Two deadlines in the same case, and only one is being tracked.
The application arrives and the clock starts on the day of receipt. If an expert assessment is commissioned, a different deadline applies, and notice of this must reach the insured person before the first one expires. Receipt, commissioning and follow-up are handled in three different places in the organisation.
3 weeksstandard deadlineIt starts on the day of receipt, not the day the case is assigned to a case officer.
5 weeksdeadline with assessmentIf the Medical Service is commissioned, the longer deadline applies, and the notice must go out beforehand.
2systemsDate of receipt and commissioning are recorded separately; the calendar follow-up only captures one of them.
1overlooked weekA single unnoticed calendar week turns an open application into an approval.
Because every running deadline is checked daily against both systems, the overlooked week disappears, and with it 60% of missed deadlines.
The 60% reduction in missed deadlines is this agent's headline figure. The two deadline lengths depend on whether an assessment is commissioned; the number of systems involved and the overlooked week describe a typical case in benefits case handling; they are not measurements.