Centrally, the Department for Work and Pensions does not separately identify complaints from other forms of correspondence. Each of the Department’s agencies and customer facing units has its own complaint handling procedures. The available information for each agency is in the tables.
The information is not indicative of the number of individual complaints as each piece of correspondence, or where appropriate, telephone call, is recorded separately.
The Pension Service was formed in April 2002.
Number 2002-03 6,558 2003-04 38,957 2004-05 28,700 2005-06 29,139 2006-07 20,176 2007-08 (to January 2008) 11,817
Jobcentre Plus was formed in April 2002.
Number 2004-05 34,430 2005-06 33,350 2006-07 43,214 2007-08 (to December 2007) 33,790
The Disability and Carers Service was first formed in 2002 as the Disability and Carers Division; it became an agency in November 2004.
Number January 2002 to March 2002 12,240 April 2002 to March 2003 17,517 April 2003 to March 2004 29,471 April 2004 to March 2005 211,111 April 2005 to March 2006 26,732 April 2006 to March 2007 37,208 April 2007 to December 2007 42,268 1 Total is customer complaints only. 2 Total is of customer complaints, MP complaints and inquiries, and public inquiries to senior officials. 3 Total is customer complaints, MP complaints or inquiries, and public inquiries to senior officials to December 2006. From January 2007, only customer and MP complaints are included. 4 Total is customer and MP complaints only.
The Health and Safety Commission and Executive does not maintain central records of complaints about the organisation
The Child Support Agency was formed in 1993 as an Executive agency of the Department of Social Security; it became an Executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions in June 2001.
1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 Stage 1 complaints received (written)1 27,875 28,073 21,015 19,634 15,493 15,182 24,809 29,213 27,344 21,719 Stage 1 Complaints received (telephone)1 2— 2— 2— 2— 2— 3— 7,458 10,570 10,660 7,560 Chief Executive Complaints 4— 4— 4— 4,096 4,555 7,096 5— 6— 5,887 3,769 Treat Official Complaints7 4— 4— 4— 2,609 2,869 1,344 1,521 1,108 1,278 998 MP Complaints 4— 4— 4— 4,175 4,818 4,537 5,317 8,871 9,729 9,151 1 Changes to how the Agency recorded stage 1 complaints over the years means that comparisons of the number of complaints received are not easily made. The Agency initially operated a two-tier complaints process to deal with escalated complaints. A third tier was introduced in 2003, see notes (5) and (6). In the year ending March 2006, 7,167 stage 1 complaints required escalation to resolve and 4,673 in year ending March 2007. 2 While the Agency did receive stage 1 telephone complaints prior to 2002-03, their volumes were not recorded. 3 Although 671 stage 1 telephone complaints were recorded between December 2002 and March 2003, their volumes were not recorded throughout the whole year, thus preventing meaningful comparison with later years. 4 While the Agency did receive complaints directly to the chief executive, treat official complaints, and MP complaints to business units prior to 2000-01, their volumes were not recorded. 5 During 2003-04, complaints sent directly to the chief executive were not recorded separately from those complaints that were escalated to him as part of the three-stage process. Therefore, although 7,183 complaints in total were received during 2003-04, it is not possible to separate out those complaints received by the chief executive directly (as opposed to those escalated via the complaints process), thus preventing meaningful comparison with data for earlier years. 6 In April and May of 2004, the chief executive received a total of 1,435 complaints, however, is not possible to separate out those complaints received by the chief executive directly, as opposed to those escalated to stage 3 of the complaints process. From June 2004 to March 2005, after which time such complaints were recorded separately, the chief executive received 4,393 direct complaints and 2,549 complaints escalated upwards from stage 2. Again, these recording issues prevent meaningful comparison of this category with earlier years. 7 Treat official letters are those received by a Minister from a member of the public, and referred for initial consideration to an official of the agency.
The Rent Service was formed in October 1999 as an Executive agency of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; the Rent Service became an Executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions in June 2001.
Number October 1999 to March 2000 0 April 2000 to March 2001 0 April 2001 to March 2002 0 April 2002 to March 2003 40 April 2003 to March 2004 59 April 2004 to March 2005 22 April 2005 to March 2006 45 April 2006 to March 2007 90 April 2007 to December 2007 63
The Department’s Debt Management organisation was established in 2001 and became fully operational in February 2006. Information is not available from Debt Management prior to July 2005.
Number of complaints dealt with during initial phone call1 Written complaints cleared Written complaints received July 2005 to March 2006 n/a 1,639 n/a April 2006 to March 2007 2,827 2,936 n/a April 2007 to December 2007 1,449 1,847 1,796 1 The number cleared by phone relate to verbal complaints that were dealt with in the first instance by telephone and where the customer was completely satisfied with the outcome of the telephone call.