Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department has issued on (a) the circumstances in which a hospital in-patient would be required to attend a meeting at a jobcentre and (b) the circumstances in which a hospital in-patient would be required to attend a meeting if that necessitated the attendance of NHS staff.
Answered by Jo Churchill
There are no references within our Guidance which state we would require a hospital in-patient to attend a meeting at a Jobcentre.
Where a claimant is required to attend Work Focused Interviews, guidance states that work coaches have discretion to vary the frequency and appointment channel in light of the claimant’s needs, circumstances and capability. Guidance also states that in exceptional circumstances, where a claimant is absolutely prevented from accepting a Claimant Commitment, the requirement to do so is temporarily lifted. This includes, but is not limited to, instances where a claimant is undergoing medical treatment as an in-patient in a hospital.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2024 to Question 10700 on Social Rented Housing: Tenants, if he will start to hold the necessary data in order to provide an estimate of the number of social housing tenants in rent arrears due to 53 rent payment weeks in 2024.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We have no plans to collect this data because social tenant rent account balances are not required to calculate Universal Credit awards. Regulations only permit the collection of data that is pertinent to the calculation of a claimants Universal Credit award.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that the payment of Universal Credit is adjusted in 2024 to take into account the 53-week rent year.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Universal Credit always converts weekly amounts to monthly sums using 52 weeks. This may lead to a slight advantage to the claimant when converting weekly incomes and to a slight disadvantage when dealing with outgoings. The system is used because it is simple to operate and understand.
Discretionary Housing Payments can be paid to those entitled to Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs. Since 2011, the government has provided nearly £1.7 billion in Discretionary Housing Payments to local authorities.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy that social housing tenants receiving universal credit have eligible housing costs paid for 53 rent weeks in 2024.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Universal Credit always converts weekly amounts to monthly sums using 52 weeks. This may lead to a slight advantage to the claimant when converting weekly incomes and to a slight disadvantage when dealing with outgoings. The system is used because it is simple to operate and understand.
Discretionary Housing Payments can be paid to those entitled to Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs. Since 2011, the government has provided nearly £1.7 billion in Discretionary Housing Payments to local authorities.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of social housing tenants in rent arrears due to 53 rent payment weeks in 2024.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Department does not hold the data requested.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit claims were subject to deductions in each local authority area in the 2022-23 financial year; what the (a) average and (b) total amount deducted was; and what proportion of deductions were used to repay advance payments.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The requested analysis of Universal Credit claims with deductions, in the 2022-23 financial year, by Local Authority in Great Britain (GB) is provided in the separate spreadsheet, with the following points to note:
1. Average deduction amounts have been rounded to the nearest £1 and proportions have been rounded to the nearest percentage point. The sum of individual constituencies may not sum to the total figure due to rounding.
2. Deductions include advance repayments, third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.
3. The' unknown' parliamentary constituency label relates to claims for which a constituency could not be determined due to incomplete postcode information. Unknown parliamentary constituency accounts for 0.4% of all UC households.
4. "Advances" include all four UC advance types: New Claim, Benefit Transfer, Budgeting and Change of Circumstances.
5. The table includes the number of distinct Universal Credit households subject to a deduction in the period 2022-2023. Any household with deductions in more than one assessment period within the period requested will only be counted once. Deduction amount represents the total deduction taken for a particular household. Where a household has multiple deductions in the same assessment period these figures provide the total of all deductions taken.
6. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on what date he expects to receive the report of the joint process and impact evaluation of the Household Support Fund 4.
Answered by Jo Churchill
We expect the evaluation of the Household Support Fund 4 to be completed in Summer 2024.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what impact the introduction of the online system for the determination of Access to Work applications has had on waiting times.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Access to Work team have introduced an improved online application service within the last quarter of 2023. Within the improved application there are more detailed questions on conditions and needs. It is envisioned that processing times may decrease due to the reduction in queries made on applications. We are still gathering data on the improved digital service for evaluation.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to page 15 of the Fourth Special Report of the Work and Pensions Committee of Session 2021-22 on Disability employment gap: Government Response to the Committee’s Second Report of Session 2021–22, HC 866, published on 22 November 2021, when he expects delivery of a fully digital customer service to be complete.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
People are currently able to apply online for Access to Work grants. Some types of grants may be claimed online. We anticipate by April 2024 that a fully digital service will be available, with applicants able to claim for all types of grants.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of claimants who would be within the scope of Clause 128 and Schedule 11 of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill; and how many receive (a) the state pension, (b) Personal Independence Payment and (c) child benefit as the only relevant benefit.
Answered by Paul Maynard
Fraud is a growing problem across the economy, accounting for over 40% of all crime in 2022. This problem exists in the welfare system too, with fraud becoming increasingly sophisticated and on a scale not seen in the past. The introduction of the third party data measure is key to helping DWP tackle and reduce fraud and error which amounted to £8.3bn last year (2022-23).
The legislation is clear that the proposed power can only be used to help establish eligibility for DWP benefits that are being paid to individuals. This power requires third parties to look within their own data and provide relevant information to DWP that may signal where DWP claimants do not meet the eligibility criteria for the benefit they are receiving. This data may signal fraud or error and require a further review by DWP – through business-as-usual processes - to determine whether wrongful payments are being made. Only minimal information will ever be shared by designated third parties with DWP where there is a three-way relationship - between DWP, the claimant and the third party - to enable us to make further enquiries. No personal information will be shared by DWP with third parties.
DWP cannot exercise this power in relation to Child Benefit, because Child Benefit is not a DWP payment as the legislation sets out. Last year, DWP administered payments of £230.5 billion through the welfare system and we know the vast majority of these claims are paid correctly and accurately. Our measure will only impact a minority of people who are potentially receiving more money than they are eligible to receive.
As the Regulatory Impact Assessment sets out, the initial use of this power will be focused on identification of potential capital and abroad fraud and error in Universal Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, Pension Credit and Housing Benefit (passported from Pension Credit) cases. Failure to declare or under-declaring capital is consistently in the top causes of Fraud and Error and cost £894m million in Universal Credit overpayments, £138m in Pension Credit and £167m in ESA in 2022-23. The current powers DWP has are limited and leave the Department unable to address this challenge at scale. The third-party data gathering measure will enable DWP to better access relevant data which will help identify fraud and error in the system.
As trends in fraud and error change, it is right we have the ability, in the future, to exercise this power across all benefits and payments that are administered by DWP.
Affirmative regulations, and a statutory Code of Practice, will need to be brought forward before the Department can use these powers to define the specific data holder in scope and to outline other elements relating to the use of the power.