Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what human resources information their Department shares with trade unions on a regular basis.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Senior Departmental officials meet with Departmental Trade Union Side to discuss resourcing issues including finance, demand, and recruitment.
As part of the annual delegated pay negotiations, the department provides the three trade unions that are recognised in DWP with detailed information on pay, including pay scales and where employees currently sit within these.
Individual Departmental Directors with responsibility for Service Delivery meet trade unions annually to discuss the resourcing position specific to their area of work. In addition, Departmental Directors meet trade unions regularly to update and share information on issues such as resources, staffing, workloads, performance, health and safety and wellbeing.
There is also a range of publicly available HR information published on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit claims were subject to sanctions in the last three months for which data is available by constituency; and how much was the (a) total and (b) average sum of benefit income lost by claimants due to sanctions in each constituency.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Monthly Universal Credit full service sanction rate statistics are published every three months on Stat-Xplore.
The information requested for part a) and b) is provided in the attached spreadsheet.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claims were subject to deductions in the most recent month for which data is available, broken down by parliamentary constituency; how much was the (a) total and (b) average sum of deductions in each constituency; and what proportion of those sums was deducted to repay advance payments.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Since April 2021, we have reduced the normal maximum rate of deductions in Universal Credit from 40% to 25% of a claimant’s Standard Allowance. These positive measures were put in place to support claimants.
The Government recognises the importance of supporting the welfare of claimants who have incurred debt. We seek to balance recovery of debt against not causing hardship for claimants and their families. Processes are in place to ensure deductions are manageable, and customers can contact DWP Debt Management if they are experiencing financial hardship, to discuss a reduction in their rate of repayment or a temporary suspension, depending on their financial circumstances.
Advances are a claimant’s benefit entitlement paid early, allowing claimants to access 100% of their estimated Universal Credit payment upfront. They ensure nobody has to wait for a payment in Universal Credit and those who need it are able to receive financial support as soon as possible. Claimants can receive up to 100% of their estimated Universal Credit award if required, resulting in 25 payments over a 24-month period. This is not a debt.
The analysis of Universal Credit claims with a deduction in May 2022 by Parliamentary Constituency in Great Britain (GB) is provided in the separate spreadsheet.
Points to note:
1. The number of claims per constituency in the table are rounded to the nearest hundred, total claims at GB level rounded to the nearest thousand. UC payments and total amounts of deductions are rounded to the nearest thousand pound. The sum of individual constituencies may not sum to the total figure due to rounding.
2. Deductions include advance repayments, third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.
3. Amount of Universal Credit paid reflects the amount of money paid to claimants and their landlords as part of their award, including the amount which they would have been entitled to had it not been deducted. It does not include other payments such as advances and hardship payments.
4. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
5. The' unknown' parliamentary constituency label relates to claims for which a constituency could not be determined due to incomplete postcode information.
6. Data for May 2022 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.