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Written Question
Universal Credit
Wednesday 22nd May 2024

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the publication Move to Universal Credit statistics, July 2022 to March 2024, published on 14 May 2024, if he will make an assessment of the reasons why over 180,000 Tax Credits claimants that have been sent a migration notice did not make a Universal Credit claim within the required timeframe.

Answered by Jo Churchill

In February 2024, we published insight into tax credit claim rates, including reasons for not claiming, available here: Move to Universal Credit – insight on Tax Credit migrations and initial Discovery activity for wider benefit cohorts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Written Question
Universal Credit
Wednesday 22nd May 2024

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to table 3 of his Department's publication entitled Completing the move to Universal Credit: Statistics related to the move of households claiming Tax Credits and DWP Benefits to Universal Credit: data to end of March 2024, published on 14 May 2024, if he will break down this data by (a) each nation, (b) each region and (c) each local authority area in the North East.

Answered by Jo Churchill

The information requested is published in table 6 of the Move to Universal Credit statistics, July 2022 to March 2024,Move to Universal Credit statistics, July 2022 to March 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Written Question
Personal Independence Payment: Hearing Impairment
Thursday 16th May 2024

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will take steps to ensure that all people with hearing loss have access to (a) Relay UK, (b) video calls with captions, (c) a video relay service and (d) in-person transcriptions services when applying for Personal Independence Payment.

Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)

When applying for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) there are two different types of service offer available to claimants who are deaf or hearing impaired.

We offer Video Relay Service, a third-party sign and talk solution which allows sign language to be used to aid communication between a claimant and DWP, via a third party. There is no transcript of the conversation, but calls are recorded.

Information is provided on Gov.UK:

British Sign Language (BSL) video relay service

If you’re on a computer - find out how to use the service on mobile or tablet

We also offer a service known as Relay UK. This is a text relay service for people who cannot hear or speak on the telephone and includes captions. The full conversation is transcribed in real time as it happens.

Information is available on Gov.UK:

Relay UK (if you cannot hear or speak on the phone): 18001 then 0800 917 2222

Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Disability
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help support disabled employees in his Department.

