Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons the allocation for the Flexible Support Fund is lower in 2016-17 than in 2015-16.
Answered by Priti Patel
The budget for Flexible Support Fund (FSF) is subject to annual review and change. This is based on claimant needs and volumes, and as new policies are agreed and old policies are withdrawn. As discretionary expenditure it is also dependent upon overall Departmental affordability.
The FSF budget has actually increased between 2015/16 and 2016/17. In 2015/16 it was £69.5m. It is £76.7m for 2016/17.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 4 May 2016 to Question 35718, what his Department's combined legal costs were for the cases EE/2013/0145, EA2013/0148 and EA/2013/0149 heard at the First Tier Tribunal on 22 February 2016.
Answered by Priti Patel
The total recorded external legal cost of these cases up to March 2016 is around £94,000.
This case raised important issues both for the Department, and for the Government as a whole, with regards to being able to create a safe space for free and frank provision of advice to officials and Ministers. The Government remains of a view that this was a case worth pursuing as the principles here are important ones for the proper conduct of public affairs.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have been migrated on to universal credit through a change of circumstance in each of the last three years.
Answered by Priti Patel
This information is not currently available.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the receipts to the public purse were from (a) the £20 fee charged for applications to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS), (b) the 20 per cent collection fee for paying parents using the CMS collect and pay service, (c) the four per cent collection fee for receiving parents using the CMS collect and pay service and (d) enforcement fees levied on paying parents in 2015-16.
Answered by Priti Patel
Receipts to the public purse during 2015-16 were as follows:
Item | Amount received in 2015/16 |
Application fee | £1.7m |
Collection charge from paying parents | £5.6m |
Collection charge from receiving parents | £1.1m |
Enforcement charges | £0.1m |
These figures are draft and subject to audit.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the outcomes were of the universal credit in-work conditionality pilots.
Answered by Priti Patel
The In-work Progression Randomised Control Trial is rolling out nationally but not yet complete. We plan to have recruited the necessary 15,000 participants by Autumn 2016. We will then continue to support claimants for a further year in the trial, with findings in early 2018.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to universal credit, what his estimate is of Government spending on transitional protection where entitlement is lower in each year until 2018-19.
Answered by Priti Patel
Our estimates of Government spending on transitional protection over the Spending Review period are: £120 million in 2018/19. The national implementation of managed migration is not planned to start before June 2018, and so transitional protection will not start until then.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2016 to Question 30624 and with reference to the First-Tier Tribunal General Regulatory Chamber Information Rights decision of 11 March 2016, if his Department will publish the Risk Register prior to the universal credit re-set in 2013.
Answered by Priti Patel
Following the first tier tribunal decision that the Universal Credit risk register for April 2012 should be released, the document was shared with the requestor.
The government’s view remains that is not in the public interest to publish risk registers because it will compromise the ability to conduct a full and frank assessment of risks and therefore increase the risk to successful delivery of major programmes.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2016 to Question 30180 on universal credit: correspondence, whether claimants have been informed of the availability of the Flexible Support Fund in that correspondence.
Answered by Priti Patel
Copies of the communications claimants received have been placed in the House of Commons library (reference DEP2016-0302) and are available at the following link:
The correspondence does not inform claimants of the availability of the Flexible Support Fund, however guidance for Work Coaches has been updated to remind them of the availability of the fund for those claimants affected by the changes to the Work Allowances.
The approximate cost to DWP of communicating the planned changes to the work allowances to Universal Credit claimants was £590,000.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2016 to Question 30180, when he expects copies of the correspondence sent to claimants on universal credit to be placed in the Library.
Answered by Priti Patel
Copies of the communications claimants received have been placed in the House of Commons library (reference DEP2016-0302) and are available at the following link:
The correspondence does not inform claimants of the availability of the Flexible Support Fund, however guidance for Work Coaches has been updated to remind them of the availability of the fund for those claimants affected by the changes to the Work Allowances.
The approximate cost to DWP of communicating the planned changes to the work allowances to Universal Credit claimants was £590,000.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2016 to Question 33701, how much his Department has spent on contacting people likely to be affected by planned changes to the work allowance element of universal credit.
Answered by Priti Patel
Copies of the communications claimants received have been placed in the House of Commons library (reference DEP2016-0302) and are available at the following link:
The correspondence does not inform claimants of the availability of the Flexible Support Fund, however guidance for Work Coaches has been updated to remind them of the availability of the fund for those claimants affected by the changes to the Work Allowances.
The approximate cost to DWP of communicating the planned changes to the work allowances to Universal Credit claimants was £590,000.