Mail handling and coding error.

The request was successful.

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

In the High Court case of R on the application of Connor v DWP [2020] EWHC 1999 (Admin) the Department admitted that an error resulted in Mr Connor’s request for reconsideration being classified as “unstructured whitemail” and being left unaddressed for 4 months.

The Department has outsourced its mail handling and therefore it is likely that the coding error described above occurred at one of its outsourced mail handling facilities or by a DWP member of staff further along the process.

The Department must hold guidance for its contractors and/or own staff about how information received from claimants is classified to enable it to be sent to the relevant part of the organisation.

Please disclose the guidance that is used by The Department's mail handling contractors and/or its own employees to classify mail that is sent to the Department.

Yours faithfully,

Anita Bellows

DWP freedom-of-information-requests, Department for Work and Pensions

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Dear Anita Bellows,

I am writing in response to your request for information, received 28th
July.

Yours sincerely,

DWP Central FoI Team