Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on what date universal credit is planned to be fully rolled out and operational.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The national rollout of the Universal Credit Full Service will be completed on 12 December 2018 for new claims.
The current roll out schedule can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-transition-to-full-service
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of personal independence payment assessment results have been overturned on appeal.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Since Personal Independence Payment (PIP) was introduced 3.5m decisions have been made up to June 2018, of these 9% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 implications for her Departments policy on sanctions of the report, Universal credit in work progression randomised control panel, published by her Department on 12 December 2017.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The results from the In-work Progression Randomised Controlled Trial show positive, but relatively small, impacts on earnings, and the wider evaluation contains a range of findings about the delivery and reception of the interventions being tested, including that of conditionality and sanctions.
This report is a starting point: we have more to do to further analyse the findings from the RCT, and we are developing a programme of research, analysis, tests and trials, to further develop the evidence base on progression.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking in response to the findings of its report, Personal Independence Payment Claimant Research – Final Report, published in September 2018, to improve the application process for personal independence payment claimants.
Answered by Sarah Newton
We are absolutely committed to improving the overall Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimant experience as this is what claimants rightly expect and deserve. The three waves of research that have been completed, and were published in the PIP Claimant Research – Final Report have provided valuable insights, alongside other sources, to make improvements to the PIP application process.
Here are some of the key improvements we have made to the PIP application process:
However, I recognise that there is more to do to improve the application process and that is why we will be commissioning independent research to support further improvements to the PIP2 questionnaire. In addition to the independent research, we are also progressing options to video record PIP face-to-face assessments to help increase people’s trust in the assessment process. We have been working over the summer to gather views from claimants, representative bodies and health professionals on video recording in order to inform a live testing pilot later in the year, which will inform wider rollout decisions.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 number of advance payments that have been applied for as a result of the roll-out of universal credit.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Applications for a Universal Credit advance can be made in a number of ways: in person, by telephone and also online. To identify and collate the total number of applications made would incur disproportionate cost.
Advances are available to all Universal Credit claimants who need them as part of a package of support to manage their transition to Universal Credit. Also, as promised last November, following the Autumn Budget, we have now introduced new functionality for advances to be claimed through a claimant’s online Universal Credit account.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made a comparative assessment of the reasons for the difference in the level of rent areas for housing association tenants who are (a) in receipt of universal credit and (b) not in receipt of universal credit.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department does not have access to such rent arrears figures to make such an assessment.
Research does show, however, that many people do come onto Universal Credit with existing rent arrears. We also know that arrears are usually temporary and the majority of claimants do succeed in paying their rent, managing their monthly payments and clearing their arrears over time. In our research, the proportion of Universal Credit claimants who were in arrears at the start of their claim fell by a third after four months.
We are carrying out further analysis of this issue with a number of housing providers, to investigate and understand the true level of rent arrears for their tenants, what is causing them and any impacts Universal Credit may be having. It will be published when completed.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have waited for longer than five weeks to receive their first payment of universal credit in Blackburn.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department’s data on Universal Credit payment timeliness is not currently available for publication by area or region.
Our latest research shows that nationally, around 80% of new claims are paid in full and on time. The Department’s internal data shows that for those cases where full payment has not been made, around a sixth have not signed their Claimant Commitment or passed identity checks, and the others have outstanding verification issues such as housing, self-employed earnings and childcare costs. Many of these claimants receive a part payment for those elements of the claim that have been verified.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the saving to the public purse as a result of the roll-out of universal credit.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The forecasted exchequer savings (minus figure indicates a saving) from the introduction of Universal Credit are provided in the table below*
- | 18/19 | 19/20 | 20/21 | 21/22 | 22/23 |
Net effect on Welfare Spending - SS18 (£b) | -0.2 | -0.5 | -0.5 | -0.7 | -1.0 |
* The figures are taken from table 2.22 in the excel document, ‘March 2018 Economic and fiscal outlook – supplementary fiscal tables: expenditure’, which can be accessed at http://obr.uk/efo/economic-fiscal-outlook-march-2018/
This forecast is produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility who set out their methdology in the Welfare Trends Report published in January 2018. The full report and accompanying data is available here: http://obr.uk/wtr/welfare-trends-report-january-2018/
Universal Credit will deliver an overall reduction in welfare spending of £3.6bn per year, savings associated with reduced fraud and error of £1.3bn per year, and employment gains of £1.8bn per year. Once in steady state, we expect Universal Credit to generate wider economic benefits of £8bn per annum, as set out in the published Universal Credit Business Case.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints her Department has received in relation to universal credit from people in Blackburn.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Since 1 July 2017, 48 complaints concerning Universal Credit have been received from people in Blackburn.
Notes:
This data is from DWP internal management information which does not form part of the official statistics outputs that are released by the Department in accordance with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice. It relates to Tier 1 and Tier 2 complaints for both live and full service Universal Credit claims.
Universal Credit Full Service rolled out in Blackburn on 14 February 2018.
Blackburn Jobcentre currently has 2,808 Universal Credit Full Service claimants.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints her Department has received on the personal independence process from people in Blackburn.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The DWP complaints system does not collect information at this level of detail.
The only way to obtain specific complaints information about Personal Independence Payment (PIP) process from people in Blackburn, would be to investigate each PIP complaint on a case by case basis. This could only be retrieved at disproportionate cost to the Department.