Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that everyone who is entitled to pension credit receives it.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that older people receive the support they are entitled to and the DWP targets activity on engaging with people who may be eligible to benefits at pivotal stages, such as when they claim State Pension or report a change in their circumstances. The DWP uses a wide range of channels to communicate information about benefits to potential customers; including information on https://gov.uk/, in leaflets and by telephone. DWP staff in Pension Centres and Jobcentres including visiting officers are able to provide help and advice about entitlement to benefits, as are staff in Local Authorities who administer Housing Benefit.
Potential customers can use the Pension Credit https://www.gov.uk/pension-credit-calculator to check if they are likely to be eligible and get an estimate of what they may receive. People wishing to claim Pension Credit can do so by calling 0800 99 1234.
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One of the best ways to reach eligible customers is through trusted stakeholder working in the community and we have developed the Pension Credit toolkit, as an on-line tool for agencies and welfare rights organisations to use in order to encourage Pension Credit take-up. It can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pension-credit-toolkit
The toolkit contains resources for anyone working with pensioners and includes guides to Pension Credit. It also contains publicity material and guidance designed to help older people understand how they could get Pension Credit and help organisations support someone applying for Pension Credit as well as ideas for encouraging take-up. The toolkit also provides links to information about disability and carers benefits.
Most recently we have provided to relevant stakeholders a fact sheet about Pension Credit and the changes introduced on 15 May for mixed age couples to ensure that accurate information is available in the places where people are most likely to seek information.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has spent on an advertising campaign for universal credit to be published over the next nine weeks in the Metro newspapers.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department provides services to around 22 million people, and has a responsibility to communicate policy and essential information to claimants and other key audiences, in a similar way to other government departments. Newspaper advertising contributes to our routine communications activity that has been running alongside the rollout of Universal Credit since 2013.
The Universal Credit Uncovered media partnership with the Metro is currently underway and running for a further six weeks so we are unable to provide accurate spend to date figures for the partnership. However, we can commit to publish final full spend on the partnership at the end of July once all activity has concluded.
The information used for the partnership was sourced by DWP officials. The content features actual claimant case studies and interviews from Jobcentre work coaches, and the advertorials have been developed in partnership with the Metro.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of universal credit claimants who have received an advance payment have had to delay their repayment for three months.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she has taken to ensure that universal credit claimants (a) are fully aware of how the repayment of advance payments work and (b) understand that the deferment of repayments is for a maximum of three months.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Applications for a Universal Credit advance payment can be made in person, by telephone or online depending on the claimant’s circumstances. Depending on the type of advance payment application, we will consider whether the claimant satisfies the eligibility conditions for receiving the advance. If the claimant is eligible we will agree the amount of the advance and the period over which the advance will be recovered from their future Universal Credit payments. If the claimant has made the application in person or by telephone, the outcome of the application is explained to the claimant face to face or over the phone and then their online journal is updated. If they have made the application online the outcome will be displayed on screen.
The Department has taken a number of steps to ensure that advances meet the needs of claimants and that the recovery arrangements are personalised and reasonable. Affordability is managed by ensuring the recovery rate will not be more than the equivalent of 40% of the claimant’s standard allowance. The claimant is given the choice over the repayment period and it is explained to them exactly how much will be deducted each month depending on the option they choose. If the claimant is making the advance application online, these options are clearly displayed on screen for them to choose from.
Help is available for those struggling to meet the recovery rate. In exceptional circumstances, recovery can be deferred for up to three months from the start of the recovery period. If the claimant tells us that due to unforeseen circumstances they are experiencing hardship and are having difficulty repaying the advance over the agreed recovery time, we would explain that repayment can be deferred by a maximum of three months.
From October 2019 the maximum rate of deductions from a claimant’s standard allowance will be reduced from 40% to 30%. From October 2021 we are increasing the recovery period for advances from 12 to 16 months, further supporting those in financial need.
Information about advances is available on the Gov.uk site at:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-advances
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many consolatory payments have been made by the Child Maintenance Service in each of the last three years.
Answered by Will Quince
Child Maintenance Group (CMG) have only recorded Compensation Payment details for CMS separately since 2017/18, so we are unable to identify CMS only costs prior to that financial year.
For 2017/18 and 2018/19 the CMS figures are as follows:
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
Consolatory Payments | £72,099 | £79,556 |
However the data for the volume of consolatory payments is not routinely recorded.