Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's claimant service and experience survey 2017 to 2018, what steps her Department is taking to improve universal credit claimant satisfaction rates.

The Department’s claimant service and experience survey 2017/18 showed that 80 per cent of claimants are satisfied with Universal Credit. However, the Department is committed to ensuring that we provide the best experience possible for all claimants on Universal Credit, and is continuously learning and adapting to improve the service we offer our claimants.

Since this survey concluded in May 2018, we have already introduced a number of improvements, such as:

• a new approach where established claimants who call the Universal Credit helpline are connected directly to the person or team who are dealing with their case;
• improving our online system to allow claimants to upload their self-employed earnings, verify their childcare costs and apply for advances;
• a service for claimants who are not able to interact with us through an online account which can remain in place throughout the claim or for a specific period of time;
• locally developed plans to ensure that we can support claimants who have more complex needs;
• delivering Mental Health Training nationally to our Work Coaches and by March 2020 all of our customer facing colleagues across all areas of DWP.