[ADVICE] how long does it take for FTB and BB payments to come in?

[peanutter]

we're still waiting

and the last 4 times we've called up, there's been an estimated 90 minute wait!!

DH will try again tomorrow ...

[Jellyfish]

It makes no sense! We are still waiting too...

[~clover~]

Call at 8am. If you call after 9, its usually too busy to get through.

[HotI]

IF you feel like a drive the seymour office is not busy, and were very helpful when i went in.

[~Kim~]

PN mine took 3 months this time ...(better than the 5 it took for DS)

[briggsy's girl]

there are an abnormally high number of arrears claims at the moment - so taking about 5 weeks on average. if there is any additional information required, it can take longer. there are staff that are temporarily helping process baby bonus and ftb claims, but they're not touching PPL due to the higher level of training needed for those claims. there are also baby bonus claims that are more complex and outside of the scope of those staff so are given back to processing teams to look at

there is no point calling at 8am for processing assistance. the processing centres open later than the call centres so they can't get you through to processing staff at that stage. staff in the local offices can't help either - all they can do is put through a request for the application to be looked at - and there are hundreds of those requests daily, it really doesnt speed up the process.... if you can call up the call centre, they can look at the notes on your file to see if anything is missing. if they look and everything is there (they can check if the paperwork is received and make sure it's all completed properly, see any requests for further info etc) - they will be able to put you across to processing staff to discuss getting it processed asap. this only happens after it's been on file for over five weeks though (which appears to be the case for PN and jellyfish).