Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
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 identify whether parents with claims for historical Child Support Agency arrears (a) are still residing at their last known address and (b) have moved to a new address.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Legally, it is the responsibility of the customer to inform us if their address changes and as part of preparing a case we are ensuring that any outstanding change of addresses are processed. If a customer has not informed us of a change but have informed another part of DWP or HMRC then their address should have been updated on the Customer Information Service (CIS), and then we will automatically be informed and the clients record updated accordingly.
CSA will write to both parents at the most recent address we hold for them. If this is unsuccessful, we will attempt to trace them using the trace tools available to us. Trace activity would include using any information provided by the receiving parent on the representation letter in order to find the paying parents current location.
If, at the point of issuing a representation letter to the customer, we hold a Dead Letter Office (DLO) or No Fixed Abode (NFA) address for the customer the system suspends the representation and flags to the case worker to conduct a trace action.
If during representation a letter is returned DLO or NFA then the caseworker is instructed by procedures to suspend the representation and complete trace action.
If trace action is successful then the address will be updated the representation period restarted. Only if trace action is unsuccessful would we then continue to write off CSA debts.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress her Department has made on the evaluation of the video recording pilot for personal independence payment assessments.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department is evaluating the findings from the video recording pilot and we will provide an update on our future plans once this has been completed.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many enforcement actions the HMRC and Child Maintenance Group liaison group has conducted since January 2017.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is currently working with HMRC to identify opportunities for closer working on a range of enforcement activities, as part of the implementation of the DWP’s child maintenance compliance and arrears strategy.
Alongside this work the Department’s Financial Investigations Unit continues to conduct investigations into child maintenance matters. Between January and March 2019 the CMS’s Financial Investigations Unit launched 530 complex earnings investigations and 20 criminal investigations.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many times her Department has requested that HM Courts and Tribunals Service provide an extension to a deadline for a universal credit appeal in the last six months.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department does not collect information on the number of extensions to a deadline requested to HM Courts and Tribunals Service for Universal Credit appeals.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken is for her Department to respond to universal credit appeals.
Answered by Will Quince
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her Department's timescale is for notifying all parents who may be eligible to receive historical Child Support Agency arrears.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service began writing to parents with historic CSA arrears in December 2018. We anticipate that we will have written to all eligible parents by August 2020.
The notice provides the parent with care an opportunity to make representation within 60 days if they want a last attempt made to collect their historic CSA arrears.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons claimants of personal independence payments who have received a tribunal decision since the Upper Tribunal’s judgments on MH and RJ have been excluded from the administrative review.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Following the MH and RJ judgments, the Department updated its guidance on Personal Independence Payment (PIP). In June 2018 it began an administrative exercise to identify claimants assessed using previous guidance to identify those who may be entitled to more support under PIP.
Claimants who have had a tribunal decision since the judgments are not being reviewed as part of the MH RJ administrative exercise. The tribunals are obliged to apply the law as it stands (including the MH and RJ Upper Tribunal judgments) to all appeals, and to award claimants accordingly. The Department does not have the legal powers to override tribunal decisions.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Written Statement of 20 December 2018, HCWS1224, what progress she has made on the introduction of light touch reviews for people with long-term health conditions who are in receipt of personal independence payment.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The light touch process has yet to be fully designed (the first ones will not be due until 2023 – 10 years after PIP was first introduced) but we would not expect it to involve a full assessment unless the claimant’s circumstances have significantly changed. The review is intended to maintain a minimum level of contact with claimants. We will involve our stakeholders in designing the review process so that it adds value and best meets the needs of our claimants.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants have appealed successfully at Tribunal to receive employment support allowance (ESA) but have been unable to remain in receipt of ESA because they have been moved to the universal credit system in the interim.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many housing benefit claimants have lost their housing benefit following an unsuccessful application for universal credit in Glenrothes and Central Fife constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.