Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made in reducing the disability employment gap, in the last 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government has two main goals with regards to disability employment; to see one million more disabled people in work between 2017 and 2027 and reduce the disability employment gap.
Since 2013, the earliest comparable year, up to the start of the pandemic the general trend in disability employment was positive. There was strong growth in the number and rate of disabled people in employment and a narrowing of the gap between the rate of disabled and non-disabled people in employment. The pandemic initially reversed these trends with year-on-year changes showing a fall in the disability employment rate and a widening of the disability employment gap during 2020. In 2021 however the rate and gap returned to near pre-pandemic levels.
The disability employment gap was 28.9 percentage points in Q4 2021, the latest available data. This is an overall decrease of 4.8 percentage points since the same quarter in 2013.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many events have they held to meet and persuade employers to employ disabled people as part of their policy to close the disability employment gap, in each of the last three years.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Throughout these unprecedented times, the DWP Disability Confident (DC) Team has continued to work collaboratively with DC Leader organisations on a series of webinars (26 to date), covering topics, such as: Virtual Hiring, Recruitment and Retention, Mental Health in the Workplace and Workplace Adjustments.
The DC Team has delivered employer focused online events (11), entitled ‘A little less conversation, A little more action’ with DWP Work and Health Programme Providers and DC Leaders with the aim of encouraging employers to attract, recruit and retain disabled people.
The team has actively supported MPs to sign up to the scheme and has delivered employer focused events (8) in local constituencies to encourage sign-up to DC and have also co-facilitated a number of external events with other organisations, including national conferences to raise the profile of disability employment.
The DC Team has delivered an inaugural DC Awards ceremony (December 2021) in collaboration with the Business Disability Forum awarding employers from across the UK, who had actively encouraged the employment of disabled people.
Colleagues across Jobcentre Plus work on a daily basis with employers at both a national and local level and through these relationships secure support for our customers. This includes securing commitments to recruit disabled people and demonstrating this by joining the Disability Confident Scheme. This is done through both discussions with individual employers and also through local employer events
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who is the responsible Minister for closing the disability employment gap; and how many staff are engaged in these efforts.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Chloe Smith MP is the Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work. Her portfolio includes responsibility for supporting disabled people to get into and remain in work, to close the disability employment gap.
We do not hold details on the overall number of staff engaged across the broad range of initiatives that are contributing to closing the disability employment gap. Staff from across the DWP who are responsible for supporting disabled people into work include Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) and Disability Employment Adviser Leaders (DEALs), Work Coaches, and National Employer Partnership Team. From April 2021, DWP began increasing the number of DEAs to 1,000 and DEALs to 115 across Great Britain. By January 2022 DEA numbers had increased to almost 900, nearly double the number in place a year earlier; and over 100 DEA leaders.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what funds have been allocated to encourage business and industry to employ disabled people; and what is the total value of these funds.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
We recently announced that we are providing £1.3bn over the SR21 period for employment support for disabled people and/or people with health conditions, including to encourage business and industry to employ disabled people. This funds a range of initiatives, for example extending contracted employment support programmes, expanding employment support in NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services across England, and continued support for the Disability Confident employers scheme.
The programme includes funding for Access to Work, a demand-led, discretionary grant to de-risk the recruitment and retention of disabled people for employers. It provides practical and financial support for the disability related extra costs of working that disabled people may face which are beyond standard reasonable adjustments. The grant can provide up to £62,900 worth of flexible, personalised support per person per year. The 21/22 budget for Access to Work grant expenditure is £151.9m.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Department for Work and Pensions Armed Forces Champions there are (1) in total, (2) on Jobcentre sites, and (3) in Jobcentre plus districts; and how many (a) Jobcentre sites, and (b) Jobcentre plus districts, do not have such a Champion.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Department for Work and Pensions currently has 46 Armed Forces Champions in place, including at least one in each of the 37 Jobcentre Plus Districts.
Our top priority during the pandemic has been to focus on processing claims and paying people quickly, while supporting all those using Jobcentre Plus services. As a result, the planned additional recruitment to increase the number of Armed Forces Champions was paused. Planning for 2020/21 is underway.
The DWP is proud to continue to provide vital and significant support services for veterans which recognises their particular needs and circumstance. During this pandemic the Department has announced it is recruiting 13,500 more Jobcentre Plus Work Coaches to boost its frontline. Every Work coach is trained on how to provide tailored and personalised support to members of the Armed Forces Community and their families, working in partnership with their district Armed Forces Champion where necessary. In those areas where there are particularly high levels of demand, for example garrison towns, this will form a significant part of the work done in individual Jobcentres.
Veterans are also supported in a number of other ways, for example, they are given early voluntary entry to the Work and Health Programme, and using Service Medical Board evidence where we can a severely disabled person does not have to undergo additional examinations for Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit purposes. We are also able to signpost veterans to other organisations for further support where appropriate.
