DWP How long to access records from storage?

frank96

In an ongoing battle for SDP back-dating with ESA. After 4 months of weekly phonecalls and a lot of enquiry line staff telling me lies in order to get me off the phone I was told by a manager I had to send over historic tennancy agreements. I did so recorded delivery and a week later went though another escalation and the lady I spoke to put me on hold, said she had spoken to Belfast and they have received my letters and are processing my claim for SDP now and will be done by this afternoon. "The funds will appear in your bank before the letter arrives telling you how much there's no need to call us back again.".... 5 days later nothing in the bank so I called up and the last note on the system supposedly says they need to access my records in storage?? Why tell me I'm getting paid this week unless they know for certain? Is there some file on me in a storage facility somewhere? And how long should I roughly expect to wait for them to be posted through to benefits centre Belfast?

janer1967

Hi @frank96 This must be really frustrating for you.

Its anyone's guess how long it can take it depends on a lot of factors like staffing levels, how easy it is to access storage, and find what they are looking for, the priority just to mention a few.

I hope you get it resolved soon

frank96

Thanks for the response. From the way they worded it to me over the phone was as though they had to ask permission from some other department to access the records. The claim is only from 2014 Lord knows why it's not just stored in their current computer database. Wish I could go there myself and get the files and take them to Belfast haha

mikehughescq

Depends how far back you’re going and what specifically they’re looking for. The fact they’re going via Belfast suggests it’s paper not computer. There could be multiple elements to this e.g. checking your ESA entitlement has been continuous; checking no-one got CA as your carer and so on.