Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the adequacy of the level of service for users provided by the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through the Service Modernisation Programme, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has made significant improvements to both communications and digital service in order to provide separated parents a greater level of service.
The online digital service 'Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance ' through GOV.UK is a service open to any parent who needs to communicate with us and can receive unbiased advice and support to make an arrangement through CMS.
Through increased use of SMS text and email, an extensive review of letters, which focussed on making the letters easier for customers to understand, and by promoting self-service online through My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC), the CMS is ensuring customers have greater choice of how they communicate with us and access our service.
MCMC offers customers the ability to access and update information held on their case and request changes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. CMS has the ability to process simple changes through MCMC, automatically speeding up the time taken to make a change and greatly improving customer outcomes. These changes are a fundamental step towards the CMS modernisation goal of evolving our service to be predominately online.
Although online communication is the preferred option, CMS fully recognises digital is not suitable for all customers. For those customers who have to contact us by telephone, steps have been taken to update the service through efficient call routing. We have freed up resources to deliver a more responsive service which allows caseworkers more time to better assist customers who need to reach out to us via telephone. The CMS telephony opening hours are regularly reviewed based on the demand requirements; CMS has extended their telephony service to 6pm on weekdays to meet this demand.
On the 26 February 2024, the CMS removed the £20 application fee for those parents opting to use the service to ensure families on the lowest incomes do not face a barrier to accessing the service. As more customers apply to the CMS, the demand for the service is increasing. To allow CMS to meet this demand and provide an efficient service we continuously look at the resources we have and where we should focus our efforts in order to get the greatest value for money and deliver the best service to our customers. We review our overall resource supply twice yearly and take appropriate steps to ensure that staffing levels meet demands. We have an ongoing recruitment campaign for 2025; this will ensure CMS is resourced to meet current and future forecasted service demand.
Furthermore, we have taken timely action to review, evaluate and enhance tools and training material to support staff in delivering a quality service to our customers. We have improved training for new entrant colleagues and caseworkers and upgraded our Operational Instructions with around 90% transformed into Smart Instructions, making them easier for caseworkers to understand and use.
The CMS regularly gathers feedback from customers and stakeholders on our service. The Customer Experience Survey is a way in which the Department interacts with customers to understand their experience; this insight is used to inform ways to improve our service.
In the last month, CMS continued to exceed our official key performance indicators, demonstrating improved outcomes and service for customers. We are always working to modernise our service and how we communicate with our customers. Commencement of any additional activity as part of the Service Modernisation Programme will be informed by the value to our customers and the cost to the Department.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the communication of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through the Service Modernisation Programme, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has made significant improvements to both communications and digital service in order to provide separated parents a greater level of service.
The online digital service 'Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance ' through GOV.UK is a service open to any parent who needs to communicate with us and can receive unbiased advice and support to make an arrangement through CMS.
Through increased use of SMS text and email, an extensive review of letters, which focussed on making the letters easier for customers to understand, and by promoting self-service online through My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC), the CMS is ensuring customers have greater choice of how they communicate with us and access our service.
MCMC offers customers the ability to access and update information held on their case and request changes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. CMS has the ability to process simple changes through MCMC, automatically speeding up the time taken to make a change and greatly improving customer outcomes. These changes are a fundamental step towards the CMS modernisation goal of evolving our service to be predominately online.
Although online communication is the preferred option, CMS fully recognises digital is not suitable for all customers. For those customers who have to contact us by telephone, steps have been taken to update the service through efficient call routing. We have freed up resources to deliver a more responsive service which allows caseworkers more time to better assist customers who need to reach out to us via telephone. The CMS telephony opening hours are regularly reviewed based on the demand requirements; CMS has extended their telephony service to 6pm on weekdays to meet this demand.
On the 26 February 2024, the CMS removed the £20 application fee for those parents opting to use the service to ensure families on the lowest incomes do not face a barrier to accessing the service. As more customers apply to the CMS, the demand for the service is increasing. To allow CMS to meet this demand and provide an efficient service we continuously look at the resources we have and where we should focus our efforts in order to get the greatest value for money and deliver the best service to our customers. We review our overall resource supply twice yearly and take appropriate steps to ensure that staffing levels meet demands. We have an ongoing recruitment campaign for 2025; this will ensure CMS is resourced to meet current and future forecasted service demand.
Furthermore, we have taken timely action to review, evaluate and enhance tools and training material to support staff in delivering a quality service to our customers. We have improved training for new entrant colleagues and caseworkers and upgraded our Operational Instructions with around 90% transformed into Smart Instructions, making them easier for caseworkers to understand and use.
The CMS regularly gathers feedback from customers and stakeholders on our service. The Customer Experience Survey is a way in which the Department interacts with customers to understand their experience; this insight is used to inform ways to improve our service.
