‘Significant increase’ in the number of calls to DWP Debt Management in November 2020 led to more than 50,000 calls per day being blocked

DWP Minister also confirms that, even where callers were able to get through, more than one in five went unanswered

A 'significant increase' in the number of calls to DWP debt management in November 2020 led to more than 50,000 calls per day being blocked, Work and Pensions Minister Will Quince has confirmed.

Responding to a written question in the House of Commons yesterday about the proportion of calls to the Department's Debt Management team that were answered between August and November 2020, Mr Quince said that the figure varied between 71 per cent and 80 per cent over the four-month period.

However, he went on to clarify that - 

'The Debt Management queueing system allows only so many calls into the telephony system, matching volumes to the number of telephony agents available. The percentage of calls answered therefore underestimates the number of attempted calls.

There were, however, large numbers of callers who could not make it into the system and are therefore not included in the proportion of calls answered.'

Noting that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic led to an increase in the universal credit caseload from around 3 million to 5.8 million, Mr Quince also advised that, due to the automated nature of the system used by Debt Management to manage customer accounts, November 2020 saw a large increase in the volume of notifications issued causing a 'significant increase' in the number of customers attempting to contact the service, starting on 20 November 2020. As a result, at the height of the issue, an average of more than 51,000 calls were blocked each day.

In order to address the problem, Mr Quince continued, DWP Debt Management have put a number of steps in place - 

'A limit to the number of notifications issued has been set to ensure the resulting contact is manageable. Improvements have been made to the messages customers hear when they call; this will ensure they are made aware of any high call volumes and are also directed to the right place, to help reduce the time spent waiting. This includes directing customers to gov.uk if they want to make a payment by bank transfer. Debt Management are also recruiting more telephony agents - 90 additional agents have now joined Debt Management and are being trained, and a further 100 will join early in the New Year.'

Mr Quince's written answer is available from parliament.uk