Response times for individual enquiries

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
Please advise what targets and measurements are in place regarding the DWP’s response times to individual enquiries from members of the public about their pension entitlements.
Specifically I wish to know:-
1) If you have a target response time for responding to written enquiries. If so, what is it and what was your average response time for the most recent full year for which information is available? What was it for the corresponding previous two years?
2) If a query is likely to take longer than your standard response time, do you have a formal documented procedure to ensure that the enquirer is contacted advising the reason for the delay and providing an estimated response date?
3) What is the target response time for your Complaint and Correspondence Review Team to respond to a complaint &/or to acknowledge that a submitted complaint is being dealt with?
4) The Independent Complaints Examiner will only act when the complainant has received a final response from the DWP that explains that he/she can bring his/her complaint to them. If you neglect to progress a complaint &/or do not issue such a letter, please advise what procedural recourse is left to the complainant and with whom and how any problems can be resolved.

Yours faithfully,

N.Siddle

Dear Operations FOI Requests,
Thank you for this response. Whilst it should be reassuring to know that you have these targets (both for enquiries to the DWP and to the complaints team), they are pointless unless there is monitoring against them.
Please advise how you assess performance against targets that are not monitored.

You should also be aware that letters to both yourselves and the Complaints Team are going unacknowledged and unanswered, over a period of months, rather than days. These have already been reported to you.

I would also make the point that inviting someone to 'contact me' as you do in your response about any enquiries is pretty bad nmanners if you then do not give your name.

Yours sincerely,

N.Siddle

Dear Operations FOI Requests,
Your response is only what I have come to expect, but clearly demonstrates a dysfunctional organisation. To take each point in turn:-
a) Having 'targets' against which no monitoring takes place simply means that they are not, in reality, 'targets'. If you do, in fact, monitor in some other way (I note your careful use of the phrase 'but we do not collate information centrally' which perhaps implies that you collate by sub-section) then please advise me or point me to where I may read the procedure which describes this activity. I assume that there will be a written procedure and that it will not be inordinately expensive to provide a copy.
b) You say that you are working to avoid delays in answering correspondence happening in future. Given the 4 months that it took for a first (and unsatisfactory) response to our enquiry (despite monthly promptings), I would like to understand what actual steps are being taken to ensure that correspondence received cannot simply be ignored. Please advise me.
c) I am fully aware of your Data protection obligations towards junior staff. I rather assumed that someone with the title "Pension Manager" would not be classified as a 'junior' member of staff. IF a junior member of staff is sending out correspondence on behalf of the Department Manager, then it should be 'pp'd'. - As it stands, it simply seems that no-one is prepared to take responsibility for giving definitive answers.
d) The fact that I have a Proof of Delivery for a letter that you have advised 'is not in our system and has not been sent or scanned to us' just further reinforces the impression of a Department in meltdown.

I would be grateful if you would further review points (a) & (b) above and provide a response. I make points (c) & (d) as observations only and do not require you to respond to them.

Yours sincerely,

N.Siddle