Asked by: Rob Marris (Labour - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of staff employed by his Department are employed on a contract which is (a) full-time permanent, (b) part-time permanent, (c) for less than two years' duration, (d) on an agency basis and (e) zero-hours.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
As at March 2017 the Department of Work and Pensions had:
a) 50,035 members of staff employed on full-time permanent contracts
b) 31,875 members of staff employed on part-time permanent contracts
c) 1,661 members of staff employed on Fixed Term appointment contracts of less than 2 years duration
d) the number of staff employed on an agency Contingent Labour basis to cover specific service delivery activities where there is no DWP internal resource are forecast on a monthly basis and clarified retrospectively each quarter. The forecast for March 2017 was 518.
e) No staff are employed on zero hours contracts
Asked by: Rob Marris (Labour - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many days on average it takes between receipt of an application by his Department from an applicant habitually resident in the UK and the date of first payment of (a) maternity grant, (b) maternity allowance and (c) maternity pay.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
a) Average Actual Clearance Times (AACT) figures for Sure Start Maternity Grants (SSMGs) are published in Section 4.11 of the Annual Report by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the Social Fund 2015-16 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/552482/social-fund-annual-report-2015-2016.pdf
These figures show the time from receipt of application to the payment being released. In 2015-16, this was 3.54 days. It then takes 3 working days to arrive in the claimant’s bank account.
Before a person can qualify for SSMG they have to be in receipt of a qualifying benefit. In order for the qualifying benefit to be paid, the claimant would need to have passed the Habitual Residence test for that qualifying benefit. Therefore all claimants in receipt of SSMG are habitually resident.
b) The Average Actual Clearance Time (AACT) for Maternity Allowance (MA) for 2015/16 was 9.76 days. This shows the average time between receipt of the MA1 claim form and the decision to entitlement. The time taken to payment will depend on the circumstances of each case. The mother can apply for MA once she is 26 weeks pregnant. Payment can start any time between 11 weeks before the baby is due and the day after the baby is born, and is made when the mother leaves work.
c) Women wishing to claim Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) do so directly to their employer and are paid SMP as part of their pay. DWP does not deal with these cases, and holds no information on timescales for payment.
Habitual residence is not a qualifying condition for SMP or MA, entitlement to which is based on employment, earnings and National Insurance Contributions.
Asked by: Rob Marris (Labour - Wolverhampton South West)
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 contribution of the provision of free childcare to UK productivity in (a) 2005-2010, (b) 2010-2015 and (c) 2015-2020.
Answered by Priti Patel
DWP have made no assessment of the provision of free childcare on productivity itself. However, several reports, including the DWP working paper A Survey of Childcare and Work Decisions among Families with Children, identify childcare costs as one of the main barriers to returning to work after the birth of a child. ONS data show women with young children have lower employment rates than men, and the Resolution Foundation reports that mothers who are employed are more likely to have part time and low-paid jobs due to childcare responsibilities. Provision of free childcare should support mothers to combine high-skilled and full time work with raising children.
Also, evidence from the IFS report The Economic Effects of Pre-school Education and Quality suggests that children who have attended pre-school earn more over their working lives on average than children who have had little or no pre-schooling.