Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff have been trained in disability awareness in (a) his core Department and (b) Jobcentres in each of the last three years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is unable to provide the information you seek within the appropriate cost limit as you have asked for information that is contained across a wide range of learning journeys.
All staff new to DWP undergo mandatory learning followed by role specific learning, this encompasses vulnerabilities and complex needs training which is threaded throughout learning. Staff continue to build on this in the workplace through accessing policy guidance and point of need learning products.
Please refine your request, for example to mandatory learning to enable data to be provided.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to undertake a review into the potential merits of issuing compensation to all women impacted by changes to the State Pension age.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what options are available to those people who have been placed in temporary accommodation in a different Council area and therefore do not meet either Councils' criteria for accessing the Household Support Fund.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Household Support Fund is an intentionally flexible scheme, designed to enable Local Authorities to deliver a tailored response to local need as they have the ties and knowledge to best determine how this support should be provided.
Local Authorities have the flexibility to design and deliver their Household Support Fund scheme through a variety of routes, including, for example, offering vouchers to households, directly providing food, or issuing grants to third parties. This means that it is for each local council to decide how, where and when they distribute their funding within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination set out for them by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Local Authorities are encouraged through our guidance to work together with neighbouring Authorities to help prevent double provision and/or no provision, especially where the allocation of provision may take place in one area, but the award recipient has a residential address in another.
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 steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of error in the last three financial years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are committed to tackling both fraud and error. DWPs quality assurance framework plays an important role in identifying common errors which contribute to over and underpayments. In addition, the department and HMRC has committed to provide assurance this winter over the integrity of the National Insurance records and how they interact with DWP’s benefit system.
The Department launched a robust plan to drive down fraud and error from the benefits system, alongside investment of £900 million that will deliver £2.4 billion of savings by the end of 2024/25. This plan includes proposed powers to require the transfer of data from third-parties, which has been introduced as part of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (No.2). This legislation is forecast to save up to an additional £600m over the Treasury scorecard period.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department issues to people placed in Slough by Hillingdon Borough Council who cannot access Household Support Funding because Hillingdon's scheme stipulates that such funding is available to residents of that Borough and Slough Borough Council's scheme stipulates that people placed in Slough temporarily by another borough must apply to their originating borough.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Household Support Fund is an intentionally flexible scheme, designed to enable Local Authorities to deliver a tailored response to local need as they have the ties and knowledge to best determine how this support should be provided.
Local Authorities have the flexibility to design and deliver their Household Support Fund scheme through a variety of routes, including, for example, offering vouchers to households, directly providing food, or issuing grants to third parties. This means that it is for each local council to decide how, where and when they distribute their funding within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination set out for them by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Local Authorities are encouraged through our guidance to work together with neighbouring Authorities to help prevent double provision and/or no provision, especially where the allocation of provision may take place in one area, but the award recipient has a residential address in another.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions he has had with local authorities on ensuring that people who need to access the Household Support Fund are not excluded by variations in eligibility criteria between councils.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Household Support Fund is an intentionally flexible scheme, designed to enable Local Authorities to deliver a tailored response to local need as they have the ties and knowledge to best determine how this support should be provided.
Local Authorities have the flexibility to design and deliver their Household Support Fund scheme through a variety of routes, including, for example, offering vouchers to households, directly providing food, or issuing grants to third parties. This means that it is for each local council to decide how, where and when they distribute their funding within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination set out for them by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Local Authorities are encouraged through our guidance to work together with neighbouring Authorities to help prevent double provision and/or no provision, especially where the allocation of provision may take place in one area, but the award recipient has a residential address in another.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking with local authorities to ensure that people in need of access to the Household Support Fund are not stopped from accessing it by differences in the criteria used by local authorities.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Household Support Fund is an intentionally flexible scheme, designed to enable Local Authorities to deliver a tailored response to local need as they have the ties and knowledge to best determine how this support should be provided.
Local Authorities have the flexibility to design and deliver their Household Support Fund scheme through a variety of routes, including, for example, offering vouchers to households, directly providing food, or issuing grants to third parties. This means that it is for each local council to decide how, where and when they distribute their funding within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination set out for them by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Local Authorities are encouraged through our guidance to work together with neighbouring Authorities to help prevent double provision and/or no provision, especially where the allocation of provision may take place in one area, but the award recipient has a residential address in another.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 impact of the different criteria used by local authorities for the Household Support Fund on people being placed outside their local authority.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Household Support Fund is an intentionally flexible scheme, designed to enable Local Authorities to deliver a tailored response to local need as they have the ties and knowledge to best determine how this support should be provided.
Local Authorities have the flexibility to design and deliver their Household Support Fund scheme through a variety of routes, including, for example, offering vouchers to households, directly providing food, or issuing grants to third parties. This means that it is for each local council to decide how, where and when they distribute their funding within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination set out for them by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Local Authorities are encouraged through our guidance to work together with neighbouring Authorities to help prevent double provision and/or no provision, especially where the allocation of provision may take place in one area, but the award recipient has a residential address in another.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of lowering the State Pension age to 60.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has no plans to make such an assessment.
Changes to State Pension age were made over a series of Acts by successive governments from 1995 onwards, following public consultations and extensive debates in both Houses of Parliament.
Further changes were introduced through the Pensions Acts 2011 and 2014 in order to protect public finances and maintain the sustainability of the State Pension over the long term. Under the 2011 Pensions Act the State Pension age for women and men rose to 66.
The rise in State Pension age to 67 has been planned since 2014. Since then, the Government has undertaken two statutory State Pension age reviews, one in 2017 and one in 2023. These reviews both considered whether the existing rules about the timetable for State Pension age rising to 67 remained appropriate.
Both reviews, including the Independent Reports that supported them, concluded that the rules concerning the increase in State Pension age from 66 to 67 should continue as planned.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were underpaid the State Pension due to incorrectly updated National Insurance records in the 2022-23 financial year; and what the total amount is that these people are owed.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This response covers both missing Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) and UC National Insurance issues.
The exercise to correct National Insurance records for those individuals impacted by errors in their HRP record is underway. The HRP corrections exercise started with HMRC dispatching letters in late 2023. Cases subsequently notified from HMRC started being processed in DWP in early 2024.
In the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023, the central estimate was around 187,000 cases who may have an underpayment of State Pension and for whom we expect to correct, with a total underpayment estimate of £1,043 million.
We intend to publish an update on the exercise in this year’s Annual Report and Accounts.
DWP has corrected the UC data issue for the cases impacted for the tax years up to and including the tax year 2022/2023. This data has been shared with HMRC. As HMRC updates NI records, these updates are sent to DWP. Any State Pension entitlement will be reassessed, and any underpayment addressed accordingly.