To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the (a) response time by work coaches to people who have submitted entries on their online universal credit journal, and (b) call waiting time for people seeking support with a universal credit claim from her Department’s helpline; and if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of those waiting times.
Answered on
23 February 2022
Universal Credit is a 24/7 digital service that allows claimants to manage their own data and account online. Via their account, claimants can check their Universal Credit benefit payments, notify us of changes and record notes on the online journal facility. The journal is primarily used to support work search activity and not every journal entry requires a response.
The Case Manager or Work Coach receives a notification in real time each time a claimant submits an entry to their online journal. Journal entries are monitored daily as part of our case management approach.
The Universal Credit helpline is available to support claimants who are unable to access digital services. We regularly review our resources, both internally and with our suppliers, to ensure we meet customer demand across all contact services, including our phone lines.
Average Speed of Answer measures the average customer wait time from the point of entering a queue to connection to an agent. The Average Speed of Answer for all Universal Credit Service Lines for January 2022 was 33 seconds.
Note: The data is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.