Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department has taken to tackle the disability pay gap in the last 12 months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
This Government is committed to providing targeted support for people so that everyone is given the very best chance of getting into and then thriving in work.
From April 2019, Jobcentre Plus introduced an enhanced Disability Employment Adviser and a new Disability Employment Adviser Leader role, in total more than 800 individuals supporting Jobcentre colleagues to provide high quality services to disabled people and those with health conditions. One of the key transformational elements of Universal Credit is that it provides us with the opportunity to support people who are in work to progress and increase their earnings.
Using an Innovation Fund funded by DWP, DHSC, and NHS England we are testing initiatives to support disabled people and those with health conditions to get into, and then remain in, work.
The government published the voluntary reporting framework on disability, mental ill health and wellbeing in November 2018.This is aimed at large employers (over 250 employees) and it is recommended that they publically report on the pay and progression of disabled people at regular intervals. It can also be used to support smaller employers who are keen to drive greater transparency in their organisation or industry.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of disabled adults of working age in (i) England, (ii) Wales and (iii) Scotland received support from the Access to Work grant scheme in each of the last three years.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
When considering your questions, it should be noted that those that use the Access to Work scheme are not a direct subset of the disabled adults of working age. Robust proportions cannot be estimated by simply dividing figures for Access to Work by figures for number of disabled adults of working age. This is because the data would come from different data sources and are different data types.
To be eligible for Access to Work a person must be 16 or older, there is no upper age limit to eligibility therefore some people who receive Access to Work will not be considered working age (16-64 years old). Also Access to Work is available to those that have a disability or health condition (physical or mental) that makes it hard for them to do parts of their job or get to and from work therefore covers a broad range of people not just those who identify themselves as ‘disabled’.
When answering your question, we have interpreted ‘received support’ as received a payment.
The number of people who received a payment from Access to Work for each financial year can be found in Table 8 of the annual Access to Work Statistics publication. Table 8 shows the number of people who received a payment for any Access to Work provision by various customer characteristics including by region.
The latest Access to Work statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/access-to-work-statistics-april-2007-to-march-2019
Please note, number of people for each region is based on residency of the beneficiary as opposed to place of work. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many employees left employment in her Department due to (a) disability and (b) long-term health conditions in (i) 2016, (ii) 2017 and (iii) 2018.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The table below shows numbers of ill health retirements over the period requested.
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Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate she has made of the disability employment gap in her Department.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The disability employment gap is the measure of the difference between the employment rate of disabled people and the employment rate of non-disabled people. It is not therefore something which can be measured at the level of a single organisation. The current disability employment gap in the UK is 28.9 percentage points.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has implemented the voluntary reporting framework on disability, mental health and well-being in the workplace introduced in November 2018.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department have implemented the framework and the report is due to be published by the end of October 2019.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department has taken to assess how the Pensions Dashboard could connect into private pension schemes using a federated Digital Identity.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government’s response to the consultation on pensions dashboards set out that it is the responsibility of the industry delivery group to agree a standardised level of digital identity to make dashboards work, working closely with industry and the government. We are clear that it must comply with the National Cyber Security Centre’s Good Practice Guide 45. Therefore, it will ultimately be the responsibility of the industry delivery group reporting to the Money and Pensions Service to identify a digital identity solution(s) for dashboards that meet these standards and to make a decision on whether those digital identity solution(s) use a federated digital identity.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the viability of the Verify scheme; and what role the private sector is planned to play in the future of that scheme.
Answered by Lord Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have been working together on improvements to GOV.UK Verify for access to DWP digital services and the number of claimants who are successful when attempting to use GOV.UK Verify is steadily increasing.
DWP will continue to consider options to provide the easiest and most secure digital services for claimants and as such we're considering a range of other identity verification options which are easy to use and cost-effective for the Department. The Verify solution is part of the suite of products offered in this area. The assessment of all DWP identity solutions is a continuous process to ensure that we are meeting customer needs in the most cost effective way.
Discussions between Cabinet Office Government Digital Services, the owners of GOV.UK Verify are ongoing as to the role of the private sector post March 2020 and DWP, alongside all other Departments that use GOV.UK Verify, will be engaging in those conversations at the appropriate time.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the timeframe is for the bringing forward the transitional protection payments under schedule 2 of the Universal Credit (Managed Migration Pilot and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019.
Answered by Lord Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Following the High Court Judgment on 3 May, in relation to Universal Credit and these regulations, we are considering our response.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average wait time for a phone call to be answered was to the universal credit helpline in (a) each of the last three months and (b) 2018.
Answered by Lord Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Universal Credit is a 24 hour, seven days a week, digital service that allows claimants to manage their own data and account online at a time which is convenient for them. Via their account claimants can check their Universal Credit benefit payments, notify us of changes and record notes via an online journal facility. In addition, established claimants who call the Freephone Universal Credit helpline are connected directly to the person or team who are dealing with the case.
The average waiting time for a person calling the Universal Credit Full Service helpline in each of the last three months was:
Month | Average Speed of Answer (minutes) |
December 2018 | 4.52 |
January 2019 | 4.53 |
February 2019 | 4.16 |
The average waiting times for a person calling the Universal Credit Full Service helpline in 2018 was 5 minutes 52 seconds
Our Average Speed of Answer (ASA) measure is the average customer wait time from the point of entering a queue to connection to an agent. This excludes any time spent in pre-queue messaging and any wait time for calls ultimately abandoned by callers prior to answer.
Notes:
For calls connected to the owning Case Manager or team, the Average Speed of Answer was 1 minute 10 seconds in February 2019.
Data Source: BT - OPMIS and Historical Management Information (GI2 – HMI)
Outsourced partner data is included.
The data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average duration of a phone call to the universal credit helpline was in (a) each of the last three months and (b) 2018.
Answered by Lord Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Universal Credit is a 24 hour, seven day a week, digital service that allows claimants to manage their own data and account online at a time which is convenient for them. Via their account claimants can check their Universal Credit benefit payments, notify us of changes and record notes via an online journal facility. In addition, established claimants who call the Freephone Universal Credit helpline are connected directly to the person or team who are dealing with the case.
The average call duration for a person calling the Universal Credit Full Service helpline in each of the last three months was:
Month | Average Call Time (minutes) |
December 2018 | 6.15 |
January 2019 | 6.01 |
February 2019 | 6.01 |
The average call duration for a person calling the Universal Credit Full Service helpline in 2018 was 6 minutes 16 seconds
The Average Call Time (ACT) measure is the average time between a customer being connected to an agent and the call ending.
Notes:
Data Source: BT - OPMIS and Historical Management Information (GI2 – HMI)
Outsourced partner data is included.
The data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.