Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of the introduction of a Sickness absence recording tool (SART) code for menopause.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government believes it is vital that employers support their workers affected by symptoms of the menopause and we are raising awareness of this alongside the Government’s Menopause Employment Champion.
It is important for individual businesses to decide how to record staff absences and support their own workers. The Government has shared guidance and best practice on the Menopause Resources Hub on the Help to Grow portal.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many times the National Telephone Service for Universal Credit has been used by (a) female and (b) prison leavers in each month since that service was introduced.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
(a) Information not held.
(b) Call volumes to the Prison Leavers helpline are as follows:
| Apr-20 | May-20 | Jun-20 | Jul-20 | Aug-20 | Sep-20 |
Calls Offered * | 2,238 | 4,089 | 4,686 | 4,589 | 3,718 | 3,985 |
Calls Answered | 1,946 | 3,818 | 4,348 | 3,521 | 2,823 | 2,982 |
PCA | 87.0% | 93.4% | 92.8% | 76.7% | 75.9% | 74.8% |
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| Oct-20 | Nov-20 | Dec-20 | Jan-21 | Feb-21 | Mar-21 |
Calls Offered | 4,273 | 4,619 | 4,865 | 4,523 | 4,585 | 5,045 |
Calls Answered | 3,894 | 4,567 | 4,665 | 4,126 | 4,444 | 5,020 |
PCA | 91.1% | 98.9% | 95.9% | 91.2% | 96.9% | 99.5% |
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| Apr-21 | May-21 | Jun-21 | Jul-21 | Aug-21 | Sep-21 |
Calls Offered | 3,703 | 2,947 | 3,285 | 3,053 | 3,385 | 4,106 |
Calls Answered | 3,662 | 2,909 | 3,236 | 2,977 | 3,237 | 3,581 |
PCA | 98.9% | 98.7% | 98.5% | 97.5% | 95.6% | 87.2% |
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| Oct-21 | Nov-21 | Dec-21 | Jan-22 | Feb-22 | Mar-22 |
Calls Offered | 3,838 | 3,930 | 3,951 | 3,791 | 3,610 | 3,934 |
Calls Answered | 3,654 | 3,809 | 3,796 | 3,713 | 3,436 | 3,826 |
PCA | 95.2% | 96.9% | 96.1% | 97.9% | 95.2% | 97.3% |
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| Apr-22 | May-22 | Jun-22 | Jul-22 | Aug-22 | Sep-22 |
Calls Offered | 3,644 | 3,780 | 3,858 | 3,557 | 3,903 | 3,571 |
Calls Answered | 3,430 | 3,448 | 3,494 | 3,228 | 3,535 | 3,318 |
PCA | 94.1% | 91.2% | 90.6% | 90.8% | 90.6% | 92.9% |
*Calls Offered. The total volume of calls entering a queue to await answer.
Please note this information is derived from the Department’s management information designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 March 2021 to Question 162619, what plans she has to improve (a) awareness of and (b) access to the funeral expenses payment scheme.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
We regularly review and take action to improve the awareness and accessibility of the Funeral Expenses Payment scheme, working with a range of stakeholders.
This includes refreshing the ‘Get help with funeral costs’ information on GOV.UK. We have also revised the Department leaflet ‘What to do when someone dies’ to provide a clear step-by-step guide that signposts to available financial support including Funeral Expenses Payment. This has been shared extensively. We also plan to attend a number of funeral industry events in 2021 to raise awareness and understanding of the Funeral Expenses Payment scheme.
We have taken steps to improve access to the Funeral Expenses Payment scheme. The Bereavement Service helpline operates a Freephone service to report a death and to initiate a Funeral Expenses Payment claim. The Department has worked closely with voluntary groups, hospitals, Registrars and Funeral Directors to ensure that the bereaved are signposted to the helpline for further support. Funeral Directors are able to submit evidence electronically to support a Funeral Expenses Payment claim and we continue to work on identifying a secure digital solution to extend this option to applicants.
Telephone: 0800 731 0469
Welsh language: 0800 731 0453
Textphone: 0800 731 0464
Welsh language: 0800 731 0456
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of winter fuel payments are paid in November and December each year.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
For the 2020/21 exercise over 99% of these payments were made in November and December 2020.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of funeral expenses payments claims made in the first six months of 2020-21 were cleared in (a) 15 working days, (b) 15 working days plus 2 days and (c) 15 working days plus 5 days.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The proportion of Funeral Expenses Payments made in the first 6 months of 2020-21 (April 20 to September 20) which were cleared in (a) 15 working days was 46%.
In April to September 2020 there was a backlog of claims which had built up over a period of months due to the closure of the Funeral Expenses Payments main processing centre in Balham in December 2019, and activity prior to closure to support staff through redeployment options. In March 2020 processing was impacted by colleagues shielding with health conditions under COVID.
We have since improved our processing and productivity times with a combination of additional processing support on loan, deployment of IT kit to colleagues at home and the introduction of process easements. These have been instrumental in improving the service to customers and the department are working with HMT and Ministers to seek permanent process changes.
We now have an Actual Average Clearance Time of 11.8 days in September 2020 compared to 34.7 days in September 2019.
Extract taken from RPT data store on 3rd November 2020.
Source: Departmental MISP from Social Fund Funeral Payment System
Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether there was a backlog of applications for funeral expenses payments prior to the implementation of covid-19 lockdown restrictions on 23 March 2020.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Prior to the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions on 23 March there was a backlog of Funeral Expense Payments (FEP) claims. In response to this and the COVID-19 outbreak, steps have been taken to significantly speed up the processing of Funeral Expense Payment claims in support of those who need it most.