Asked by: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people currently receive Universal Credit, and at what cost to the public purse.
Answered by Lord Freud
The Universal Credit programme publishes official experimental statistics which are available on GOV.UK.
The statistics to 10 September show that 125,877 people were on the Universal Credit caseload. Cost information for the current UC caseload is not available for publication.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the official monthly rate of sanctions applied to Jobseeker's Allowance claimants is calculated.
Answered by Lord Freud
The Department calculates a monthly sanctions rate for Jobseekers Allowance claimants based on the number of sanctions in a month divided by the Claimant Count.
The data underpinning the calculations are DWP’s statistics on decisions to apply a sanction and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on the number of people claiming JSA (the Claimant Count). These are publicly available Official Statistics.
More detail on the calculation of the monthly sanctions rate can be found in the statistical ad-hoc publication, “JSA and ESA benefit sanctions rates: explanation of methodology”, available on GOV.UK. A copy of the publication is also attached here.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the annual rate of sanctions applied to Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants in each of the years from 2010 to 2014 inclusive, calculated by dividing the number of all those sanctioned in each year by the total number who claimed Jobseeker's Allowance in each year.
Answered by Lord Freud
The information is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.