Universal Credit: Telephone Services – Parliamentary Written Answer

Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many calls have been made to the Universal Credit 03456000723 number to date; what the average duration is of such calls; what the average cost is of each call; and how much revenue in total has been generated by these calls.

Priti Patel: To date, 2.2million calls have been answered by Universal Credit agents. The average call duration is 07:29 minutes. This information includes calls to the 0345 number and to the 0845 number it replaced. Calls to 0345 numbers are charged to the customer at the same rate as a call to a standard local or national geographic number. The cost is dependent on the customer’s tariff and will be taken from inclusive bundled call minutes where applicable. Information about call charges are available at the following link https://www.gov.uk/call-charges. The Department generates no revenue from these calls and is unable to comment on revenue generated by other parties.

IDS Goes After Benefit Fraudsters, But What About These 3 Bigger Costs To The Taxpayer?

Iain Duncan Smith's DWP has launched a new advertising campaign encouraging people to phone a hotline if they suspect somebody they know is fraudulently claiming benefits. The government estimates that £1.1 billion is lost a year due to benefit fraud. However, there are three other issues that, from the government's own figures, are bigger problems;

·         The tax gap, charting the estimated amount of taxes unpaid thanks to evasion, avoidance, error and criminality, soared to £34 billion

·         £1.4 billion in benefit overpayments, an increase of nearly 6%

·         Unclaimed tax credits, with childless families missing out on £2.3 billion worth.

Read more on the Huffington Post website.

Hotline Launch Will Help Charity to Find Homeless

A homelessness charity is encouraging members of the public to call with information on rough sleepers after identifying a surge in the number of people on the streets. Nottingham-based Framework has set up the ‘hotline’, which it also hopes rough sleepers will use to call for help, after its monthly headcount found the number of rough sleepers on its patch had risen from 3 to 19 over the past year. If the charity receives a call identifying a potential rough sleeper it will assign a member of its street outreach team to find the person and offer them support and advice. Read more on the Nottingham Post website.