Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help support disabled people financially whilst they await decisions on applications for the renewal of (a) Personal Independence Payments and (b) other benefits.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are committed to ensuring people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner. We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, considering the need to review all available evidence, including that from the claimant.

PIP can be awarded with a fixed term duration to the award without a review date. In these circumstances the Department issues a reminder to the claimant 6 months prior to the existing award coming to an end that if they claimant wants to continue with PIP they need to submit a new claim. These renewal claims are treated as new claims and where the current average end-to-end clearance period is 15 weeks from the point the claim is submitted.

Where a claimant delays making their renewal claim, but submits it shortly before their existing award ends, they could experience a break in payment, but the award can be backdated to the date of claim ensuring that claimants don’t lose out in these circumstances.

Similar arrangements exist in both Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance and where awards can be made for a fixed term. For these benefits, a reminder is sent prior to the award ending.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which disability benefits chance to work guarantee will apply to.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

At Autumn Statement 2023, we announced that we will be introducing a new Chance to Work Guarantee. This will apply to the majority of Universal Credit (UC) or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants who have been assessed as having Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity. The Guarantee means that, once introduced, the majority of people in this group will be able to try work without the fear of reassessment, within existing permitted work rules (ESA) and work allowance rules (UC).

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people claiming disability benefits cited mental health issues as a reason for claiming those benefits in 2023.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA) can be found on Stat-Xplore. In particular, the requested data can be found in ‘PIP Cases with Entitlement’ dataset by going to ‘Disability’ and choosing ‘Psychiatric disorders’ from the drop-down list. The same can be done to ‘DLA: Cases with entitlement - Data from May 2018’ and ‘AA: Cases with entitlement - Data from May 2018’ dataset by going to ‘Main Disability Condition’ and choosing the mental health conditions you are interested in from the drop-down list.

Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP, DLA, and AA computer systems. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.

You may also wish to filter for “DWP policy ownership” under Geography due to the devolution of some disability benefits to Scotland.

You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 15 January 2024 to Question 7902 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, if she will provide a breakdown of those figures by age; and how many and what proportion of people who left the group in that time period did so as a result of reaching state pension age.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The age breakdown of the 65,900 claimants who were in the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity group in November 2022 but had left that group by November 2023 is below. Currently we do not report aggregate information that directly identifies if the reason for leaving the group is as a result of reaching state pension age and to collate and quality assure this information would incur disproportionate costs. However, 15,700 of these claimants were aged 65 in November 2022, so would have turned 66 during the year.

Notes:

1. These figures are rounded to the nearest 100, produced using internal MI and are not quality assured to Official Statistics standards.
2. The matching process to produce claimant age group information has resulted in small differences to the total LCWRA volume when compared to the previous response.
3. The monthly total age breakdowns of claimants on UC Health by stage are published on Stat-Xplore.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to educate assessors of disability benefits, including commissioned assessment services, about chronic inflammatory conditions such as Hidradenitis suppurativa and their impact on individuals' capacity to work.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have interpreted your question to refer to healthcare professionals (HCPs) who conduct Work Capability Assessments for Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA) on behalf of the department, and not Department for Work and Pensions decision makers who make decisions on entitlement to benefit.

Assessments are carried out by qualified HCPs, who receive training in assessing the impacts of a variety of disabilities including chronic inflammatory conditions, to ensure they are familiar with the clinical aspects of the conditions and their impact on daily functions.

HCPs have access to a wide range of clinical resources, including e-learning modules and case studies, to research any conditions presented. CHDA has a learning module on hidradenitis suppurativa for use by their HCPs that has been externally quality assured by a consultant dermatologist. In addition, HCPs are also expected to keep their knowledge up to date through continuing professional development.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity group left that group in the last 12 months.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

There were 1,020,700 claimants in the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity group in November 2022, of which 65,600 (6.4%) were not in the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity group in November 2023 (the latest month of data that can be analysed).

Note: These figures are rounded to the nearest 100, produced using internal MI and are not quality assured to Official Statistics standards.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support his Department provides to people who are waiting for (a) trauma, (b) joint replacement and (c) other orthopaedic treatment who have to give up their jobs until they receive that treatment.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Benefits and support for people with a health condition or disability are not condition-based. Eligibility will depend on the claimant’s individual circumstances, and needs, including work history where relevant.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have taken part in the severe disability group test group as of 13 October 2023; and how those people were selected.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Following a small-scale test, we are exploring with health partners how to identify people who are eligible for the severe disability group.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that people transferred onto the Adult Disability Payment while awaiting his Department's decision to increase their mobility rate who are subsequently deemed by Social Security Scotland to be eligible for an enhanced mobility rate receive a backdated payment for the period following their notifying his Department of their change in circumstances and their transition to Adult Disability Payment.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

These are matters for the Scottish Government.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his Department's policy is on a person being entitled to a share of their partner’s disability benefits as part of a divorce settlement.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Disability benefits, that is, Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance, are personal benefits – the law does not provide for joint claims - and would remain with the existing claimant at the point of divorce. There are no plans to change this policy.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) Universal Credit and (b) Employment and Support Allowance claimants with limited capability (i) for work and (ii) work-related activity have voluntarily sought employment support from a Jobcentre in each of the last 12 months for which this data is available.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 26 April 2023 to Question 182089 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, whether his Department is taking steps to reduce the average waiting time for calls to the Universal Credit helpline.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

DWP plans resourcing according to forecasted telephony demand in an effort to keep wait times down. Wait time performance and forecasted demand is frequently reviewed, and DWP is continually working to improve the service that it delivers.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to Answer of 26 April 2023 to Question 182089 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, whether his Department has a current target call wait time for members of the public contacting the Universal Credit helpline.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

There are no current wait time targets for calls to the Universal Credit helpline. Where DWP’s telephony is delivered by an outsourced provider we use the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of percentage of calls answered, and our outsourced suppliers publish this information quarterly at GOV.UK.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to Answer of 26 April 2023 to Question 182089 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, what the average waiting time was for calls to the Universal Credit helpline in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Please find data below which shows the average speed of answer (ASA) for calls to Universal Credit for the last 2 months.

Please note this information is derived from the Department’s management information designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 9th March 2023 to Question 156196 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, how many people receiving (a) Employment Support Allowance without receiving Personal Independence Payment and (b) receiving the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity Element of Universal Credit without receiving Personal Independence Payment have been identified by his Department as having a mental and behavioural disorder.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Data on the conditions of those on the Universal Credit (UC) Health Journey is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. The department aims to publish a range of information on claimants of Employment and Support Allowance and the health element of UC in due course and will pre-announce any publication in line with normal statistical practices.