In the last month, CMS continued to exceed our official key performance indicators, demonstrating improved outcomes and service for customers. We are always working to modernise our service and how we communicate with our customers. Commencement of any additional activity as part of the Service Modernisation Programme will be informed by the value to our customers and the cost to the Department.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will issue guidance on raising an issue of safety on a housing development where the operators are aware of the risks.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety Executive already provide guidance on raising health and safety issues in a workplace or public space. This can be found on their website www.hse.gov.uk/contact/tell-us-about-a-health-and-safety-issue.htm
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the (a) length in number of applicants and (b) duration of time of the backlog in Personal Independence Payment awards.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As at the end of January 2025, a total of 265,000 New Claims were in progress. This figure has been rounded to the nearest 1,000.
For the average clearance times in median weeks for New Claims under Normal Rules, please see the Personal Independence Payment Official Statistics to January 2025, the information you requested can be found on Table 1A.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the (a) length in number of applicants and (b) duration of time of the backlog in Personal Independence Payment awards for appeals where a decision was previously made.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of April 2025, a total of 8,900 appeals are currently in progress. This figure has been rounded to the nearest 100.
DWP is not solely responsible for appeals wait time. Appeals are lodged by claimants with His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS), which the claimant may take up to 13 months to do. DWP then have 28 days to respond to the appeal when notified by HMCTS. DWP will either lapse the appeal and overturn the initial decision if new evidence allows or uphold the original decision and provide a written response as to why the decision cannot be revised. After this the time taken to list the appeal is dependent on HMCTS, who run tribunal hearings.
For clearances made in the Financial Year 23-24, the median time between an appeal being lodged and DWP’s response was 5 weeks. For those cases who had a tribunal hearing, the median time between an appeal being lodged and tribunal hearing was 34 weeks.
Data for Financial Year 23-24 was used to ensure reasonable time has passed for an accurate assessment of the time between an appeal lodgement and clearance within DWP.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the potential cost to the public purse of (a) food insecurity and (b) economic hardship.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It is unacceptable that people are falling into hardship and using foodbanks. This is why we have committed to tackling poverty and ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels.
Our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper, alongside our work to develop our Child Poverty Strategy, will ensure better outcomes for families whose lives are damaged by poverty as well as supporting the delivery of our missions on economic growth and opportunity.
We have taken action to help those facing hardship through the increase in the National Living Wage from April, the extension of the Household Support Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments in England and Wales in 2025/26 and the introduction of the Fair Repayment Rate from April.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she make an assessment of the adequacy of levels of welfare support for children within married families.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We will bring in a permanent, above inflation, rise to the standard allowance in Universal Credit for the first time ever by raising the standard allowance above inflation from 2026/27 until 2029/30. This is in stark contrast to the freeze between 2016/17 and 2019/20 and is a permanent increase to give families certainty. To the lowest income and working families up and down the country this will be crucial.
We have also uprated benefit rates for 2025/26 in line with inflation and are introducing a new Fair Repayment Rate, allowing 1.2 million households to keep more of their Universal Credit.
Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who is (a) responsible for the installation of fencing to keep cattle safely grazing and (b) liable if the fence breaks and a member of the public is injured by cattle.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety, this includes workplace health and safety risks created in agriculture.
The main piece of health and safety legislation enforced by HSE is the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA). Under the HSWA, those creating work-related risk have the primary duty to control it. Therefore, farmers who own or manage cattle as part of their business activities and place those cattle in fields, have a duty to ensure that the cattle are kept inside the designated field or fields by provision of suitable means such as perimeter fencing, walls or hedges.
In addition, where public rights of way run through fields in which cattle may be kept, farmers should consider and implement those control measures that are reasonably practicable for the particular farm or field as set out in HSE guidance sheet Cattle and public access in England and Wales. This may include provision of permanent or temporary fencing as a means to segregate cattle from members of the public using rights of way through the field. Again, the primary duty is on the farmer that owns or manages cattle to control risk to people to the extent required by health and safety legislation.
If other parties also have a role in the ownership or management of the land on which cattle are grazed, they may also have duties under health and safety legislation to co-operate with the farmer so that risks are adequately controlled.
Depending on the reasons behind any failure of perimeter fencing or in-field fencing along public rights of way, initial enquiries to determine any criminal liability would begin with those dutyholders who have responsibility for maintaining the perimeter fencing / in-field fencing.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the financial impact of transitioning from ESA to Universal Credit on adults with preventing disabilities.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have interpreted your question to mean ‘To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the financial impact of transitioning from ESA to Universal Credit on adults with preventable disabilities’.
The Government has given a commitment that those sent a managed migration notice requiring them to claim Universal Credit, where eligible, will not have a lower entitlement to Universal Credit than they had total existing benefit entitlement at the point they claim. Transitional Protection is available to ensure this commitment is met, including for those with preventable disabilities.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the impact of the withdrawal of Winter Fuel payments on pensioners who (a) are not in receipt of Pension Credit and (b) have an annual income below £15,000.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has had to make hard choices to bring the public finances back under control. The policy change ensures that the Winter Fuel Payment will be better targeted to low-income pensioners who need it most.
Information on pensioners with incomes below £15,000 affected by the change to Winter Fuel Payment policy is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However, the Department has produced some analysis on the impacts of the change in policy on poverty levels which was published here: Winter Fuel Payments eligibility change - Letter from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.