[holding answer 25 April 2008]: The administration of the Child Support Agency is the matter for the chief executive. He will write to the hon. Member with the information requested.
Letter from Susan Park, dated 13 May 2008:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive. As the Chief Executive is currently on annual leave, I am responding, with his authority, on his behalf.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of telephone calls to the Child Support Agency offices in (a) Liverpool (b) Birkenhead (c) Dudley (d) Belfast (e) Falkirk (f) Plymouth and (g) Hastings was in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [201563]
Such information as is available is included in the attached tables. The tables show the average length of call and the average speed to answer the call by Agency office. Information on telephone calls to Agency offices prior to April 2006 is not available.
Further information on the Agency's telephony performance is available in Table 16 of the Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics, a copy of which can be found in the House of Commons library or on the internet at the following link:
www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/child_support/csa_quarterly_mar08.asp
The Agency has shown significant and sustained improvement in telephony performance under the Operational Improvement Plan. In the year ending March 2008, the Agency received 5,369,000 calls from clients and answered 98% of calls available to be answered, with an average waiting time of twenty seconds.
2006-07 Centre Call duration Time to answer Belfast 03:35 00:34 Birkenhead 04:17 00:28 Dudley 04:00 00:30 Falkirk 04:34 00:27 Hastings 04:20 00:35 Plymouth 04:14 00:31 Liverpool 02:39 00:14
Centre Call duration Time to answer Belfast 03:36 00:22 Birkenhead 04:07 00:24 Dudley 03:52 00:20 Falkirk 04:20 00:23 Hastings 04:32 00:23 Plymouth 04:01 00:23 Liverpool 02:19 00:12 Notes: 1. Information includes old system (CSCS) and new system (CS2) calls. 2. Average length of call by office is not available prior to April 2006. 3. Average length of call includes inbound talk time and time on hold. 4. Time to answer starts once the call enters a queue and is awaiting a response by a member of staff. New system (CS2) calls enter a queue once the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) process is complete. IVR refers to the automated touch tone part of the process where customers enter their details via the telephone key pad. Once callers have cleared this part of the process, they enter a queue to be answered by a member of staff. There is no IVR process on the old system.