Job centre phone fiasco sign of Government's 3rd term fatigue - Burt.

5.53.27pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 25th Nov 2005

Commenting on the BBC report that the Job Centre Plus phone system failed to process one million calls in six months, Lorely Burt, MP for Solihull said: "That's probably just over 1500 calls missed just from people calling in Solihull in the last 6 months. Put it another way, that's over 50 calls a week from Solihull from claimants that may be falling down a black hole."

"Benefit claimants, including people who've just become unemployed, are finding it increasingly difficult to get their claims processed" explained Mrs Burt. "It is simply unacceptable that people who are dealing with the problems of unemployment have to wait 5 or 6 weeks to receive their benefits."

"The Department for Work and Pensions should put a hold on job cuts in this area until benefits processing times are back down to their targets." the Liberal Democrat MP added.