§ Mr. WillettsTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many calls were made to the Pension Credit Helpline in each month since April, broken down by(a) calls classed as engaged, (b) calls answered within periods of 20 seconds and (c) length of calls in periods of 10 minutes. [146041]
§ Malcolm WicksThe available information is shown in the table.
Calls to pension credit application line—April to December 2003 Calls received by application line Calls receiving engaged tone or recorded message Calls answered within 30 seconds Average call duration(minutes: seconds) 2003 April 20,810 0 17,680 12:15 May 32,750 10 32,730 12:03 June 60,240 1,790 57,730 14:05 July 118,220 3,050 112,010 13:09 August 181,860 7,250 177,340 15:19 September 427,900 18,540 352,280 11:27 October 482,780 2,850 429,950 09:35 November 318,280 990 302,400 08:56 December 193,900 30 183,650 08:28 Notes:
1. Numbers of calls are rounded to the nearest 10.
835W2.The number of calls receiving the engaged tone or a recorded message was unusually high in September due to technical problems with the telephony at one particular site. The number of calls affected by these problems cannot be separated out.
3.The number of calls received is a measure of the total number of calls from customers made to the application line number 0800 99 1234. The number of calls answered within 30 seconds is a measure of all calls answered in application line sites and excludes any calls abandoned by the customer.