Answered by Paul Maynard

  • DWP is recognised as a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, which demonstrates the departmental commitment to attracting, recruiting, retaining, and supporting career progression of disabled people. This assessment has recently been validated by Business Disability Forum.
  • Annually we update the DWP voluntary reporting on disability, mental health and wellbeing - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) voluntary report on Gov UK which provides updated information on the activity on our support for disabled employees.
  • Our DWP Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Approach has a long-term strategic intent that our products, services, and environment are ‘inclusive by design’ to ensure that as many people as possible, particularly groups who are traditionally excluded from being able to use an interface or navigate an environment, can access these. We use this to support our Disability Inclusion Action Plan that prioritises building capability, raising awareness, streamlining processes and improving policies.
  • In June 2023, 22% of DWP staff indicated that they had a disability (an increase of 3.7% compared to June 2021) and 13.6% of Senior Civil Servants in the department declared a disability (an increase of 1.6% compared to June 2021).
  • Workplace adjustments are considered as a matter of course for any colleague who experiences a barrier and/or difficulty at work including those with a health condition; enabling them to develop and fulfil their potential. We have a programme of activity in place to ensure that both line managers and employees understand the requirement to consider adjustments and the process for putting them in place.
  • DWP have a strong relationship and remains well connected to staff diversity and inclusion networks, such as Mental Health First Aiders, Ambassadors for Fair Treatment, and our disability network - THRIVE. It utilises them to raise awareness and provide education on the importance of diversity in the workplace. Additionally, they can be used as recruitment panel volunteers and the wider sharing of vacancies across communities of disabled colleagues. We also learn and utilise lived experiences throughout our decision making.
  • DWP’s internal and external communications team collaborate with our Disability Network colleagues (THRIVE) to deliver whole DWP communications throughout the year – linking to specific events such as Neurodiversity Week or International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
  • Our Disability and Mental Health Champion works closely with our disability networks and sponsors the Civil Service Deaf and Hard of Hearing Network, spearheading communication campaigns, publishing blogs and working with her Senior Civil Service colleagues to highlight challenges and promote learning.
  • DWP has established a Centre of Expertise for resourcing, within it, is a team focused on diversity and inclusion in recruitment. The team leads on ensuring our recruitment processes are inclusive and enable our drive for equitable representation across the workforce, thus supporting DWP’s equality objectives.
  • DWP have been awarded the RNIB Visibly Better Employer (VBE) status. We are proudly promoting our status; including within our adverts and candidate pack, profile on diverse jobs boards, social media, and Civil Service Careers websites; including the badge to show that we are a Visibly Better Employer.
  • We have worked with Government Recruitment Service (GRS) to develop a Recruitment Adjustment Passport, to lead the way for the Civil Service. The Passport will gather a candidate’s adjustment requests for the end-to-end recruitment process to alleviate difficulties, repetition, and inconsistencies throughout.
  • DWP has been leading activity in trialling new recruitment practices that better support a broader range of candidates. Using improving branding to encourage Disabled people to apply for our roles – as well as acting as a role model to all other employers.
  • DWP ensures digital environments, as well as physical environments, are inclusive and accessible. A new Accessibility Practice SharePoint site was launched on 24th July 2023. which provides guidance on various aspects of accessibility. We have Accessibility Standard Leads throughout our corporate functions.
  • A new DWP Digital Accessibility Policy was approved and published in June 2023. This sets out the responsibilities of product teams and individuals in creating accessible products and internal communications. It explains in detail how to comply with the Equality Act (2010), the Public Sector Equality Duty (2011) and the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (2018/2022).
  • During 2022 DWP introduced a structured approach to improving accessibility and inclusion in the design of DWP buildings.
Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Remote Working
Thursday 14th December 2023

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of his Department's employees work on a fully remote basis.

Answered by Paul Maynard

The DWP has 407 members of staff that are recorded as being permanent Homeworkers which equates to 0.46%. This is data as of 30th November 2023.

Written Question
Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment: Internet
Monday 23rd October 2023

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 September 2023 to Question 199184 on Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment: Internet, which postcodes are eligible for the online application service for PIP launched on 27 July; and what criterion was used to select these postcodes.

Answered by Tom Pursglove

One key element of the Health Transformation Programme is a new online application service for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). As explained in my answer to Question 199184, this is currently being tested in selected postcode districts across England.

It is vital that we develop an online claim service that works for all claimants across the country. The initial range of postcodes were carefully selected to ensure they are representative of the wider population and allow us to robustly evaluate the impact of the service.

Limiting the number of claimants during the testing phase means we can test the functionality and stability of the new service, learning and making improvements before we gradually and carefully increase the number of people who can use it. As we scale the service, this list of postcode districts will gradually increase until the service is available nationally across England, Wales and Northern Ireland by 2024.

A list of postcodes can be found below*. People can check if they are able to apply for PIP online through our ‘How to Claim’ GOV.UK page and using the postcode checker which will be constantly updated.

