Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the the effectiveness of the facility on her Department's website for reporting a missing cost of living payment for facilitating (a) communications between her Department and recipients and (b) fast resolution of claims.

We do not have specific measurements of effectiveness in place in relation to the missing payment form on Gov.uk. However, over 161,000 people have contacted the Department through this channel throughout August and September. We have a team in place that has responded to over 90% of these queries to date.

This does not necessarily mean that payments have been missed. Many enquiries made through the GOV.UK form are resolved by payments being subsequently made as planned.

In some cases, on further investigation of an enquiry, it may be found that the claimant had no entitlement to a £326 Cost of Living Payment.