3 hours?

I rang the DWP this morning, and they told me that they would ring back within 3 hours, which they have not.

Are they under an obligation to do so, or not?

Lyn wrote:

I rang the DWP this morning, and they told me that they would ring back within 3 hours, which they have not.

Are they under an obligation to do so, or not?

Hi,

Yes, the DWP department in question should ring the claimant back within the relevant timescale.

However the situation of either claimants not been rang back within the stated time, or not being rang back at all seems to be becoming more and more prevalent. The cause would appear to be down to staffing issues and the large number of enquiries and ring back requests being received by the DWP.

All I can really advise is to make a full note of the date, time etc that you rang and the name of the person to whom you spoke and if possible their location during the initial phone calls to the DWP. It may also be an idea put your query in writing to the DWP and sent via recorded/special delivery.

Should this situation frequently recur you are entitled to make a formal complaint to the DWP regarding their lack of service, enclosing such as an itemised phone bill evidencing the time, date and cost of the phone calls made. I know in my 'day job' we have recently been quite successful in obtaining for our clients Consolatory Payments from the DWP where it is evidenced that such problems have repeatedly occurred and the claimant has incurred extra costs in either having to repeatedly write to, or ring the DWP with the DWP failing to respond to letters within a reasonable time scale or repeatedly failing to ring claimants back within the allocated time frame.

Details of how to complain are from the following DWP web page:

www.dwp.gov.uk/contact-us/complaints-and-appeals/

Informing your MP of repeated problems may also help to resolve the matter more speedily as well.

Pete