Manchester
Manchester Disability Benefits Centre (DBC) provides access to Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance and Carer's Allowance for disabled people and carers in the Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire areas.
It provides an outreach service to customer representative organisations and other DWP agencies to increase awareness of DCS services and establish communication links.
The DBC Customer Service Team is responsible for dealing with customer feedback, compliments, recommendations about our service and complaints. We also provide a forms completion service, by telephone and home visit, to assist customers in completing DLA and AA applications.
Contact Manchester DBC
If you need further information about outreach events or have comments on the service Manchester DBC provides, please contact:
Customer Service Manager: Ross Percival
Manchester Disability Benefits Centre
PO Box 32
Preston
PR11 2BB
Tel: 0161 831 2048
Email: manchesterdbc.customerserviceteam@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Events
Future events will be published when arranged.
| Date | Location | Event | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
08/11/08 |
Epilepsy Action |
Advice and information day for parents of children with epilepsy |
Information stand All welcome 10.00am to 2.00pm |
11/11/08 |
Mental Health Today exhibition |
Exhibition with information for disabled people carers and support organisations |
Information stand 9.30am to 4.15pm |
12/11/08 |
Royal School for the Deaf |
Benefit awareness day for parents of children attending the school |
Information session and Q & A 10.00am to 11.00am Closed event parents only |
13/11/08 |
Manchester PCT Chronic Fatigue Syndrome team |
Benefit awareness session for City Council staff |
Closed event 11.30am |
20/11/08 |
“Kidz Up North” event |
Annual exhibition for disabled children parents carers and support organisations |
Open event All welcome 9.00am to 5.00pm |
24/11/08 |
Stroke Association/POPPS |
Information and benefit awareness for new stroke patients and carers |
Closed event 11.00am |
27/11/08 |
Manchester Royal Infirmary |
Benefit awareness for new COPD patients |
Closed event |
News
Our 8th Open Day went well – we invited a dozen guests from various disability support organisations, such as Age concern and the Asian Carers Centre into our office. We offered a tour of the building, to offer greater understanding of how we award and administer Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance for a geographical area containing a population of several million people. The topic for this event was the needs of BME communities.
We also gave benefit advice about the Job Centre Plus initiative “Pathways to Work” and the benefit Carer’s Allowance. An update of recent, forthcoming and possible future changes in DLA and AA was followed by a chance to talk directly with decision makers – the people who decide on benefit claims.
The day went very well and evaluation has fully supported the work we do in raising awareness of DCS benefits and services.Outreach update
The visual impairment charity action for blind people is bringing its information bus to the North West during October and November. It will be visiting Bolton, Newton Heath, Wythenshawe, Old Trafford, Sale, Timperley, Walkden and Salford during this time. The bus carries information and aids for people with visual impairment. Manchester DBC will also be giving out benefit advice at some of these venues. For more details, visit the AFBP website.
Performance information
Claim clearance
The National Audit Office has agreed national targets for the clearance of all claims for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA). The table below shows:
- national achievements last year – 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007
- national targets for this year – 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008
- national achievements so far this year
- local achievements last year
- local achievements so far this year.
All the information is in working days. All the achieved so far figures are for the complete year 1 April 2008 to 30 September 2008.
| Type of application | National | Local | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Achieved last year | Target this year | Achieved so far this year | Achieved last year | Achieved so far this year | |
| DLA new claim | 36 | 38 | 29.8 | 32.9 | 27.8 |
| AA new claim | 15.2 | 16 | 12.8 | 11.8 | 9.6 |
Complaints
If a customer complains because they are not satisfied with our service, our target for replying to the complaint is seven working days.
For the period from 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007 the table shows:
- the number of complaints we received
- the number answered within the agreed time. This may include answers to complaints received before 1 April 2007.
| National | Local | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Complaints received | Answered within target | Complaints received | Answered within target |
| 3701 | 3467 | 57 | 52 |
The top complaints in this DBC last year were:
- Process and procedures
- Correspondence and forms
- Medical evidence
Compliments
When a customer is happy with our service they sometimes let us know.
This DBC received 68 compliments last year.
Comments
To comment on the information provided on this page, please email: external.communications@dwp.gsi.gov.uk