CCM12170 - Opening and Working Enquiries: Method of obtaining information

You may sometimes consider that you can more conveniently obtain the information you need at a meeting with the claimant(s) or over the telephone. If you are carrying out a full enquiry, you are likely to need a meeting with the claimant(s) at some point. You should use your judgement in deciding whether to obtain some or all of the information before the meeting, or to ask for the claimant(s) to make it available to you at the meeting. You should only obtain the information over the telephone if the information you need is fairly limited and straightforward - this approach will be particularly suited to discrepancy enquiries and is not appropriate to full enquiries.

Whatever approach you adopt, remember that you must always issue a formal written notice of the enquiry to the claimant (or both of the claimants) at the outset of the enquiry. And if you are unable to obtain the information over the telephone or in person, you will have to follow up your original request in writing. In these circumstances you should always write to the claimant(s) informally requesting the information, and only issue a formal information notice if the information is not produced by the time specified.

When you write to a claimant asking them to attend a meeting you should enclose a copy of fact sheet WTC/FS4 that tells the claimant what to expect. If a claimant asks for a meeting you should still issue fact sheet WTC/FS4 if there is sufficient time for them to receive this before the meeting.