Meanwhile, the department is a supporter of the Armed Forces Covenant which helps ensure members of the armed forces community have access to government support in a number of areas, including:
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they have spent on increasing the number of Department for Work and Pensions Armed Forces Champions since 4 September 2019.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Department for Work and Pensions currently has 46 Armed Forces Champions in place, including at least one in each of the 37 Jobcentre Plus Districts.
Our top priority during the pandemic has been to focus on processing claims and paying people quickly, while supporting all those using Jobcentre Plus services. As a result, the planned additional recruitment to increase the number of Armed Forces Champions was paused. Planning for 2020/21 is underway.
The DWP is proud to continue to provide vital and significant support services for veterans which recognises their particular needs and circumstance. During this pandemic the Department has announced it is recruiting 13,500 more Jobcentre Plus Work Coaches to boost its frontline. Every Work coach is trained on how to provide tailored and personalised support to members of the Armed Forces Community and their families, working in partnership with their district Armed Forces Champion where necessary. In those areas where there are particularly high levels of demand, for example garrison towns, this will form a significant part of the work done in individual Jobcentres.
Veterans are also supported in a number of other ways, for example, they are given early voluntary entry to the Work and Health Programme, and using Service Medical Board evidence where we can a severely disabled person does not have to undergo additional examinations for Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit purposes. We are also able to signpost veterans to other organisations for further support where appropriate.
Meanwhile, the department is a supporter of the Armed Forces Covenant which helps ensure members of the armed forces community have access to government support in a number of areas, including:
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what improvements in payment timelines they expect to achieve for claimants of Universal Credit in 2018.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Around 80 per cent of new claims are paid in full and on time. In many cases, where full payment is not made on time by the end of the first assessment period, this is as a result of unresolved issues such as: some claimants have not signed their Claimant Commitment or passed identity checks, and the others have outstanding verification issues, such as for housing and self-employed earnings. Whilst their verification is on-going, many of these claimants receive a part payment for those elements of the claim that have been resolved. Within five weeks of the payment due date, 95 per cent of claims are paid in full.
DWP continues to monitor payment timeliness and we have made changes to improve payment timeliness. For example, we have built processes into the system to make it easier and quicker for people to verify information such as their housing costs.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Buscombe on 19 July, stating that "on underpayments, I should be clear that no one suffered a cash loss", what is their definition of a cash loss; what term a claimant should use to describe an underpayment; what is the difference between an underpayment, a payment in full and an overpayment; and whether they consider an overpayment to be a cash benefit to the recipient.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
No-one suffered a cash loss when they were converted from incapacity benefits to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) because where the amount of ESA they were entitled to was lower than the previous incapacity benefit award, it was ‘topped up’ to match their previous award by a transitional addition.
We are unable to say whether someone has been underpaid on conversion from incapacity benefit to ESA and is due arrears of benefit until we have gathered the necessary financial information (by way of an ESA3 form) and reviewed their award.
Overpayments are when a claimant is paid more in benefit than they are entitled to. Underpayments are when a claimant is paid less than they are entitled to. The Department seeks to recover overpayments of benefit in accordance with the appropriate legislation.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reduce the number of Universal Credit claimants experiencing financial difficulties from four in 10, as reported in their Universal Credit Full Source Survey, published in June.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
We have introduced a number of measures to support and reduce the number of claimants facing financial difficulties.
We are investing up to £200 million into budgeting and digital support, to help claimants with the transition to Universal Credit and our work coaches work closely with claimants, ensuring they can identify any vulnerabilities or specific needs, such as financial difficulties, at an early stage. We have also invested £1.5 billion in a package of measures to support claimants financially in the first assessment period.
From 3 January, claimants have been getting advances of up to 100 per cent of their indicative monthly entitlement within a few days. From 14 February, waiting days were removed, and from 11 April, claimants transitioning to Universal Credit from Housing Benefit have been getting an additional 2 weeks of housing cost payments.
In June, we announced additional protection for people who receive Severe Disability Premium – they will stay on legacy benefits until Transitional Protection applies and we will introduce protection for those who have already moved on to Universal Credit.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what success they have had in identifying and tracking claimants of Universal Credit whom they deem vulnerable.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Where notified by a Local Authority or a claimant, DWP staff currently updates the claimant profile with any temporary or long term complex needs and how that affects the claimant’s ability to use the service. This enables Universal Credit agents and work coaches to provide individuals with appropriate personalised support.
Underlying this approach is the principle that not all individuals with a disability, health condition or other set of personal circumstances will necessarily require support, while some will only need support for a period of time. Our work coaches deliver a personalised journey based on individual claimant needs.
The Department is looking to further improve our system to better identify vulnerable claimants with the use of a new ‘pinning’ function. This involves testing methods to extract data on information recorded in the claimant profile using text matching techniques. We have plans to introduce a function to ‘pin’ key profile notes so they are instantly visible to all staff helping a claimant. The Department is beginning wider work to examine how claimants tell us about their complex needs, how we record them and how we can extract data which can help us monitor and improve support.