Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the eligibility criteria for housing support on incentives to seek employment for people in (a) temporary and (b) supported accommodation.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department acknowledges the challenge presented by the interaction between Universal Credit and Housing Benefit for those working and living in supported housing as the two systems were never intended to run alongside one another.
The income taper in Housing Benefit ensures people in work are better off than someone wholly reliant on benefits. In addition to any financial advantage, there are important non-financial benefits of working. These benefits include learning new skills, improved confidence, and independence as well as a positive effect on an individual's mental and physical health.
The Department will continue to work to build our understanding of this topic and to evaluate future policy options.
It remains the department’s priority to ensure that those who can work are supported to enter the labour market and to sustain employment.
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of tapering the reduction of housing support when people living in (a) temporary and (b) supported accommodation move off income-related benefits and into work.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The income taper in Housing Benefit ensures people in work are better off than someone wholly reliant on benefits. In addition to any financial advantage, there are important non-financial benefits of working. These benefits include learning new skills, improved confidence and independence as well as a positive effect on an individual's mental and physical health.
For those not on Universal Credit, housing support is tapered when their income exceeds the applicable amount. On Universal Credit, for those claimants in Supported Housing or Temporary Accommodation their housing support is not tapered as they are passported to full Housing Benefit. This ensures parity with Universal Credit and avoids them being tapered on both Universal Credit and Housing Benefit which could disincentivise work.
The Department acknowledges the challenge presented by the interaction between Universal Credit and Housing Benefit for those working and living in supported housing and temporary accommodation. This issue is a complex one, officials are working to explore this issue further.
It remains the department’s priority to ensure that those who can work are supported to enter the labour market and to sustain employment.
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
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 reduce call waiting times to the Child Maintenance Service; and if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of call handling times by that service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
CMS are committed to delivering the best possible service to all customers within our growing caseload, though fully recognise that call waiting times are sometimes longer than we would like.
To address this, we are working to improve the efficiency of our customer interactions through both the telephone and Digital channels, and by promoting self-service online. These are freeing up CMS resource to support customers that need to contact us by telephone.
The class leading CMS online service supports customers in understanding options around child maintenance arrangements through to completing applications and the ability to manage their case online. These services are available 24/7, and in July 2024 over 1 million customers were logging on to their online My Child Maintenance Case account and using them. To improve the efficiency of the service, improvements have been made to process simple actions automatically, whilst also improving training and guidance for CMS colleagues.
As a result, call volumes are reducing, and improved customer service being delivered through the combination of Online and Telephone channels.
CMS is working to improve all forms of communication with customers, including greater use of SMS and email as well as improving letter content.
The Department continually seeks to review, evaluate, and enhance tools and training material to support staff in delivering a quality customer service and takes timely action to further train and support staff where further improvements can be made. Additionally, CMS have extended their telephony service to 6pm on weekdays to meet demand.
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many liability orders have been pursued by the Child Maintenance Service since 1 August 2023.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
A principle of child maintenance is to increase levels of cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide their children with financial support. Where a family-based child maintenance arrangement is not suitable the Child Maintenance Service offers a statutory scheme for those parents who need it.
The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement which includes liability orders. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.
The Department plans to bring forward changes to allow Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to make an administrative liability order against a person who has failed to pay child maintenance and is in arrears. The administrative liability order will replace the current requirement for the CMS to apply to the court for a liability order, which can take up to 22 weeks. We expect the new liability order process to take around six to eight weeks, meaning CMS can use its strong enforcement powers more quickly for those who seek to avoid their financial obligations to their children.
We will bring forward the legislation as soon as possible.
The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service and the latest statistics are available up to March 2024. The next release to June 2024 is scheduled for Tuesday 24th September 2024 at 09:30am.
The statistics for liability orders are shown in Table 7.1 of the National tables. The relevant data taken from that table, covering the period requested, is shown in the following table:
Liability Orders in process and money collected in Great Britain, and Liability Orders applied for and granted in England and Wales, July 2023 to March 2024
| Jul to Sep 23 | Oct to Dec 23 | Jan to Mar 24 |
Liability Orders in process at end of quarter | 7,500 | 6,400 | 6,200 |
Liability Orders applied for during quarter (excludes Scotland) | 4,100 | 4,500 | 5,300 |
Liability Orders granted during quarter (excludes Scotland) | 3,600 | 3,900 | 4,400 |
Liability Orders withdrawn or dismissed during quarter (excludes Scotland) | 300 | 300 | 400 |
Money collected during quarter from Paying Parents with a Liability Order in process (£ millions) | 2.4 | 2.1 | 2.1 |
Source: Child Maintenance Service Administrative and Clerical Data
Notes:
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to help tackle unpaid child maintenance.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department plans to bring forward changes to allow the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to make an administrative liability order against a person who has failed to pay child maintenance and is in arrears. The administrative liability order will replace the current requirement for the CMS to apply to the court for a liability order, which is an outdated process and can take up to 22 weeks. We expect the new liability order process to take around six to eight weeks, meaning the CMS can use its strong enforcement powers more quickly to go after those who wilfully avoid their financial obligations to their children.
We will bring forward the legislation as soon as possible.
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total value of child maintenance arrears was on 30 August 2024.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service and the latest statistics are available up to March 2024. The next release covering the statistics to June 2024 is scheduled for Tuesday 24th September 2024 at 09:30am.
The total value of child maintenance that has not been paid and now needs to be collected through ‘Collect and Pay’ at the end of March 2024 was £634.9 million, as shown in Table 6 of the National tables.
The following information is a summary from the latest publication for data up to March 2024.
o £224.9 million was paid
o £91.9 million was unpaid
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
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 ensure gender equality in the work of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) aims to provide a high-quality service to all its customers. The CMS treats parents equally as individuals based on their roles within the scheme and makes no reference to gender. The Department has a specific duty to assess the impact of proposed policies and services and any changes to them on equality to ensure the Department meets its Public Sector Equality Duty obligations.
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
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 effectiveness of the Child Maintenance Service in collecting arrears payments.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) always encourages paying parents to pay their maintenance on time, to avoid accrual of arrears. Where a paying parent fails to pay on time or in full, the CMS aims to take immediate action to recover the debt and re-establish compliance. The CMS will initially negotiate a payment that is feasible for the parent to pay. If this is unsuccessful and the paying parent is employed, the CMS will use a Deductions from Earnings Order (DEO) to take payment directly from their wages. The CMS has a range of strong enforcement powers that can be used against those who consistently refuse to meet their obligations to provide financial support to their children. These powers include the ability to deduct directly from the paying parent’s bank accounts, forcing the sale of property and disqualifications from holding or obtaining driving licenses and passports. We are committed to making the most effective use of these strong enforcement powers and have made a number of improvements to our enforcement process to make it quicker and more efficient.
Asked by: Julia Buckley (Labour - Shrewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what date people must submit a pension credit claim by to qualify for the 2024 winter fuel allowance.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
A claim for Pension Credit can be backdated by up to three months, as long as the conditions of entitlement are met during that period. This means that any claim made by 21 December and successfully backdated can qualify for this year’s Winter Fuel Payment.