Delivering effective services through contact centres : Department for Work and Pensions, fifty-third report of session 2005-06, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) delivers benefits, pensions and employment services to 28 million customers in Britain.

Departmental agencies are increasingly using contact centres to provide customer services (usually by phone, but also in some cases by fax, email or post), and during the 2004-05 period the DWP spent GBP 190 million on running contact centres.

Following on from the NAO report "Delivering Effective Services Through Contact Centres" published in March 2006 (available below), the Committee has examined the cost-effectiveness, accessibility and quality of customer services provided by 62 contact centres operated by Jobcentre Plus, the Pension Service and the Disability and Carers Service.

Between them, the centres answered more than 33 million incoming calls, made 7 million outgoing calls, handled 300,000 e-mails, 30,000 faxes and 4 million letters. Findings include: during 2004-05 only 56 per cent of calls were answered, and although there have been subsequent improvements in the rate of call answering, it is not yet clear whether these improvements will be sustained in the long term; the telephone is not a convenient means of contact for everyone and should not be the only option available to customers - there are also problems in the confusion caused by the plethora of telephone numbers which exist; however, surveys show a high level of customer satisfaction with service provision when calls are answered, and contact centres can offer a valuable service which helps customers to overcome the complexity of the benefits system.