Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff across her Department can currently work from home; and what steps she is taking to improve access to the necessary equipment to increase home working in her Department.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Since March 2020 we have increased the number of colleagues with the IT to enable them to work more flexibly by over 50,000, meaning almost 74,000 people in total have equipment to enable them to work from home. This is approximately 81% of our workforce. Every day more colleagues are able to work from home as we continue to roll out more IT equipment to ensure that everyone in DWP is enabled to work from home where appropriate by the end of March 2021.
We are limiting how many colleagues remain working in an office setting in order to balance the need to provide essential public facing services for citizens, whilst maintaining safe social distancing in line with Government / Devolved Administration guidelines. Examples of such roles are some of our Jobcentre services (which provide vital face to face support for our most vulnerable citizens), and clerical processes such as Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit applications.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow 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 in her Department are able to work from home during the covid-19 outbreak; and what steps she is taking to ensure that employees have access to the necessary equipment to permit home working.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Since March 2020 we have increased the number of colleagues with the IT to enable them to work more flexibly by over 50,000, meaning almost 74,000 people in total have equipment to enable them to work from home. This is approximately 81 per cent of our workforce. Every day more colleagues are able to work from home as we continue to roll out more IT equipment to ensure that everyone in DWP is enabled to work from home where appropriate by the end of March 2021.
We are limiting how many colleagues remain working in an office setting in order to balance the need to provide essential public facing services for citizens, whilst maintaining safe social distancing in line with Government / Devolved Administration guidelines. Examples of such roles are some of our Jobcentre services (which provide vital face to face support for our most vulnerable citizens), and clerical processes such as Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit applications.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 24 July 2020 to Question 71027 on Patients: Monitoring, what steps his Department is taking to close staffing gaps in the elderly care sector; and what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing new remote monitoring technologies to help improve the quality of care for patients and safety for health workers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In April to July this year, we increased the national recruitment campaign in order to attract more people into social care with sustained activity across broadcast, digital and social media. The campaign highlighted the vital role that the social care workforce has played during the pandemic, along with the longer-term opportunity of working in social care.
We are also working with the Department for Work and Pensions to provide job centre work coaches with resources to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers, including those who may have recently lost their jobs working in hard hit sectors such as hospitality, tourism and retail.
The NHS Long Term Plan published last year set out our plan for greater use of digital technology and devices to transform care, including remote monitoring to support patients digitally and help National Health Service clinicians to predict and prevent events that might otherwise lead to a spell in hospital.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that people with (a) disabilities and (b) long-term conditions and (c) arthritis are supported (i) to work from home and (ii) when returning to work during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Recognising the additional challenges Covid-19 may produce for people who have a disability or health condition, Access to Work has introduced a number of measures to support disabled people and those with a health condition whether they are working in the workplace, working from home, or returning to work.
During the pandemic Access to Work has been keen to support the use of assistive technology and where necessary has adapted existing awards to meet new working environments. This could include switching from face to face British Sign Language Interpreting to Video Remote Interpreting services where possible as well as making greater use of assistive technology and software.
In addition, to reflect concerns raised by stakeholders Access to Work has introduced and following measures:
Asked by: David Jones (Conservative - Clwyd West)
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 enable its officials to work from home during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP is committed to supporting everyone during this unprecedented time.
Where colleagues can effectively contribute to this effort working from home then they are doing so. Not all colleagues can work from home because they need to access equipment, programmes and support to enable them to do their telephony and processing work. We are requiring these employees to be in the office but in line with the Government’s advice on critical workers, we are taking all practical steps to protect the health and safety of colleagues working in our offices.
The Department has procured significantly more portable computers to expand our home working capacity. Colleagues who require specialist IT equipment for accessibility reasons are able to order this for use at home and those who are in the vulnerable or shielding category can have it delivered to their home address.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff of her Department have formal arrangements to work from home during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Working from home data is not recorded on our HR systems. However, the number of staff logging into the Department’s computer system via a secure remote connection shows that approximately 20% of staff were working from home.
