Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many new enquiries her Department's MP Urgent Enquiries inbox handled in each month in from January 2021 to May 2022; what steps her Department is taking to manage the (a) performance and (b) case management of those teams; what steps she is taking to oversee the performance of the Urgent Enquiry inbox; and if she will make a statement.

DWP does not operate a single inbox dedicated to urgent enquiries from MPs.

We offer a range of ways for MPs to contact DWP, with some product lines operating dedicated email addresses where MPs can contact us. This is in addition to dedicated telephone hotlines for MPs within Disability Services, Retirement Services and Child Maintenance. MPs can also contact the Ministerial Correspondence Team by email, telephone or in writing.

We also triage incoming correspondence to identify urgent queries, so we can take action to address these issues quickly and support our customers.

We recognise the importance of MP enquiries and the important role MPs play in supporting their constituents. Information about how MPs and their staff can best contact us is published on the Parliamentary website and this information is regularly updated. Individual product lines also conduct regular engagement with MPs, including bespoke sessions with MPs and their support teams.

Information relating to the numbers of enquiries received by the DWP email addresses which receive MP contact is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Emails received from MPs about operational issues are managed as part of DWP’s correspondence teams. We closely monitor the performance of these teams and regularly review the resource allocated to this work and where process improvements can be made.