Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many special payments were considered by his Department for decisions relating to the award of a (a) personal independence payment, (b) employment and support allowance work capability assessment and (c) Universal Credit work capability assessment in the latest 12 month period for which data is available.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The department aims to provide a good level of service to our customers, which includes robust decision making. Whilst we strive to provide the best possible service to our customers, we don’t always get it right and, when this happens, the Special Payments scheme is there to acknowledge any impacts caused as a result of DWP maladministration. If a benefit decision is over-turned, it does not mean that the original decision was caused by maladministration.
In 2021-22, we authorised 9,585 ex-gratia payments (against our customer base of 22 million) totalling £1.20 million for maladministration. We do not hold a breakdown by benefit type for special payments issued.
The department publishes special payment data annually in their DWP Annual Report and Accounts on GOV.UK. See page 86 of the following link: DWP annual report and accounts 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Special Payment data for 2022/23 will be available later in the year.
The DWP’s Policy and Guiding Principles guide: ‘Financial Redress for Maladministration’ explains each category of special payment (para 5 to 5.14). The guide can be found on: Compensation for poor service: staff guide - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February to Question 148747 on Universal Credit: Work Capability Assessment, whether he plans to record this information in future.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
There are no plans to include this information in the UC Service in a way that would enable management information to be produced on it automatically. This is because, once the threshold for entitlement is reached in the Work Capability Assessment, which has the purpose of determining entitlement to LCW or LCWRA, the actual number of points, and the extent to which the entitlement threshold is exceeded, is not a relevant piece of data to collect or retain.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February to Question 148746 on Universal Credit: Work Capability Assessment, whether he plans to record that information in future.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
There are no plans to include this information in the UC Service in a way that would enable management information to be produced on it automatically. This is because, once the threshold for entitlement is reached in the Work Capability Assessment, which has the purpose of determining entitlement to LCW or LCWRA, the actual number of points, and the extent to which the entitlement threshold is exceeded, is not a relevant piece of data to collect or retain.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of Universal Credit Work Capability Assessments conducted (a) face-to-face, (b) on paper, (c) by telephone and (d) by video call led to a decision that the claimant had Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity in the year 2021-22.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The full information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Note: Although the Assessment Provider records assessments carried out by channel, this information is not linked to DWP decisions. To match this data and quality assure the results would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions in the 2021-22 was the points award after Mandatory Reconsideration for a Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment identical to the points award in the initial decision.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions in 2021-22 was the points award recommended in the assessor’s report for a Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment clearance identical to the points award in the initial decision.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The full information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Note: The UC system does not record the points awarded for all Work Capability Assessment decisions. To answer the question reliably would require a manual examination of thousands of claimants’ records where the points are not recorded on the system.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 9 February 2023 to Question 140261 on Work Capability Assessments, what that data is for the sixth of each month from March 2022 to January 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
For the purposes of this response, we have interpreted your question as asking for the number of outstanding Work Capability Assessments for both Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit, that are reassessment cases, as opposed to new claims.
The table below shows the number of reassessment cases that were with the assessment provider (AP), and awaiting action, on the sixth of each month from March 2022 to January 2023.
Month | Number of reassessment cases |
Mar 22 | 39,000 |
Apr 22 | 37,000 |
May 22 | 35,000 |
Jun 22 | 35,000 |
Jul 22 | 35,000 |
Aug 22 | 34,000 |
Sep 22 | 34,000 |
Oct 22 | 35,000 |
Nov 22 | 35,000 |
Dec 22 | 33,000 |
Jan 23 | 33,000 |
Please note
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were waiting for a work capability reassessment as of 6 February 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
For the purposes of this response, we have interpreted your question as asking for the number of outstanding Work Capability Assessments for both Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit, that are reassessment cases, as opposed to new claims.
As of 6 February 2023, 28,000 are currently with the assessment provider awaiting action.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including within the monthly published Universal Credit statistics the number of people on Universal Credit with Limited capability for work and/or Limited capability for work-related activity.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
There are no plans to include this information in the monthly published Universal Credit statistics. Development plans for Universal Credit statistics are published in the DWP statistical work programme.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit recipients had (a) Limited Capability for Work and (b) Limited Capability for Work-related Activity in each month since May 2016.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The table shows the number of Universal Credit (UC) claimants classified as having Limited Capability for Work (LCW), and those classified as having Limited Capability for Work Related Activity (LCWRA) across Great Britain on the second Thursday of each month from April 2019. The second Thursday of the month is used in the creation of our UC caseload information.
Prior to April 2019, some UC claims were recorded on an interim operational system called UC Live Service (UCLS). Figures for UCLS Health claimants are not currently collated and to develop that information would incur disproportionate cost.
These figures are rounded to the nearest 10 and produced using internal MI, are not quality assured to Official Statistics standards, and may be subject to revision.
| LIMITED CAPABILITY FOR WORK | LIMITED CAPABILITY FOR WORK RELATED ACTIVITIES |
Apr-19 | 59,010 | 146,960 |
May-19 | 63,520 | 157,010 |
Jun-19 | 69,520 | 172,770 |
Jul-19 | 75,850 | 186,610 |
Aug-19 | 81,240 | 202,910 |
Sep-19 | 86,480 | 231,250 |
Oct-19 | 89,600 | 247,570 |
Nov-19 | 91,410 | 262,400 |
Dec-19 | 92,940 | 288,750 |
Jan-20 | 94,180 | 303,710 |
Feb-20 | 114,580 | 332,250 |
Mar-20 | 125,780 | 363,350 |
Apr-20 | 143,800 | 381,840 |
May-20 | 146,640 | 392,710 |
Jun-20 | 147,540 | 402,390 |
Jul-20 | 147,670 | 411,820 |
Aug-20 | 146,960 | 426,340 |
Sep-20 | 139,260 | 438,880 |
Oct-20 | 139,230 | 454,100 |
Nov-20 | 140,780 | 476,790 |
Dec-20 | 146,940 | 490,880 |
Jan-21 | 153,100 | 512,890 |
Feb-21 | 157,270 | 529,760 |
Mar-21 | 162,350 | 549,790 |
Apr-21 | 167,540 | 571,950 |
May-21 | 172,930 | 596,960 |
Jun-21 | 177,390 | 618,750 |
Jul-21 | 180,820 | 637,230 |
Aug-21 | 187,290 | 660,670 |
Sep-21 | 191,590 | 676,860 |
Oct-21 | 198,540 | 703,950 |
Nov-21 | 203,050 | 723,170 |
Dec-21 | 207,900 | 743,720 |
Jan-22 | 212,780 | 765,430 |
Feb-22 | 219,010 | 789,470 |
Mar-22 | 224,070 | 814,420 |
Apr-22 | 231,200 | 846,370 |
May-22 | 235,060 | 865,500 |
Jun-22 | 241,290 | 894,900 |
Jul-22 | 248,390 | 925,280 |
Aug-22 | 253,150 | 946,380 |
Sep-22 | 258,460 | 969,970 |
Oct-22 | 264,640 | 997,080 |
Nov-22 | 270,540 | 1,022,540 |