Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many alternative payment arrangements for payment of universal credit were made with claimants in (a) March and (b) April 2020.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is intended for future publication
Statistics on Alternative Payment Arrangements for March and April will be published on 11 August 2020 and can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit advance payments were made in (a) March and (b) April 2020.
Answered by Will Quince
The department published a set of supplementary management information on the number of Universal Credit Advances paid by the four advance types. It is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-declarations-claims-and-advances-management-information
This management information will be updated on each Tuesday up to the end of June. Each week the release will include daily data for the time up to a week before the release date.
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to inform universal credit claimants that they can apply to have their historic benefit over-payment debts waived on (a) health and (b) and financial grounds.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department is open and transparent about our approach to benefit recovery, publishing our full Benefit Overpayment Recovery staff guide on gov.uk. Information regarding the waiver process can be found in chapter 8 of this guide. I have included a link below for your information.
In addition, when the Department informs claimants of a benefit overpayment (either by letter, or via the journal in Universal Credit), they are advised to contact the Department’s Debt Management Team to discuss repayment. During this discussion, if a claimant expresses concern about repayment, Debt Management staff will inform them that they can request a waiver be considered.
It should be noted that a waiver can only be granted where the recovery of the overpayment is causing substantial medical and/or financial hardship, and where clear evidence of this can be provided.
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of universal credit claimants did not receive their first payment within five weeks in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Will Quince
The latest available information on Universal Credit payment timeliness is published and can be found at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
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 implement social distancing in Jobcentre Plus branches.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP is committed to paying people benefits and supporting our citizens at this time.
All face to face appointments have been suspended so that jobcentres are closed to the public except for in exceptional circumstances to minimise risk to the public and staff.
Where colleagues can effectively contribute to the department’s response working from home then they are doing so. Not all colleagues can work from home because they need to access equipment, programmes and support to enable them to do their telephony and processing work.
Measures are in place to ensure compliance with social distancing, including extensive communications, both through posters displayed in the office and on the department’s Intranet advising colleagues about how to work differently to ensure social distancing can be achieved.
We have also put in place a route for staff to escalate concerns to our regional Health & Safety teams. Cleaning regimes have been enhanced to include additional targeted touchpoint cleaning.
We will continue to follow Government guidance on social distancing and reflect best practice as the current situation evolves
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications for personal independence payment were made in (a) March and (b) April 2020.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The information requested for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) new claims registrations made in March and April 2020 is not yet readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. It is due for future publication in the PIP Quarterly Official Statistics which will be released on 11 June 2020.
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of her Department's ability to undertake (a) work capability and (b) disability assessments remotely.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are closely monitoring all new assessment processes to ensure they are working well for those claiming health and disability benefits, as well as providing the right level of information to allow claims to be assessed.
The department’s priority is ensuring people get their benefit payments and that we can continue to support those who need us most. We are working with all our Assessment Providers to ensure we do not place people claiming health and disability benefits at unnecessary risk. As a temporary measure, this has included suspending face-to-face assessments and introducing telephone assessments. Health Professionals continue to make recommendations based on paper-based evidence, where possible, to avoid unnecessary assessments.
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her timetable is for the resumption of her Department's (a) work capability and (b) disability assessments.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Assessments haven’t stopped. From 17 March we suspended face to face assessments for sickness and disability benefits for 3 months to protect vulnerable people (and assessment centre staff) from unnecessary risk of exposure to COVID-19. As always, wherever possible we will do a paper-based assessment. If further information is needed, the assessment provider may arrange a telephone assessment.
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that previous claimants of the motability component under disability living allowance who have had their entitlement to the motability component removed under personal independence payments do not have their motability car removed while awaiting an appeal.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department worked closely with Motability to design an extensive £175 million Transitional Support Package for those who are no longer eligible for the Motability scheme following reassessment from DLA to PIP.
Motability allow eligible claimants to retain their vehicle for up to eight-weeks after DLA payment end and offer £2,000 for those who joined before 2013, or £1,000 for those joining during 2013; or, instead claimants may opt to extend their lease for 26 weeks after the DLA payments end (or until a decision on their appeal is heard) and receive a smaller lump sum payment: £500 for those who joined before 2013, or £250 for those who joined during 2013.
For those who are appealing their decision following reassessment, Motability have confirmed in a letter to the Work and Pensions Select Committee that “if a customer has opted for the 26-week retention period and Motability is satisfied that they are actively progressing an appeal, a discretionary extension to the handback period can be granted.”
Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will take steps to extend the six months grace period that claimants of personal independence payments have while awaiting an appeal on a decision to remove their entitlement to the motability component.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department worked closely with Motability to design an extensive £175 million Transitional Support Package for those who are no longer eligible for the Motability scheme following reassessment from DLA to PIP.
Motability allow eligible claimants who joined the Scheme before 2014 to opt to extend their lease for 26 weeks after the DLA payments end (or until a decision on their appeal is heard) and receive a smaller lump sum payment.
For those who are appealing their decision following reassessment, Motability have confirmed in a letter to the Work and Pensions Select Committee that “if a customer has opted for the 26-week retention period and Motability is satisfied that they are actively progressing an appeal, a discretionary extension to the handback period can be granted.”
Those joining the scheme after 2014 and who subsequently lose eligibility for their Motability vehicle will receive a £1000 stopped allowance support payment from Motability.