Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the findings of the Autonomy Institute's report, entitled Transforming Employment and Support Infrastructure, published in February 2025.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The findings from the Autonomy Institute's report, entitled ‘Transforming Employment and Support Infrastructure’, demonstrates the importance of reforming Jobcentres and the difference this can make to citizens.
Through the Get Britain Working White Paper published in November 2024, the government set out our vision to reform Jobcentre Plus and create a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access employment support, aligned more effectively with skills and careers. We recognise that people are individuals with different support needs, and we want everyone who wants it to be able to access tailored support, not just those on benefits.
We are taking a test and learn approach to developing the new service and are committed to working with users of the new service, and organisations representing their needs, throughout the design process to ensure the new service is inclusive, accessible, and works for everyone.
We want to shift the focus of the customer-work coach relationship away from compliance and box-ticking around these requirements to make room for more constructive, personalised, career-focused conversations. As we set out in the White Paper, we have committed to develop the work coach profession and the careers adviser profession in England. Further building our work coaches’ capabilities is essential to delivering our ambition for the new service. We will launch a coaching academy that will upskill our teams and ensure they can deliver the high-quality, personalised, action-oriented coaching conversations.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 increase uptake of Pension Credit in winter 2024-25.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department’s campaign to promote Pension Credit has been running across Great Britain since September. The latest phase of the campaign, which launched on 8 November, is aimed at friends and family - especially adult children of eligible pensioners - asking them to tell people they know about Pension Credit, encourage them to check their eligibility, as well as help them make a claim. It is running on TV, radio, social media such as Facebook and Instagram, on YouTube and on advertising screens, including on GP and Post Office screens.
The Department’s ‘Invitation to Claim’ initiative was launched on 30 October. Since then, we have written to around 120,000 pensioner households across Great Britain who are in receipt of Housing Benefit but not Pension Credit. The letter and accompanying leaflet urge these households to claim Pension Credit by the 21 December, which is the latest date for making a successful backdated Pension Credit claim and qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment in winter 2024/25.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Youth Guarantee on young people in Liverpool Walton constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the Get Britain Working White Paper, the Government announced £45 million of funding for eight trailblazers in England to test delivery of the Youth Guarantee. Liverpool City Region are one of the eight areas set to receive a proportion of this funding to support 18-21 year olds access education, training and employment opportunities in their area.
Working closely on the detail of the design and delivery in the Liverpool City Region, we will be able to maximise the difference it makes to young people’s lives locally. Further analysis will be available through the course of the trailblazer.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Get Britain Working White Paper on the services provided by Jobcentres in Liverpool Walton constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The reforms to Jobcentres across Great Britain that we have announced in the recent Get Britain Working White Paper will be transformative.
Key to the White Paper’s successful delivery will be ensuring it is locally responsive and engaged. This will mean it will operate differently in different areas to reflect local systems and needs.
We will work closely with key partners, including Mayoral Combined Authorities, as we design, develop and test the new service into the next year. These tests will help us discover how we can shape a local service, while the UK Government maintains overall accountability for it.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the report entitled Fix the CMS: key findings from our research on child maintenance, published by Gingerbread in November 2024.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to engage regularly with stakeholders as we consider CMS reform. We are currently considering the recommendations and our response to the Gingerbread report ‘Fix the CMS’.
The CMS Service Modernisation Programme has delivered improvements to the customer experience enabling parents to access their on-line My Child Maintenance Case, ensuring parents can report changes of circumstances and access their digital communications at any time of the day. In addition, caseworker training to support vulnerable customers has been updated following invaluable engagement with stakeholders.
The CMS has recently consulted on significant reforms and are analysing the responses. This included removing the Direct Pay service and managing all CMS cases in one service to allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster. The consultation also sought views on how victims and survivors of domestic abuse can be better supported to use CMS and whether removing Direct Pay completely would benefit victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Government will publish a response in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Education to ensure that care leavers have adequate financial support, in the context of the cost of living.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are already a number of easements in place within the benefit system to support particular groups – including care leavers. To support the additional challenges care leavers face, care leavers benefit from an exemption to the Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) until the age of 25.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit Migration Notice letters he plans to send to people in (a) Liverpool, Walton constituency and (b) the UK by 31 March 2025.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Department plans to send Migration Notices to over 1 million households by 31 March 2025.
We intend to publish constituency level data at a future date.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of (a) stress and (b) burnout on the rate of absence due to sickness.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We have not made an assessment of the potential impact of a) stress and b) burnout on the rate of absence due to sickness.
The ONS publish annual statistics on sickness absence in the UK labour market, which includes the reasons for sickness absence. However, neither stress or burnout are listed as reasons given for sickness absences in this data.
The latest statistics for sickness absence in the UK labour market can be found here.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the report entitled Without access to justice published by Feeding Liverpool and the University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice in January 2024.
Answered by Jo Churchill
No assessment has been made. The Department continues to monitor the impact of its policies and keeps them under review.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's oral answer of 22 November 2023, Official Report column 348, when he plans to provide details of the (a) determination and (b) grant conditions of the household support fund.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to PQ3412.