Child Maintenance Service: Complaints
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average response time was for complaints submitted to the Child Maintenance Service in the last 12 months; what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Independent Case Examiner process for complaints relating to the Child Maintenance Service; and whether he plans to review the Child Maintenance Service complaints process.
Answered by Department for Work and Pensions
The Department aims to respond to complaints within 15 working days or, where a case will take longer than 15 days to respond to, set a resolution plan with the customer where cases are complex and may take longer. A resolution plan is a clear outline of how we will address and resolve a complaint. It sets out what actions will be taken, who is responsible, and the expected timescales for completing these actions.
Complaints about the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) are handled in line with the Department's complaints process. The Department keeps its processes under continual review and continues to improve the customer experience through wider service modernisation and quality improvement activity. As part of CMS’s ambition to continuously improve the service provided to customers, they will look for and action improvements to processes including complaints as part of the normal activities.
The Department recognises the important role of the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) in providing an independent review of complaints where customers remain dissatisfied after exhausting the Department's complaints process. The CMS works closely with ICE and considers the findings and recommendations arising from its investigations to identify opportunities for service improvement and to enhance the service provided to customers.
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