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Dept of Social Security;Child Support Agency

Answer

Ms Lynne: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many incoming telephone calls were made to (a) the Child Support Agency centres and (b) the national inquiry line in each month since January 1996. [21466] Mr. Andrew Mitchell: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the chief executive, Miss Ann Chant CB. She will write to the hon. Member. Letter from Miss Ann Chant to Ms Liz Lynne, dated 21 March 1997: I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about the number of incoming telephone calls made to the Child Support Centres and the National Enquiry Line (NEL) since January 1996. The attached table contains the number of incoming calls on a monthly basis from January 1996. From April 1996, the period of time over which information is collected changed; information is now collected and recorded over four-weekly periods instead of calendar months. The attached figures refer to incoming calls offered by BT which represents the total number of incoming calls made. I hope this is helpful. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Date Calls offered to calls handling service by Calls offered to NEL by BT BT January 1996 776,769 57,352 February 1996 518,573 84,553 March 1996 423,383 190,054 Lunar month 1 648,908 49,349 Lunar month 2 639,314 52,564 Lunar month 3 761,822 54,061 Lunar month 4 839,703 61,459 Lunar month 5 950,697 62,532 Lunar month 6 1,426,839 38,419 Lunar month 7 1,527,399 72,332 Lunar month 8 1,342,146 69,171 Lunar month 9 1,774,091 86,995 Lunar month 10 627,359 42,816 Lunar month 11 1,394,469 77,589 Lunar month 12 1,622,542 96,824 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

21466; 292 c1014-5W

Session

1996-97

Subjects

Child Support Agency Standards Telephone services Telephones

Contains statistics

Yes