B16

B18

B21

B42

B66

B67

B68

B69

B70

B71

BD11

BD12

BD4

BH1

BH10

BH11

BH12

BH13

BH14

BH15

BH16

BH17

BH18

BH2

BH22

BH3

BH4

BH5

BH6

BH7

BH8

BH9

BN20

BN22

BN23

CB11

CM24

CW12

DE21

DE7

DE72

DE75

DY11

DY13

E11

E12

E18

E7

GL1

GL10

GL5

HD1

HD4

HP23

HR7

HR8

IG1

IG2

IG3

IG4

IG5

IG6

IG7

IG8

IG9

IP10

IP11

IP12

IP13

IP15

IP16

IP17

IP18

IP19

IP20

IP3

IP4

IP5

IP6

KT10

KT12

KT6

KT7

KT8

KT9

L10

L21

L22

L23

L29

L30

L38

L9

LE13

LN10

LN11

LN12

LN13

LN9

LU1

LU2

LU3

LU4

LU7

M15

M16

M23

M31

M32

M33

M41

NE1

NE2

NE4

NE5

NE98

NG10

NG15

NG17

NR31

NR32

NR33

NR34

NR35

PE21

PE23

PE24

PE25

PE34

RG14

RG20

RG21

RG22

RG23

RG24

RH7

RH8

RM10

SG7

SK11

SO24

ST13

TN8

TW16

TW17

WA14

WA15

WF13

WF15

WF16

WF17

WR13

WR14

WR2

WR5

WR6

WS6

YO11

YO12

YO13

YO14

YO22

YO25

CM17

* This list will change as we continually scale the new online PIP service.

__________________________________________________________________________

Written Question
Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment: Internet
Tuesday 19th September 2023

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of enabling applicants for Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payments who are unable to complete application forms by hand to complete them online.

Answered by Tom Pursglove

We recognise it is essential to consider the impacts which disabilities and health conditions can have on a person’s ability to apply for support.

For the vast majority of people who claim Personal Independence Payment (PIP), their claim begins with a phone call to start their application. To complete the claim, applicants are either signposted to an online form to provide further information, or sent forms in the post if they prefer. Both options are available to everyone who applies and are not dependent on having any specific accessibility needs.

The Health Transformation Programme is going further and transforming the entire PIP service. A key element of this transformation will be the option for people to apply for PIP entirely online should they wish to.

On 27 July we launched a service for limited numbers of people to make their claim for PIP entirely online, 24/7, without needing to call the department. The service is currently available on a limited basis while it is being tested. It is currently open to those living in selected postcodes in England, claiming PIP for the first time, who do not have a third party acting on their behalf and are not claiming under the Special Rules for End of Life criteria.

Over 3000 claimants have so far applied fully online; we will gradually and carefully expand the scope of the service in the months ahead. We intend to make online PIP applications an option for everyone who needs to apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2024. Offering telephony, postal and now online applications will increase the choice available for those who need to claim PIP and allow them to apply for support in whichever way best suits their needs and circumstances.

As DLA has been replaced for adults by PIP and Attendance Allowance, new applications are no longer accepted. For child DLA, a digital form can be completed online provided it can then be printed and posted in. A home visit can also be arranged to facilitate a new claim in exceptional circumstances. We are reviewing the processes of applying for child DLA as part of the department’s service modernisation strategy.

Written Question
Access to Work Scheme: Visual Impairment
Wednesday 15th February 2023

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the impact of the time taken for those joining the Access to Work scheme on people with sight loss accessing employment.

Answered by Tom Pursglove

Access to Work has received a significant increase in applications over the last year and we have recruited new staff to meet the increased demand and reduce the time it takes to make decisions.

Customers making new applications where they are starting work within the next four weeks, or have a grant coming to an end that requires renewal, are prioritised to ensure customers can enter and remain in the labour market. The department is working hard to reduce the wait times for all disabled people. All processes are kept under review in the light of management information and feedback from stakeholders including, for example, the recommendations from the recent Royal National Institute of Blind People report.

Written Question
Cost of Living Payments: Disability
Tuesday 20th December 2022

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he make an estimate of the number of people who are eligible for the Disability Cost of Living Payment by each qualifying benefit.

Answered by Tom Pursglove

The answer to this is subject to a future publication, however we did publish estimates in the impact assessment which can be found here:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0013/Social%20Security%20(Additional%20Payments)ImpactAssesment%20.pdf

Written Question
Cost of Living Payments
Monday 19th December 2022

Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)

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 of people who are eligible for both the (a) £650 Cost of Living Payment and (b) £150 Disability Cost of Living Payment.

Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)

I refer the honourable Member to the answer given to PQ97604.