Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions his Department has had requests for appointments by exception to the Senior Civil Service turned down by the Civil Service Commission since 2010; and who was appointed for each such post.
Answered by Steve Webb
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given today by the Minister for Cabinet Office and Paymaster General to Question UIN 213040.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department spent on iPhones in each year since 2010.
Answered by Steve Webb
iPhone expenditure since 2010 (by financial year):
2010/11 = £0.00
2011/12 = £1,627.91
2012/13 = £883.20
2013/14 = £552.64
2014/15* = £157.65 (*up to 5th October 2014)
(values are inclusive of VAT)
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Instant Rewards of what value were given to his Department's officials in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Steve Webb
DWP employees up to Grade 6 are eligible to be nominated for an in-year performance award. These are one-off payments, made to recognise exceptional achievements and/or contributions to business performance. In-year awards can be made at any time during the performance year and are paid either as retail vouchers between £25 and £50 or cash payments of £50 or above. Senior Civil Servants are not eligible to receive these payments. The total amount available for in-year awards is 0.23% of total paybill.
During the 2013/14 financial year 100,585 in-year awards, worth £5,030,126 were made, which equates to 0.19% of paybill.
Between April and Sept 2014 41,370 in-year awards, with a value of £1,778,015, were made, which equates to 0.15% of paybill.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on legal fees over prevention of release of information requested by Freedom of Information requests since 2010.
Answered by Steve Webb
Legal costs relating to Freedom of Information litigation are not held centrally by the Department. Determining these costs since 2010 would exceed the disproportionate limit.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Barrow and Furness constituency he expects to have transferred to universal credit by 1 January 2015.
Answered by Lord Harper
I refer the hon. member to the Written Ministerial Statement made by my Rt. Hon. Friend, Iain Duncan Smith on of Monday 13th October 2014.
DWP are not setting targets for numbers in receipt of Universal Credit at various points in time. Final numbers will vary according to a number of factors such as the economic circumstances over time and behavioural change of claimants.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people who will be claiming universal credit in April 2015.
Answered by Lord Harper
The Department published its strategy for releasing official statistics on Universal Credit in September 2013 which can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many senior civil servants appointed to positions in his Department since 2010 were previously (a) political appointees within that Department and (b) employed by a political party.
Answered by Mike Penning
This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department spent on legal fees in cases relating to the release of information requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Penning
It has not been possible to verify and disaggregate the legal fee spend into each individual year. To do so would require an analysis of each individual file and electronic records and analysing the work undertaken during each year and the costs raised against this work. Verifying and disaggregating the data in this manner would take the costs of responding to the question over the disproportionate cost threshold.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on what occasions each Minister within his Department has taken domestic flights on official business since May 2010.
Answered by Mike Penning
This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Details of all Ministerial overseas travel is published on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what professional development courses are made available to staff of his Department; and what the cost to the public purse is of each such course.
Answered by Mike Penning
This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.