Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help prevent data breaches from appointed agents.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP takes data protection and all data breaches extremely seriously. The Department demands a high standard from any of its appointed agents. It is also standard practice to undertake tailored awareness sessions for colleagues on data protection and data breaches.
Our Security and Data Protection Team works closely with commercial colleagues to ensure that the relevant security and data protection clauses are contained in all contracts. In addition, DWP has Supplier Assurance Teams that undertake regular pre and post contract checks on suppliers to ensure they are meeting their obligations under the terms of the contract. The Department regularly undertakes trend analysis and lessons learnt exercises on data breaches if they do occur. Recommendations are implemented and communicated to all relevant parties.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help prevent future data breaches.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP takes data protection and all data breaches extremely seriously. The Department demands a high standard from any of its appointed agents. It is also standard practice to undertake tailored awareness sessions for colleagues on data protection and data breaches.
Our Security and Data Protection Team works closely with commercial colleagues to ensure that the relevant security and data protection clauses are contained in all contracts. In addition, DWP has Supplier Assurance Teams that undertake regular pre and post contract checks on suppliers to ensure they are meeting their obligations under the terms of the contract. The Department regularly undertakes trend analysis and lessons learnt exercises on data breaches if they do occur. Recommendations are implemented and communicated to all relevant parties.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 June 2023 to Question 187662 on Universal Credit: Deductions, if he will provide the data set out in table one for the periods (a) March 2020 to February 2021 and (b) March 2021 to February 2022.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The information requested is provided in the table below.
Table 1: Number and value of third party debts registered against Universal Credit households
between March 2020 and February 2021 and March 2021 and February 2022
Type of Debt | Mar-20 to Feb-21 | Mar-21 to Feb-22 | ||
Number of Debts registered | Total Amount of Debt Registered | Number of Debts registered | Total Amount of Debt Registered | |
Council Tax | 134,100 | £63,600,000 | 177,800 | £88,500,000 |
Electricity Arrears | 7,200 | £9,330,000 | 8,500 | £11,820,000 |
Fines | 250,300 | £207,460,000 | 274,400 | £216,810,000 |
Gas Arrears | 5,900 | £5,580,000 | 6,600 | £6,740,000 |
Mortgage Interest | 10 | £10,000 | 10 | £5,000 |
Owner Occupied Service Charges | 80 | £120,000 | 60 | £100,000 |
Water Arrears | 34,200 | £33,980,000 | 48,800 | £53,640,000 |
Total | 431,800 | £320,080,000 | 516,300 | £377,620,000 |
Notes:
1. The number of debts has been rounded to the nearest hundred, except for Mortgage Interest and Owner Occupier Service charges, which have been rounded to the nearest 10 due to low numbers. Total debt amounts have been rounded to the nearest £10,000 except Mortgage Interest, which has been rounded to the nearest £1,000 due to low values.
2. The registration date for debts is defined as the date the Third Party debt was created.
3. Ongoing consumption deductions for gas, water and electricity are excluded from the total amount of debt. These don’t have a debt amount as they are deductions to pay for ongoing monthly usage. They should only be applied to claims with existing energy / water arrears so households with both arrears and ongoing consumption deductions will be counted in the number of debts registered in the water and energy debt categories.
4. From April 2020 to July 2020, a temporary freeze on government and third party deductions was introduced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
5. On 12th April 2021, the maximum deductions limit was reduced from 30% of the standard allowance to 25%. In May 2021, the additional court fines deduction was removed lowering the rate to 5% of standard allowance.
6. Some households may have had more than one debt registered against their Universal Credit claim, so may appear more than once in these statistics.
7. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Figure 7 on page 297 of his Department's Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23, if he will provide further details on what is being provided through funding for extra resource for Counter Fraud and Compliance over the Spending Review period.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We continue to use additional investment to build on our existing fraud and error work, as set out in the department’s Annual Report and Accounts, DWP annual report and accounts 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
This includes enhancing our counter-fraud resources and investing in the use of data and analytics to identify potential fraud and error.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish his Department's detailed plans to evaluate the performance of the Targeted Case Reviews initiative.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Targeted Case Review is a long-term initiative. Our newly formed Targeted Case Review team is reviewing millions of Universal Credit claims for fraud and error.
Our plans are progressing at pace and through continuous improvement we are assessing progress and evaluating initial performance.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much funding his Department has allocated to the Targeted Case Review initiative for financial years (a) 2022-23, (b) 2023-24 and (c) 2024-25.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The information is available at Figure 7 on page 297 of the department’s Annual Report and Accounts published on 6 July 2023 [DWP annual report and accounts 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)].
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 July 2023 to Question 192317 on Employment Schemes: Disability, if he will publish further details on the expected timeline for returning the number of Disability Employment Advisors to the Department's core demand level.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The department is actively planning to restore the number of “Disability Employment Advisors (DEA)” to our core demand level, through recruiting a significant number of people into EO graded roles; this recruitment exercise is progressing well with 1900 additional EOs expected to join by September 30th and a forecast of 1600 for the remainder of the calendar year. The increased level of recruitment will incrementally improve the EO shortfall in all areas, including “Disability Employment Advisors (DEA)”.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 10 July 2023 to Question 192319 on Unemployment: Chronic Illnesses, if he will publish further details of the work his Department is undertaking with (a) other Departments and (b) organisations to increase the Department's understanding of the potential relationship between NHS waiting lists and long-term sickness in the labour market through analysis of available data.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Work to better understand any potential relationship between NHS waiting lists and long-term sickness in the labour market through the analysis of available data is ongoing. The department has no plans to publish any further details at this stage.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of claimants in the searching for work Universal Credit conditionality regime showed evidence of employment in at least one week of the first (a) 13, (b) 26 and (c) 39 weeks following the claim in the most recent period for which this data is available.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Claimants are considered to be in work if they have earnings from employment or are required to report self-employed earnings. Information on the employment status of Universal Credit is only available at the level of monthly assessment periods, we are providing figures using approximations in months of the specified periods in weeks.
The most recent data on this issue is for claimants starting a new Universal Credit claim in the Searching for Work conditionality regime during the period September 2021 to August 2022:
(a) 51% were in work or had worked within 3 months
(b) 58% were in work or had worked within 6 months (including those in work within 3 months)
(c) 61% were in work or had worked within 9 months (including those in work within 3 / 6 months)
Notes:
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of (a) maintaining Local Housing Allowance rates at the rates those agreed for 2020-21 and (b) increasing Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local rents in April in the (i) 2021-22, (ii) 2022-23, and (iii) 2023-24 financial years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In April 2020 the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) was increased to the 30th percentile of market rents. Since then, LHA rates have been maintained at these levels, Total DWP housing expenditure on claimants subject to the LHA was £8.2 billion in 2020-21 and £8.8 billion for 2021-22 and was forecast to be £9 billion in 2022-23 and £10 billion for 2023-24 at Spring Budget 2023.
Previous estimates have been made of the costs to DWP housing expenditure of increasing LHA rates to the 30th percentile of market rents in specific years. They were as follows:
i) £140 million for 2021-22
ii) £300 million for 2022-23
iii) £700 million for 2023-24
These estimates were based on the economic assumptions and forecasts available at the time of their production.