Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2015 to Question 221196, what the criteria were for selecting the 49 cases relating to the death of a claimant for peer review; what the date and location of death was of the claimant in each case; in how many of the cases the claimant had been sanctioned; what conclusions each review reached on whether his Department could have acted more appropriately or correctly or sympathetically in its dealings with the claimant; and if he will publish the detailed results of each review.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Peer Reviews can be requested for any complex case where it is beneficial for it to be analysed with objective scrutiny to ensure all issues have been fully addressed. Peer reviews aim to identify process improvements and contain sensitive information and disclosing the content of these reviews, even in anonymised and summarised form, may still allow individuals to be identified.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 9 February 2015 to Question 222884, for what reason information that is currently available to his Department on jobseeker's allowance hardship payments between March 2012 and March 2015 will not be published until May 2015.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Figures on the number of hardship payments are currently being compiled and will require quality assurance ahead of publication.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish the information his Department holds on how many people received jobseeker's allowance (JSA) hardship payments in each year from March 2012 to date; and how many JSA claimants (a) were sanctioned and (b) received hardship payments in each parliamentary constituency or the nearest proxy for constituencies in each such year.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
(a) The information requested for the number of JSA sanctions by Parliamentary constituency is published and available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Stat-Xplore_User_Guide.htm
(b) The latest published information on hardship awards covers the 12 month period from April 2011 to March 2012 can be found at
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many persons in the Support Group for Employment and Support Allowance have been called in each month since January 2013, for further work-focused interviews after already assessed as not fit for this kind of activity in each month since January 2013; and what steps he is taking to reduce the number of such interviews.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
Claimants placed in the Support Group have no obligation to attend Work Focused Interviews. We therefore do not hold information on those claimants invited for Work Focused Interviews.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to collate and publish information on the weekly amount and duration of jobseeker's allowance hardship payments.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Department intends to publish figures on the number of hardship applications and awards in May 2015.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who have been sanctioned since January 2012 have received hardship payments in each year since then; and what the average level was of such hardship payments.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The latest available published information for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) hardship awards is for the year from April 2011 to March 2012 and can be accessed via the link below.
Information on the weekly amount awarded or on the duration of the award is not available. Therefore it is not possible to work out the average level of such hardship payments.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many peer reviews his Department has carried out following the death of benefit claimants; how many such reviews involved the sanctioning of claimants; and in how many cases his Department's action was found to be inappropriate or incorrect.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Department has conducted 49 peer reviews relating to the death of a claimant. Peer reviews are conducted to assure the Department’s processes.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many incapacity benefit claimants died during or after their work capability assessment in each of the last two years.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The Department does monitor requests we receive for new statistics and consider whether we can produce and release analysis that will helpfully inform public debate. The Department is therefore looking at this issue with a view to seeing what statistics could be produced on a regular basis.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will investigate the reasons for the level of sanctioning of jobseeker's allowance in the Greater Manchester area being more than a third higher than the national average.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
We deploy a comprehensive monitoring regime to check that sanctions are applied appropriately across our network. Where any site is making significantly more or fewer referrals than we would typically expect, we review their activity to ensure sanctions are being applied appropriately.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants died in each month of the last three years (a) after attending a work capability assessment and (b) having been assessed as fit for work and then appealed, but died before that appeal was heard.
Answered by Mike Penning
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.