Guidance

Bulk Letter Forwarding service: guidance

Updated 8 November 2023

1. About the Bulk Letter Forwarding service

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) provides a tracing and pre-paid letter forwarding service for pension and insurance companies and solicitors who wish to forward beneficial information to customers, usually about pensions or insurance policies.

We cannot forward letters on behalf of Debt Collection Agencies, Commercial Tracing Agencies or in respect of matrimonial and divorce matters. We also carry out work on behalf of charitable organisations seeking to trace lost family members.

Every effort must have been made to trace the person concerned before asking us to forward any letters.

The charge for a trace is £4.26 (£3.55 + VAT of £0.71). Payments for our services should be made at the time of your application by Bankers’ Automated Clearing System (BACS) payable to the Department for Work and Pensions. Cheque payments cannot be accepted.

DWP will not disclose information to the letter sender about any individual and we have the right to refuse applications or stop processing requests at any time. It is also up to the person contacted to reply, not DWP.

We are unable to accept trace requests via email. Our email address should be used for enquiries only.

2. Complete the relevant forms

Completion of the form BLF1015 is required to request up to a maximum of 6 traces per form. It is a 2-part form that must be completed in full and on separate pages, as one copy is retained by DWP.

A copy of the BLF1015 and an example of a completed version are available to help you:

• Request a bulk reply for multiple queries – BLF1015

• Request a bulk reply multiple queries – BLF1015: Visual aid

The BLF1015 Disclaimer form asks you to create a unique reference so you can identify the person when the form is returned to you on completion.

This unique reference must not contain any National Insurance numbers or dates of birth.

Complete the form with as much detail as possible using font size 12. It is in your own interest to provide as much information as possible on the DWP copy so that we can accurately trace the person. The DWP copy may contain the National Insurance number and date of birth.

Ensure that both parts of the BLF1015 contain your company name and contact details.

Please refrain from sending in your own version of the form, we are unable to accept alternative versions of the BLF1015.

3. Attaching your letter

The letter that you want us to forward should only ask the recipient to get in touch with you, see the sample letter. It must not contain any other items such as pension statements, cheques, reply dates, monetary values, or information such as last known address, National Insurance numbers or dates of birth.

Your letter should be addressed to the specific individual concerned, for example ‘Dear [name]’. In the case of joint policy holders, requests should be made on an individual basis for each person within the policy – Including individual payments for each policy holder.

Correspondence to persons under the age 16 should be addressed to the parent or guardian.

Each letter should be attached to the relevant BLF1015. Failure to attach the letter to the correct form may result in your work being returned.

We need to check the content of the letter that you want us to forward. There is no need to place your letter in an envelope as we will provide envelopes as well as postage.

If you wish to enclose a reply envelope, these must be attached to each individual letter. Please note that any unattached reply envelopes will not be included with any letters which are forwarded.

Requests in excess of 2000 items per week per company will need to have our prior approval. A covering letter or email should be provided, briefly stating why you need to use this service.

4. Boxes of work

If there is more than one box of work, all boxes must be sequentially numbered, sent together, and the covering letter and payment should be enclosed inside the first box on top of the work.

Each box must not exceed 8 kilograms.

Delivery by your own couriers can only be accepted between 8am and 4:30pm, Monday to Friday.

Contact the Bulk Letter Forwarding team if you are using the courier service. They will provide the address of where to send work.

5. The department’s responsibility

We cannot provide you with any information about the person you wish to find. All details held by us are confidential.

By obtaining a copy of the death certificate from Certificate Services (telephone: 0300 123 1837) you may be able to obtain details of a potential next of kin from the information contained on the death certificate.

For example, the person notifying the death may know or be the next of kin. Please note that neither Letter Forwarding nor Certificate Services know or can provide the details of next of kin.

To assist you in requesting a copy of a death certificate, we will provide you with either a verified date of death (death certificate has been seen), or a non-verified date of death (date notified but death certificate not seen.) and the first part of the traced address postcode.

Despite taking care in tracing we can never be absolutely certain that the person we have traced is the customer that you wish to contact.

Our covering letter to the customer advises them that if they are not the person that you are looking for the letter should be returned to us.

Any letters returned by the Post Office as ‘Gone Away’ or ‘Dead Letter Office’ will subsequently be returned to you.

We cannot be responsible for any item lost whilst carrying out the service.

When we receive an item for forwarding, it cannot be retrieved until the action is complete.

If we find that the service is misused in any way, no further requests for the forwarding service will be accepted from you.

We may request sight of your company’s data protection registration to ensure compliance with the law. Copies of our registration are available on request.

The department reserves the right to withdraw the service at any time.

6. Send the letter to the Bulk Letter Forwarding service

Ensure that payment for the full cost of the Bulk Letter Forwarding service is sent by BACS when you send in your BLF1015 form or forms.

Address all correspondence and work to:

Bulk Letter Forwarding Service
Mail Handling Site A
Wolverhampton
WV98 2DU

7. Payment of invoices through BACS

Payment for the letter forwarding service should be made through BACS using the following bank details.

Bank: National Westminster Bank PLC (part of RBS Group)
Account name: DWP RM Central Account
Account number: 10027459 (Jobcentre Plus Number 1 Account)
Sort code: 60-70-80

We will also require a remittance slip to be enclosed with the relevant trace requests reflecting the following mandatory information:

• a contact name, direct email and phone contact in case of queries
• your company name and address
• the name of the pension scheme
• the total amount to be credited
• the total amount of traces
• the date the monies will be credited to our bank account
• a unique reference number applicable to the BACS payment (this reference should also be quoted to the bank when making payments). This is important as it aids payment reconciliation and speeds up processing

Should you wish to discuss any aspect of Bulk Letter Forwarding please contact us.

8. Contact

Email: bulkletterforwarding.servicesenquiries@dwp.gov.uk

The Bulk Letter Forwarding service is open:
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm
(except for bank holidays)