Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have successfully appealed refusals of employment and support allowance as part of (a) the periodic reassessment of existing employment and support allowance claimants and (b) the reassessment of those in receipt of incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance and income support.
Answered by Mike Penning
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many organisations hold the Help and Support for Separated Families Mark; and what the total cost to his Department has been of developing, awarding and promoting the mark.
Answered by Steve Webb
35 organisations currently hold the Help and Support for Separated Families Mark. The total cost for developing, awarding and promoting the Help and Support for Separated Families mark is £136,500.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when the Help and Support for Separated Families Co-ordinated Telephone Network started full operation; and which organisations are taking part.
Answered by Steve Webb
The Help and Support for Separated Families telephone network began full operation in March 2014 and the participating organisations are:
Family Lives;
Relate;
Wikivorce; and
The National Youth Advocacy Service.
£344k of awards have been made for the co-ordinated telephony network. £344k is the maximum amount payable under the terms of the grant for the period to 31st May 2014. This covers both actual invoices paid to date and amounts not yet billed by suppliers. The evaluation of the telephony network will be carried out in-house.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost to his Department has been of implementing and evaluating the Help and Support for Separated Families Co-ordinated Telephone Network to date; and what estimate he has made of the future costs of that initiative.
Answered by Steve Webb
The Help and Support for Separated Families telephone network began full operation in March 2014 and the participating organisations are:
Family Lives;
Relate;
Wikivorce; and
The National Youth Advocacy Service.
£344k of awards have been made for the co-ordinated telephony network. £344k is the maximum amount payable under the terms of the grant for the period to 31st May 2014. This covers both actual invoices paid to date and amounts not yet billed by suppliers. The evaluation of the telephony network will be carried out in-house.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what funding has been paid from the Help and Support for Separated Families (HSSF) Innovation Fund to each of the HSSF projects which signed contracts for delivery in April 2013.
Answered by Steve Webb
All Innovation Fund projects deliver different services and have different timescales. Their agreed payment schedules are considered commercially sensitive and cannot be shared at this time.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will introduce a statutory limit on the length of time decision makers in his Department can take to respond to a request to reconsider a refusal of employment and support allowance.
Answered by Mike Penning
We have no plans to introduce a statutory time limit for deciding a mandatory reconsideration.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of time taken for decisions on requests for reconsideration of fit for work decisions in relation to applications for employment and support allowance has been since October 2013.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Department is collecting information to understand how the introduction of mandatory reconsideration is operating, including completion timescales. However, this data is not sufficiently robust and reliable to make available.
In the production of new statistics, which all the above would be, the Department works to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we are able to publish statistics that meet the high quality standards expected. Departmental statisticians need to assure themselves of the quality of administrative data sources before releasing information as Official statistics, and before the exact timing and format of statistics can be confirmed. .
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people applied for the personal independence payment in (a) Edinburgh East constituency and (b) Scotland since June 2013; how many have been awarded the payment in each case; how many have requested that a refusal of the payment be reconsidered; how many have been awarded the payment following a request for reconsideration; how many have appealed against a refusal of the payment; and how many have been awarded the payment following an appeal.
Answered by Mike Penning
I refer the hon Member to the answer I gave to the hon Member for Liverpool, West Derby and the hon Member for Airdrie and Shotts, official report, 5 March, column 850W.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when each of the 10 Help and Support for Separated Families Innovation Fund projects announced by his Department in December 2013 will start.
Answered by Steve Webb
The round two projects delivered by the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, Mediation Now, Family Matters Mediate, Family Lives, Children 1st, Sills and Betteridge, Headland Future and National Family Mediation have all started. Projects being run by NACCC and Pinnacle People have started to recruit parents to the project and will start seeing them before the end of April.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 April 2014, Official Report, column 103W, on separated people: finance, whether the proposed external independent evaluation of the Help and Support for Separated Families Innovation Fund projects will include as a consistent measure across the different projects the increase in the number of children benefiting from regular child maintenance payments to meet their day-to-day living costs as a result of the interventions being tested.
Answered by Steve Webb
External independent evaluation of the Innovation Fund projects will measure improvement in the relationship between parents, and therefore, their likely ability to reach agreement on a range of issues affecting their children, including agreeing financial arrangements. As the primary aim of these projects is helping parents to resolve conflict and work together, we will not specifically be measuring the number of children benefiting from regular child maintenance payments