DBC public enquiry counter service

DWP has announced that it intends to close the public enquiry counter service at the 5 DBCs that still offer the service -

‘I am writing to tell you about our plans for the public enquiry counter service at some Disability Benefits Centre (DBC) which we intend to close by 31 March 2012.

When Disability Living Allowance (DLA) was originally introduced, face to face delivery was not intended to be part of the delivery.

We have twelve Disability Benefit Centres serving customers across the country, and only five locations which provide a counter service. As a result we do not provide equal access for all our customers across the UK. 

These sites are:

•  Bootle
•  Cardiff
•  Leeds    
•  Midlands (Birmingham) DBC        
•  Blackpool (5 geographic units on Warbreck Hill campus site) 

The centres that do offer the counter service deal with a large geographical spread of customers and only a small percentage of their customers are able to access the counter service. 90% of our customers do not live within reasonable travel of our counters.

The average monthly live load of Disability customers is 202,982 of which only 0.2% chooses this method of contact, which equates to 356 callers per month. This results in a very unequal service, dependent on where the customer lives and the cost of dealing with this small number of enquiries is disproportionate.

Analysis shows that other existing methods of contact offer a more convenient alternative for conducting all the business currently handled through customer visits to the counter service, with our Helpline being the most likely alternative form of contact for these customers.  Helpline currently deal with 413,230 calls per month and offers an excellent service with over 94% being answered inside 30 seconds.
 
We will continue to support the most vulnerable customers, those requiring face to face contact, through visits by Local Service staff to the customer’s home or another suitable location.

Our priority is to maintain our good standard of customer service and I would like to reassure you that these changes can be implemented without disruption to the services we provide to our customers or risk to our performance and priorities for the future.’

Merry Xmas, Tiny Tim.