Asked by: Graeme Morrice (Labour - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many reported assaults there have been on members of staff in Jobcentre Plus in (a) the UK, (b) Scotland, (c) West Lothian local authority area and (d) Livingston constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Penning
All incidents of unacceptable behaviour are taken very seriously by the department and particularly those of a physical assault. Jobcentres have a robust set of control measures in place to reduce such risk, and work with the police and departmental solicitors to ensure appropriate punitive action is taken against those who assault our staff. In September 2011 a new online incident reporting system was introduced to support staff and improve the quality of incidents reported.
It is also important to note that physical assaults, whether resulting in injury or not, on staff within jobcentres* are very rare and should be viewed in context of the millions of interactions undertaken by our staff each year.
*Incident figures reported by the department include our security officers / Customer Care Officers (CCO's) as staff on Jobcentre premises, by default.
Actual Physical Assaults on staff within Jobcentres | |||||
| 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 |
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UK | 339 | 331 | 465 | 669 | 634 |
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Scotland | 22 | 12 | 31 | 38 | 27 |
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West Lothian LA (Livingston, Bathgate, Broxburn combined figure) | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
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Livingston | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
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NB. Actual Assaults are defined into three categories - No injury/Less than Cuts and Bruises - Cuts and Bruises - More than Cuts and Bruises | |||||
Asked by: Graeme Morrice (Labour - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many days were lost due to illness among Jobcentre Plus staff in (a) the UK, (b) Scotland, (c) West Lothian local authority area and (d) Livingston constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Penning
DWP has robust and effective measures in place for managing sickness absence and has succeeded in cutting sickness absence from an annual average of 11.1 days per employee in 2007 to 6.9 days per employee currently. To place this in context the Civil Service average is 7.6 days.
Jobcentre Plus was re-structured and absorbed into a revised Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Operations structure in October 2011. Since that point, it has no longer existed as a separate organisation. This means the information beyond September 2011 is not available.
In accordance with cross government arrangements; the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reports sick leave expressed as average working days lost (AWDL) per employee, over a rolling 12 month period
The following table shows Jobcentre Plus AWDL for 2009/10 and 2010/11. Information was not available for the period April to September 2011 because this was less than a 12 month period.
| 2009/10 | 2010/11 |
UK | 8.8 | 8.6 |
Scotland | 8.2 | 7.3 |
West Lothian LA Area | 9.6 | 7.4 |
Livingston Constituency* | 10.9 | 6.1 |
*Information by Parliamentary Constituency is not held directly but information is available by office, therefore we have created a combined figure for the two offices in the Constituency – Livingstone Jobcentre and Broxburn Jobcentre.
To put these reductions into context, if Average Working Days Lost in DWP was still at the level it was in 2007, the Department would be paying over £27.5m more in sick pay than it is at present.
Asked by: Graeme Morrice (Labour - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what processes his Department has in place to monitor the welfare of personal independence payment applicants awaiting a decision on their claim.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Department does not routinely monitor the welfare of people applying for benefits.
Asked by: Graeme Morrice (Labour - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what processes his Department has in place to evaluate the roll out of personal independence payments.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Department has plans to undertake an evaluation of PIP. We published our outline PIP evaluation proposals in December 2012.
Additionally, PIP will be subject to two independent reviews, the first of which will be completed by the end of 2014. We will use this review to understand how the PIP assessment is working in practice and carefully consider any recommendations made by the independent reviewer.
Asked by: Graeme Morrice (Labour - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what budget is allocated to each Jobcentre Plus office to reimburse jobseekers' travel expenses; and how each such budget is decided.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Each jobcentre is allocated funding to support claimants move towards and into work, and this could include meeting their travel expenses. For internal planning purposes each District Manager will estimate of the likely number of claimants requiring additional support and the cost within that locality but the information is not routinely collated and reported centrally. District plans are reviewed regularly to ensure they make best use of available funding and all local priorities can be met.
Asked by: Graeme Morrice (Labour - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria his Department uses to measure the performance of each Jobcentre Plus office.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Jobcentre Plus offices' performance are measured in a variety of ways including in respect of how quickly they help get people off benefits and into work.
Asked by: Graeme Morrice (Labour - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department uses a working assumption for the timescale for a work capability assessment report to be processed by Atos.
Answered by Mike Penning
Atos Healthcare is expected to clear Work Capability Assessments within an Actual Average Clearance Target (AACT) of 35 working days. This is to handle the referral from the date it is received from the Department and includes the time for processing and completing paperwork relating to Work Capability Assessments.