Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of disabled people who are projected to move into work following the removal of the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity mobility descriptor in the Work Capability Assessment in the next (a) 12 months, (b) two years and (c) five years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We are committed to ensuring our welfare system encourages and supports people into work, while providing a vital safety net for those who need it most.
To reflect new flexibilities in the labour market and to ensure more people are supported to move closer to work, from 2025, we will remove the Mobilising activity used to assess Limited Capability for Work- and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) in the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). To ensure that those with the most significant mobilising limitations are still protected we will retain the LCWRA Risk regulations for physical health. This means that where work preparation would lead to a deterioration in a claimant’s physical health they would still meet the eligibility criteria for LCWRA.
The changes to the WCA will come into effect from 2025 so impacts will be seen from 2025/26 onwards. The OBR judge that the cumulative rises in employment year-on-year from the removal of the LCWRA Mobilising descriptor are estimated to be 500 in 2025-26, 1,800 by 2026-27 and 5,900 by 2028-29. Adding to this, the expansion of the Universal Support scheme increases funding for placements of disabled people in existing vacancies and for a 'place and train' programme to support them. We expect this to increase employment by around 15,000 by 2028-29.
Additional support will be offered to those moving from the LCWRA group into the Limited Capability for Work (LCW) group. This includes Employment Advice in NHS talking therapies, which combines psychological treatment and employment support for people with mental health conditions, and the Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) programme, a supported employment model aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities to enable them to access paid jobs in the open labour market.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
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 support disabled people with mobility problems into employment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Government has a wide range of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with mobility problems, to start, stay and succeed in work. These include:
Building on existing provision and the £2 billion investment announced at the Spring Budget, we announced a new package of support in Autumn Statement 2023. This includes:
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support recipients of the Financial Assistance Scheme with the cost of living.
Answered by Paul Maynard
This Government is committed to take action that helps to alleviate levels of pensioner poverty, including those who are receiving payments from Financial Assistance Scheme. This includes measures such as:
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his Department's policy is on the introduction of indexation for inflation for the Financial Assistance Scheme.
Answered by Paul Maynard
While all legislation is kept under review as a matter of course, there are currently no concrete plans to review the Financial Assistance Scheme indexation rules, which is complex and will require careful consideration.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has had recent discussions with the Pensions Action Group on the Financial Assistance Scheme.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Secretary of State has not had any recent discussions with the Pensions Action Group (PAG). However, on 8 January 2024 I met with representatives of PAG in which a range of issues in relation to the Financial Assistance Scheme were discussed.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of the Financial Assistance Scheme for individuals who lost occupational pensions because their sponsoring employer became insolvent.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The information required to carry out such an assessment is not readily available and to obtain the detail needed would take significant time. The Secretary of State has therefore made no such assessment and does not intend to do so at this stage.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average wait time is to receive a response to a Child Maintenance application.
Answered by Paul Maynard
Between 75 and 80% of child maintenance applications are cleared within 6 weeks and a written response is issued by letter to both customers with details of the application. This is based on the last 4 quarters performance with the average at 77%.
An application for child maintenance will be recorded as having been made on the day it is received by the Child Maintenance Service:
1. for written applications this will mean the date shown on the office date stamp
2. for telephone applications this will mean the date that the telephone conversation takes place
3. for online applications this will mean the date the client pressed the “send application” button
Applications are considered 'cleared' when one of the following occurs:
a) the amount of child maintenance to be paid has been calculated and an arrangement to pay maintenance between the two parents has been agreed.
b) the amount of child maintenance to be paid has been calculated as zero; or
c) the child maintenance application has been closed.
The length of time to complete an application is most impacted by the service’s ability to trace and confirm the identity of the non-resident parent from the information provided within the application.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of cases were categorised as in debt (a) in 2018, (b) in 2022 and (c) now.
Answered by Paul Maynard
We do not have the number of case groups with child maintenance debt as of 2018 and the latest data we can supply is for September 2023 which will match the most recently published Child Maintenance Service Statistics.
It should be noted that that we have interpreted your question as asking how many paying parents had child maintenance debt. We do not have data on if the parents have other types of debt.
|
|
|
|
| Mar-18 | Mar-22 | Sep-23 |
Paying Parents* | 390,435 | 544,591 | 633,768 |
Case groups with child maintenance debt **(rounded to the nearest 10) | Not available | 204,190 | 233,270 |
Percentage |
| 37% | 37% |
* Please note this will include paying parents with collect & pay cases, direct pay cases and collect & pay cases who have no ongoing child maintenance liability.
** The case groups with child maintenance debt are sourced from administrative data and therefore has not undergone the same rigorous quality assurance as officially published statistics.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish a breakdown of resident and non-resident parents using the Child Maintenance Service by gender.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) official statistics are published every three months. Statistics on the gender of paying parents using the CMS, from quarter ending March 2016 to quarter ending September 2023, can be found in the CMS Paying Parent dataset available on Stat-Xplore. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. The Department is considering expanding these statistics to cover more information on receiving parents.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
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 number and proportion of parents using the Child Maintenance Service who are in debt as of 12 November 2023.
Answered by Paul Maynard
We have answered based on our assumption that the question asked is in connection with the number of people with child maintenance debt and not broader family financial challenges and debt (credit cards etc)
In line with our published Child Maintenance Service (CMS) statistics the latest information only covers up to September 2023. The total amount of CMS parents with CMS debt is 233.3k. Please note that the debt considered in this calculation will include instances where the liability has been charged to a Paying Parent's account, but the scheduled collection date relating to that liability has not yet been reached. For a small number of Paying Parents, this will be the only 'debt' that they owe.