Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to reduce (a) the time taken to process and (b) resolution times for outstanding Child Maintenance Service complaints; and what the average time is for resolving Child Maintenance Service complaints.

DWP aims to contact customers within 15 working days to clear their complaint or agree how to investigate it if it will take longer.

DWP now triage complaints giving priority to vulnerable claimants who may be at risk, and those with benefit payment issues. We continue to investigate all complaints as quickly as we can and, as part of the triage process, we write or call those customers, where there may be a delay in answering their complaint.

Since 2021, Child Maintenance Service complaints team have seen their response times to complainants steadily improve and are now responding to almost all complaints within the timescale.

The Department does not measure complaints as described in the question and to determine this request, we would need to examine each individual case, which the Department considers to be cost prohibitive to provide.