Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they measure the number of claimants of Universal Credit who are experiencing financial hardship; and if so, how many such claimants there are.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
For many people who do experience financial difficulties, these pre-date their claim to Universal Credit. For example, in their report published on 11 July 2018, the National Federation of Arms-Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) of Social Housing providers found that of those Universal Credit households in rent arrears, 76 per cent had arrears prior to moving onto Universal Credit.
In the Universal Credit Claimant survey, published in June 2018, 4 in 10 claimants reported they were having difficulties keeping up with bills. In 2011/12 in the report “Work and the welfare system: a survey of benefits and tax credits recipients” from 2011/12, one in three main claimants said they run out of money before the end of the week/month always or most of the time, and a further third said this happens more often than not or sometimes. Both surveys are available on gov.uk.
Unlike in the legacy system, we are investing around £200 million over the Universal Credit implementation period into Universal Support to help claimants with budget management and digital support. Our work coaches work closely with claimants, ensuring they can identify any vulnerabilities such as financial hardship at an early stage. They can then tailor support according to claimants’ individual needs and help to address these issues.
We also have a system of advances and budgeting support to help people with the transition to Universal Credit. From 3 January 2018, we increased the repayment period of Universal Credit advances to 12 months, with claimants able to get up to 100 per cent of their estimated monthly entitlement upfront. These advances are available to claimants interest-free, and from July 2018, can be applied for online.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they (1) identify, and (2) measure the number of, people having difficulties with claiming Universal Credit.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The Department is continually working to improve the claimant journey for Universal Credit. The Universal Credit Full Service Claimant Survey found that 98 per cent of claims are made online, and that nearly half of claimants had help from others or from their jobcentre adviser to do so, demonstrating that those who need it are accessing the support available to them.
The survey also found that 31 per cent of claimants said they need more on-going support with using their Universal Credit digital account. To address this, we are investing up to £200 million into budgeting and digital support, to help claimants with the transition to Universal Credit. This is delivered by the Department and through partners such as local authorities and other third party organisations.
All jobcentres across the country have free Wi-Fi, and there are more than 8,000 computers available to support customers who need help with making their claim digitally and applying for jobs online. Work coaches will also assist anyone who needs assistance. If people cannot get online we have also a freephone helpline available.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what specific training measures are in place to enable work coaches to advise, assess, and support people with (1) learning disabilities, (2) autism, and (3) other forms of disability, to make a claim for Universal Credit.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Universal Credit work coaches go through a comprehensive learning journey designed to equip them with the tools, skills and behaviours required to provide a high quality service to all claimants including those who have complex needs. This learning builds on Work Coaches’ existing skills and knowledge, and includes facilitator-led learning and skills practice, supported by multimedia learning materials.
As we expand Universal Credit, we continually review and develop the claimant journey those with complex needs. This includes looking at how we identify claimants’ needs, how we support them and how we refer them to local services delivered in partnership activity.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the consultation on their Green Paper Work, Health and Disability: Improving Lives, published in October 2016, what timescale they have established for halving the disability employment gap.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The Government is committed to improving employment outcomes for disabled people. We have underpinned this with our manifesto pledge to see one million more disabled people in employment in the next 10 years.
We will shortly publish a document which will provide an update on the work we have been doing since the Green Paper consultation, respond to the consultation, and set out our next steps.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether people with (1) learning disabilities, (2) autism, and (3) other forms of disability, will have the opportunity to make a claim for Universal Credit in person.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The Universal Credit full service is designed around user needs to be as accessible as possible. Those claimants who lack capability to make their claim via the on-line self-service, or are not able to travel, can call the Universal Credit Service Centre on 0345 600 0723. The UC Service Centre will establish the best means of support available, which could be signposting to Universal Support delivered locally, the local Jobcentre or telephony support. In exceptional circumstances, a home visit can be arranged to support a claimant in making their initial claim and completing any other administrative tasks required to ensure the claimant receives the correct payment.
Should a claimant present at the local Jobcentre, there are staff available to support them to make their UC claim on-line and navigate their on-line account. They aim to provide this there and then. If a disabled claimant or claimant with complex needs does not have all of the information available to complete the on-line claim, or if all the staff are helping other claimants, they will be given a date and time to return.
If a disabled or claimant with complex needs or their advocate phone the Jobcentre, they will provide an appointment with either the Local Authority or the Jobcentre to receive support.
In addition, when a claimant is incapable of managing their own affairs the Secretary of State may appoint a person to act on the claimant’s behalf in all dealings with the Department.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps are being taken to ensure that people with (1) learning disabilities, (2) autism, and (3) other forms of disability, can easily access the online application process for Universal Credit.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The Universal Credit full service is designed around user needs to be as accessible as possible. Those claimants who lack capability to make their claim via the on-line self-service, or are not able to travel, can call the Universal Credit Service Centre on 0345 600 0723. The UC Service Centre will establish the best means of support available, which could be signposting to Universal Support delivered locally, the local Jobcentre or telephony support. In exceptional circumstances, a home visit can be arranged to support a claimant in making their initial claim and completing any other administrative tasks required to ensure the claimant receives the correct payment.
Should a claimant present at the local Jobcentre, there are staff available to support them to make their UC claim on-line and navigate their on-line account. They aim to provide this there and then. If a disabled claimant or claimant with complex needs does not have all of the information available to complete the on-line claim, or if all the staff are helping other claimants, they will be given a date and time to return.
If a disabled or claimant with complex needs or their advocate phone the Jobcentre, they will provide an appointment with either the Local Authority or the Jobcentre to receive support.
In addition, when a claimant is incapable of managing their own affairs the Secretary of State may appoint a person to act on the claimant’s behalf in all dealings with the Department.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to end the disability employment gap.
Answered by Baroness Altmann
In the last 12 months there has been an increase of 238,000 disabled people in work. That is really positive, but there is more to do.
We have been very clear that the gap between the employment rates of disabled people and non-disabled people remains too big and have committed to halving it.
Government cannot achieve this ambition alone so we are working closely with disabled people, their organisations, employers and employment support providers to develop our strategy to enable more disabled people to get into, remain in and progress in work.
The Disability Confident Campaign, which actively promotes the Access to Work scheme, is key to supporting employers in working with Government to halve the disability employment gap.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to introduce flexibility into the benefit cap regime to take account of family size and regional housing costs.
Answered by Lord Freud
Details of the policy will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether Personal Independence Payments and Employment Support Allowance will be exempted from the proposed new benefit cap.
Answered by Lord Freud
Details of the policy will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reply by Lord Freud on 10 March (HL Deb, col 542–3), whether they have any intention to revise their target of 16 weeks for personal independence payment assessment, to allow for more timely evaluations.
Answered by Lord Freud
On 28 January 2015, there were 97,900 new claimants to Personal Independence Payment awaiting an assessment with an assessment provider, down from 175,200 in September. At that same point there were 15,000 reassessment claims awaiting an assessment.
The Department is currently considering the medium and longer-term recommendations made by Paul Gray in the first Independent Review of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and will respond in due course.
As we made clear against this recommendation in the Government’s initial response to the review, understanding how the PIP claiming process is working and how it affects people is very important. As part of our performance monitoring, we are considering how we could best implement a comprehensive evaluation strategy which builds on the early evaluation research already published in July 2014.
As the published statistics demonstrate, by 28 January 2015 the average claimant was waiting 14 weeks for an assessment, down from an average 30 week wait in July 2014. We are continuing to work with the Assessment Providers to reduce assessment waiting times further.
All statistics are available from the PIP statistics home page:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-independence-payment-statistics The next statistics are due to be published on 18 March.