Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claimed (a) PIP and (b) DLA for ADHD since 2013.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest available data on personal independence payment (PIP) clearances split by condition, including ADHD, can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer systems. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html. An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.
Data on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) clearances by condition is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claimed PIP for ADHD in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest available data on personal independence payment (PIP) clearances split by condition, including ADHD, can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer systems. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html. An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which unit in his Department is responsible for equalities.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Every Department across Government has a responsibility for equalities.
Under Public Sector Equality Legislation every person working for the Department has a personal responsibility for implementing and promoting commitment to equality in their day-to-day dealings with everyone – including members of the public, other colleagues, employers and partners.
The Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing team are responsible for providing advice on Equality Analysis where activity is colleague facing.
For customer focussed work, the responsibility sits across multiple teams in Policy and Service Delivery.
DWP has a specialist equalities team who can provide their colleagues with advice on equalities-related issues, including the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). Under the PSED, all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) activities, through the review of EDI spending announced last June, to ensure value for money for taxpayers. The Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 23 February 2024 to Question 15472 on Department for Work and Pensions: Equality, which teams across his Department hold that information.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Under Public Sector Equality Legislation every person working for the department has a personal responsibility for implementing and promoting commitment to equality in their day-to-day dealings with everyone – including members of the public, other colleagues, employers and partners.
The Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing team are responsible for providing advice on Equality Analysis where activity is colleague facing.
For customer focussed work, the responsibility sits across multiple teams in Policy and Service Delivery.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff in their Department have job titles that include the words (a) equality, (b) diversity, (c) inclusion, (d) gender, (e) LGBT and (f) race.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The information is held by numerous teams across the department, some focussing on employees and some on customers.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
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 adequacy of transition of claimants from Incapacity Benefit to the Employment and Support Allowance; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of that transition on claimants' accruals of National Insurance credits.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
All Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants receive Class 1 National Insurance Credits as part of their award. If any claimants believe that an error has been made in the award of these credits they should contact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
ESA was introduced in October 2008. From March 2011, the DWP began reassessing people on incapacity benefits (for example, Incapacity Benefit (IB) and Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA) ahead of moving them onto ESA.
The DWP made an historic error with the reassessment of IB cases when they were transferred onto ESA. This arose because the Department converted some IB and SDA claimants to Contributory ESA but did not consider whether they may also have been entitled to Income-Related ESA. A Legal Entitlement and Administrative Practices (LEAP) exercise was concluded in June 2021, the exercise reviewed around 600,000 cases and made 118,000 arrears payments, totalling £613 million pounds. Those claimants who have received arrears payments would have been entitled to receive National Insurance credits from the date they were transferred onto contributory ESA. The then Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work made a statement about the completion of this LEAP to the house on 7th July 2021. This statement can be found here.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Employment and Support Allowance claimants have notified his Department of a shortfall in their National Insurance credits; what estimate he has made of how many such cases there are in total; and how many such cases have been resolved as of 16 February 2024.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold the data concerning claimants who have notified the Department regarding a shortfall in their National Insurance Credits. Nor is there data on how many cases of this type have been resolved. All ESA claimants receive Class 1 National Insurance Credits as part of their award. However, if any individuals believe that an error has been made they should contact the DWP.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are claiming PIP for disability related to syndactyly.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is based on the needs arising from a long-term health condition or disability, not the health condition or disability itself.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many equalities impact assessments his Department completed in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty) all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ may be produced, there is no legal requirement for duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.
Notwithstanding this, the information requested is not held centrally in the Department and to provide what might be available would incur disproportionate cost. The Department promotes awareness of the Duty and relevant analytical and other tools to help ensure compliance with it.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason his Department has not published statistics on nationality at point of National Insurance number registration of working age benefit recipients since 2020.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Following the publication of the annual Nationality at point of National Insurance number registration of DWP working age benefit recipients statistics in August 2021, the Department announced in 2022 that it would be ceasing publication of these statistics. This was due to an assessment that concluded these statistics no longer met the purpose for which they were created. The information contained in the release reflected the nationality status of the benefit claimants at the point of National Insurance number (NINo) registration, which does not necessarily reflect the nationality at the point of claiming the benefit, as the allocation of a NINo can be made many years, or even decades, before an individual claims a benefit. Therefore, claimants who have since obtained British citizenship could still have been counted in those statistics as non-UK nationals.