Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of funeral expenses payment claims were successful in each year since 2005.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Data on the amount claimed for Funeral Expenses Payments (FEPs) is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The number of FEP applications received by the DWP and awards as a proportion of FEP applications processed, in each calendar year since 2005, are given below in table 1. They are rounded to the nearest 0.1%. Figures are not given for 2018 as the calendar year is incomplete.
Due to the timing of application processing, figures on awards may relate to applications processed in the previous year.
Table 1: FEP applications received and proportion of FEP applications resulting in an award, Great Britain 2005 - 2017
Year | Applications received (000s) | Awards as a proportion of applications processed |
2005 | 68.5 | 62.5% |
2006 | 67.7 | 61.3% |
2007 | 63.8 | 61.3% |
2008 | 67.5 | 59.5% |
2009 | 68.9 | 58.3% |
2010 | 66.8 | 56.6% |
2011 | 71 | 54.6% |
2012 | 66.4 | 54.4% |
2013 | 62.2 | 56.3% |
2014 | 52.5 | 59.1% |
2015 | 46.6 | 62.5% |
2016 | 44.3 | 60.9% |
2017 | 41.8 | 61.7% |
Source: Social Fund Policy, Budget, and Management Information System
Notes:
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the funeral expenses payment in covering average funeral costs.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department has not carried out such an assessment. Funeral costs vary by circumstance, and the Funeral Expenses Payments scheme continues to make a significant contribution towards the cost of a simple funeral for claimants on certain income based benefits or tax credits.
The Social Fund Funeral Expenses Payment scheme meets the necessary costs of a cremation or burial for eligible claimants, with the average Funeral Expenses Payment increasing year-on-year to meet the necessary costs. We also provide up to £700 for other costs. In 2016/17, my department made approximately 27,000 Funeral Expenses Payments, costing around £38.6 million.
In addition to Funeral Expenses Payments, my department provides interest-free Social Fund Budgeting Loans to help meet additional funeral costs for eligible claimants.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 June 2018 to Question 150254, what estimate she has made of number of face-to-face interviews which have taken place as a result of a claimant forgetting all of their their universal credit online login details.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Password interviews and password reset only interviews are recorded under one interview type, and resets can also be conducted during any interview. Therefore quantifying and differentiating password reset interviews only is not possible.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 21 May 2018 to Question 905453 on Food Banks, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of commissioning independent research to analyse the factors which lead to food bank use.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department for Work and Pensions is currently reviewing research carried out by several organisations including the Trussell Trust, to add to our understanding of food bank use, and will consider requirements to add to its evidence base.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 numbers of universal credit claimants who have attended a face-to-face interview in a job centre to remind them of or reset their universal credit online login details.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The information requested is not available.
Passwords can be reset by claimants online. Interviews are only required if the claimant has forgotten all of their details, including their username and password, email address, and security questions.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 average length of time taken for a complaint in relation to the equalisation of the state pension age to be (a) received and referred to be Independent Case Examiners Office (b) allocated to a case manager and (c) investigated by the case manager and a response issued to the complainant.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Independent Case Examiner’s Office can only accept a complaint for examination once the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) complaint process has been exhausted. Final complaint responses from DWP signpost complainants to the ICE Office if they remain dissatisfied with the response to their complaint and tell them they have six months in which to do so.
In response to: (a) we do not collect information about the average time taken by complainants to escalate their complaint to the Independent Case Examiner’s Office, following receipt of DWPs final complaint response; (b) to date, the average time take to allocate complaints about the equalisation of state pension age to an investigation case manager is 44 week; and (c) following allocation to an investigation case manger the average time taken to conclude an investigation into this group of complaints is 9 weeks (against a target of 20 weeks).
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2018 to Question 128375 on universal credit: internet, and the oral contribution of the Prime Minister in response to the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West on 7 February 2018, Official Report, column 1489, what progress she has made on the establishment of an online password reset function for universal credit claimants.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I provided to Questions 131045 and 131046 on 08 March 2018.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if the Government will commission independent research to assess trends in the number of people (a) signposted and (b) referred to food banks in areas where full service universal credit has been rolled out.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department has not carried out any research into trends in the number of people using food banks. The Department for Work and Pensions is currently reviewing research carried out by organisations including the Trussell Trust, to add to our understanding of food bank use.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What assessment her Department has made of trends in the number of people signposted or referred to food banks in areas where full service universal credit has been rolled out.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We have made no assessment of food bank use.
The reasons for food banks use are complex, so it’s wrong to attribute it to any one cause. The best way to help people improve their lives is through employment, and people on Universal Credit move into work faster and stay in work longer.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether people who take out a mortgage interest loan will be required to notify or seek the permission of their existing mortgage lender to do so.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Mortgage lenders do not require their borrowers who are Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) claimants to seek their permission to take an SMI loan. The Department will issue and manage SMI loans. The level of support will be calculated in the same way as under the current system and claimants and mortgage lenders will not see any difference in the payments they receive. The Department will notify lenders where a claimant decides to take up the offer of an SMI loan.