the height of the pandemic and staff from the Debt Management team were redeployed to process claims. Staff have now returned to their roles, and deductions restarted in a phased way from July 2020.

Therefore the number of complaints received by Debt Management increased during this period. This was due to the increased caseload leading to some customers experiencing difficulties when trying to contact Debt Management by telephone.

Debt Management have put steps in place to address this issue. Firstly, a limit to the number of notifications issued has been set to ensure any resulting contact is manageable. Improvements have been made to the messages customers hear when they call; this will ensure they are made aware of any high call volumes and are also directed to the right place, to help reduce the time spent waiting. This includes directing customers to GOV.UK if they want to make a payment by bank transfer. Debt Management are also recruiting more telephony agents. 90 additional agents have now joined Debt Management and are being trained, and a further 100 will join early in the New Year.