Table of Contents
- The benchmark for good performance is 85% customer satisfaction
- In 2023-24, people spent 753 years waiting for the DWP to respond to their calls
State Pension: High level of satisfaction with DWP customer service reported for 2022-23
The vast majority of people who contact the Government about their state pensions are satisfied with the customer service they receive, an official report has found.
Dealing with state pension issues is an area of ”strong performance” for the Department for Work and Pensions, he says.
Around 93 percent of state pension customers were satisfied in 2022-23.
And the level of positive feedback remains consistently above the DWP’s benchmark of 85 per cent, according to the National Audit Office report published today.
However, it found the DWP had failed to meet the proportion of new benefit claims processed on time.
The success rate was 72 percent in 2023-24, down from 77 percent in the year before the pandemic.
The government’s official monetary watchdog also notes that 52 per cent of new applications for Personal Independence Payments (which are made by people with long-term mental or physical health conditions) were processed on time in 2023-24.
The NAO compared this with 96 per cent of new state pension claims being paid on time in the same period.
This contradicts the experiences of This is Money readers, several of whom have complained to us about frustrating delays in their state pension payments when they turn 66.
Complaints about this issue have continued to come in and our investigation is ongoing; details on how to contact us are below.
The DWP has also been under fire in recent years over state pension underpayment scandals, a secret computer glitch that affected the state pension records of up to ten million Universal Credit claimants and lengthy delays in processing state pension top-up payments.
In the messages This is Money receives from readers contacting the DWP about their state pension, complaints that come up again and again are long waits for calls to be answered, staff unable to deal with problems, empty promises, problems will escalate and being referred from one department to another – none of which will help.
Regarding phone calls, the NAO found that since 2020-21, DWP’s internal phone lines have not met its performance standard, although its subcontracted providers have performed better.
“Unanswered calls and long waiting times are a source of frustration and stress for customers, and are costly in terms of time spent on the line,” says the NAO.
He added: “We estimate that by 2023-24 DWP customers will have spent the equivalent of 753 years waiting for their calls to be answered.”
Other findings from the NAO report include:
– The DWP has provided little information about the level of service customers can expect, although it has been improving its mechanisms for monitoring customer service;
– Since 2020-21, it has fallen slightly short of its benchmark for good performance, which is 85 percent of customers being satisfied with the service received;
– Payment accuracy has declined, and while payment timeliness improved during the pandemic, it has declined since then.
The NAO says: ‘The DWP has a responsibility to provide good customer service, particularly as its customers cannot switch to an alternative social care provider if they are unhappy with the service they receive.
‘Their clients include some of the most vulnerable in society, who rely on the DWP for accurate and timely payment of the benefits to which they are entitled.’
It continues: ‘In the face of increasing demand and a challenging operating environment, DWP’s customer service has fallen short of expected standards in recent years, particularly for certain benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
‘Overall, it is not meeting its performance parameters or its standards for customer satisfaction, timeliness of payments and response to calls to its internal telephone lines.’
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