We have now provided an additional 6656 computers to enable working from home; we will deploy a further 6,000 in the next fortnight.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote access to, and services provided by, rural post offices; and wwhether they will provide an update on the status of the Post Office Card Account.
Answered by Lord Duncan of Springbank
Government committed in its 2017 manifesto to safeguard the Post Office network and protect existing rural services, recognising the important role post offices play in serving their communities. The Government promotes access to rural post offices by setting accessibility criteria which the Post Office must meet. This ensures that in rural areas over 95% of people are within 3 miles of their nearest post office service. In remote and rural areas where it is difficult to deliver services to consumers via a permanent site, Post Office Limited use outreach services, such as a mobile van, or a village hall. These offer the same products and services as bricks-and-mortar branches.
In recent years the Government has provided over £2bn investment into the Post Office which has seen over 7700 branches modernised, many thousands in rural areas. Having a modern accessible network enables the Post Office to secure and deliver services for customers, such as banking, bill payment and mails services, across the whole network, including rural areas, where in many cases the post office is the last shop in the village.
The contract for the Post Office Card Account (POca) is a commercial matter for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Post Office Limited (POL). The contract will come to an end on 30 November 2021. DWP is working with Post Office Limited (POL) to prepare POca users for this by undertaking a project to move significant volumes of existing POca service users onto a mainstream bank account. Those POca customers who transition to a mainstream account will still be able to access their pension and benefit payments via the post office.
For claimants who are unable to open a mainstream account ahead of this date, DWP will implement an alternative payment service that allows users to obtain cash payments whatever their location before the end of the contract.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help reduce the number of people over the age of 60 that have had to retire as a result of ill-health.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department set out its strategy to see one million more disabled people in work by 2027 in the 2017 Command Paper “Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability”. A key element of this is action to help keep people (including older workers) with health conditions in work. We are already investing in testing new interventions to support people, including our Health-Led Trials, and the Government is working to ensure employers and key stakeholders across all sectors adopt and implement the core and enhanced mental health standards set out in Thriving at Work: The Stevenson / Farmer review of mental health.
To support older people falling out of labour market due to health conditions, the Government has extended the right to request flexible working for all employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service with their employer. Access to flexible working practices, such as flexi-time, compressed hours and remote working, is key to helping older workers stay in the labour market.
We are also exploring further ways to reduce the number of people who leave work each year for health reasons and will consult on measures to encourage and support all employers to play their part. This consultation will also propose ways to improve access to occupational health.
Background
In February 2017 Government published an employer-led Strategy Fuller Working Lives: a partnership approach, which sets out the importance of Fuller Working Lives for employers and individuals. It also sets out action Government is taking to support older workers to remain in the labour market.
Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability published in November 2017 set out an ambitious and comprehensive programme of action to support disabled people and people with long term physical and mental health conditions to get into and stay in work and progress in rewarding careers. This action spans the workplace, health and welfare settings.
Since the launch of the publication, progress has been made in a number of areas including:
Asked by: Russell Brown (Labour - Dumfries and Galloway)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what training is given to staff in his Department in order for them to qualify as performance measurement review officers.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
Performance Measurement review officers receive training in Performance Measurement processes and appropriate training in the benefits measured (Housing Benefit; Employment and Support Allowance; Job Seekers Allowance; Pension Credit).
They also undertake learning on Responsible for Information Security, Handling Official Information, Remote Working Securely and Keeping Safe – Travelling and working off-site.
Asked by: Russell Brown (Labour - Dumfries and Galloway)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken to protect sensitive information from being shared by performance measurement review officers when visiting a claimant who lives in shared accommodation.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
Performance Measurement staff, like all DWP staff, follow the processes and policies the Department has in place to safeguard claimant’s information. This includes undertaking the Responsible for Information Security learning. They understand the Handling Official Information and follow the guidance on this and Remote Working Securely. Their line managers also carry out validation checks to ensure that they are compliant with the necessary processes. In all cases when visiting a claimant to undertake a review they request evidence verification to ensure they are speaking to the right person before proceeding with the review interview.