Pensions: Call Centres

Danny Alexander
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of calls to the pension application hotline (a) were answered, (b) received an engaged tone and (c) went unanswered in the last period for which figures are available.

James Purnell
The Pension Service has two contact centres responsible for taking applications over the telephone. The pension credit application line takes applications for pension credit, and applications for state pension are taken by the Retirement Pension Teleclaim centre.

The latest period for which figures are available for the pension credit application line (PCAL) and for the Retirement Pension Teleclaim Centre (RPTC) is 1 February 2007 to 28 February 2007. A call receiving  an engaged tone does not reach the centre and is not therefore available to be answered. A call cannot be answered until it reaches the advisor queue, the percentages quoted are in relation to the calls available to be answered. The information is contained in the following table

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|1 to 28 February 2007|Percentage of calls which received an engaged tone (these calls did not reach the centre) (b)|Percentage of calls available to be answered which were answered (a)|Percentage of calls available to be answered which were abandoned by the customer ( c)|
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|PCAL                 |0.3                                                                                          |98.8                                                                |1.2                                                                                   |
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|RPTC                 |0.0                                                                                          |99.9                                                                |0.1                                                                                   |
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