Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the current average waiting time is for an application for limited capacity to work benefit to be considered.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department publishes Employment Support Allowance (ESA) Work Capability Assessment (WCA) statistics online and the latest clearance time statistics available to June 2020 can be accessed in Table 8 here:
Statistics on Work Capability Assessments for Universal Credit are currently under development for future publication and have not previously been published as official statistics. We will issue them in due course as an official statistics release in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. Whilst the initial statistics will not have median clearance times, these will be developed for publication in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of vacancies available as part of the Kickstart scheme that are currently unfilled as a result of registered gateway organisations not yet having received approval from her Department.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
As of 30/11/2020, there are 292 applications from potential gateway organisations waiting for assessment. These applications represent 28,783 potential job placements. So far, applications from Gateways and employers covering 23’934 vacancies have been approved.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many registered gateway organisations are waiting for approval from her Department before being able to commence the Kickstart scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
As of 30/11/2020, there are 292 applications from potential gateway organisations waiting for assessment. These applications represent 28,783 potential job placements. So far, applications from Gateways and employers covering 23’934 vacancies have been approved.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, by what date registered gateway organisations will have received approval for the Kickstart scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Our aim is to process an application within a month, but this can take longer if we require additional information from bidders. As the scheme continues to roll-out we expect that the time taken to process applications will reduce. Turn-around times are already improving.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What steps her Department is taking to ensure that single parents are treated equitably within the benefits system during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We’ve introduced an unprecedented package of support of over £6.5 billion to help all families to cope with the financial impact of Covid-19.
Single parents can benefit from the Flexible Support Fund and the increases to UC Standard Allowance, and Local Housing Allowance rates. Universal Credit is already more generous than legacy benefits, where people can claim up to 85% of childcare costs.
Our priority continues to be ensuring people get their benefit payments and providing support for those who need it the most.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allocating named caseworkers to complex cases undertaken by the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Child Maintenance Service caseworkers deliver a broad range of services’ across business lines, covering applications, case maintenance, arrears and enforcement. Child Maintenance Service caseworkers receive the skills to provide a service to customers in their specific line. In addition, the service also provides complex caseworkers, who can provide additional expert knowledge in that line. Flexing this resource, as and when complex matters arise, maximises the value they can add to delivering successful client outcomes.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to make an assessment of the operating efficiency of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
When measuring the efficiency of the Child Maintenance Service, we collect data on rate of compliance. These figures are published quarterly in table 9 of the Child Maintenance Service experimental statistics data tables, which can be found here: