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Written Question
Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing
Monday 4th December 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the amount of deductions made under the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy to (a) Housing Benefit and (b) Universal Credit claimants in each year since 2013.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) sufficient to produce such an estimate can be found on Stat-Xplore. Stat-Xplore includes the mean of RSRS reduction, the number subject to the RSRS and the number of spare rooms for both Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Housing Element Claimants.

Stat-Xplore can be found here.


Written Question
Personal Independence Payment
Tuesday 21st November 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken was for his Department to respond to enquiries about Personal Independence Payments in the period between June 2023 and September 2023.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Enquiries relating to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can come through various channels and relate to many different areas of work. An enquiry could be made for a range of reasons and could involve several contacts or multiple requests. For these reasons we are unable to provide an average response time.

For telephony enquiries we operate a service where most enquiries are handled at the point of contact in real time by our Case Workers on the PIP enquiry line. Some enquiries will be forwarded (transferred) to more experienced colleagues or specialists, and in a very small number of cases a call back may be needed.


Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Women
Wednesday 25th October 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what percentage of payband SCS2 civil servants in his Department on full-time equivalent contracts are women as of 18 October 2023.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP Paid Staff Only September 2023 data

Full-time SCS2 that are Female is 35%

DWP encourages temporary promotion opportunities (known as Temporary Duties Allowance in DWP) to be filled fairly and transparently. Temporary promotions for a duration of more than one month require authorisation from an HR Business Partner and a leader of an appropriate senior grade.

Temporary promotions (known as Temporary Duties Allowance in DWP) for a duration of more than 6 months from the outset should be decided through a formal selection exercise, either through a fair and transparent Expressions of Interest exercise or advertised on Civil Service Jobs.


Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Women
Wednesday 25th October 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what percentage of civil servants in his Department on temporary contracts are women as of 18 October 2023.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP Paid Staff Only September 2023 data.

There was a total of 345 Temporary contracts of those 48% were women.

The department is committed to increase the diversity of our workforce. Recruitment guidance encourages vacancy holders to advertise widely and all DWP’s vacancies are advertised on VERCIDA an inclusive jobs platform, that specifically promotes our diversity networks activities, inclusive culture and employer awards. These are also promoted our Civil Service Careers Website page.

DWP uses a name-blind approach at application and sift stage as standard including at SCS level where feasible. Guidance encourages the use gender-neutral language and online tools to check readability and inclusive language in job adverts and other recruitment materials. In SCS recruitment the department takes proactive steps to improve the diversity of candidates progressed to interview including readvertising on occasion to increase the diversity and gender balance of shortlists.

Our recruitment guidance is clear that restricted working patterns can only be advertised when supported by justifiable business objectives. For some roles we run engagement sessions where candidates can ask questions about working patterns and flexibility at the earliest stages. DWP is also a Career Confident Ambassador and has achieved level 3, the highest level of accreditation.

Roles are designed against the full range of Success Profiles. As such all elements are valued equally, and candidates can succeed in our recruitment and selection processes in the absence of formal qualifications.

DWP workforce diversity statistics are monitored and published internally each quarter. Annual Diversity statistics are monitored and published in the Department for Work and Pensions Annual report and Accounts.


Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Artificial Intelligence
Monday 12th June 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 23 May to Question 185338 on Department for Work and Pensions: Artificial Intelligence, which (a) services and (b) processes are automated in his Department.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

A number of DWP processes use automation which comes under the scope of Art 22(1) UK-GDPR for some decisions. These processes form part of the following DWP services:

  • Warm Home Discount Scheme
  • Get Your State Pension
  • Apply for Pension Credit
  • Pension Credit Extra Amount for Severe Disability
  • New Style Jobseekers Allowance
  • Cost of Living Payments
  • Seasonal Payments
  • Bereavement Support Payments
  • Budgeting Loans Automation

Artificial Intelligence is not used in any of these processes.


Written Question
Pension Wise
Thursday 25th May 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

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 effectiveness of the midlife MOT review announced in the Spring Budget 2023 on improving the uptake of Pension Wise guidance.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The new digital Mid-Life MOT tool is designed to help people understand what their employment choices mean for planning for later life.

We will be working with employers and pension providers to make the most of this new tool for everyone.


Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Artificial Intelligence
Tuesday 23rd May 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department uses automated decision making.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department does use automated decision making in some services and processes, which allows us to improve accuracy, speed up delivery and free up colleagues’ time so they can support the people who need it most. Review or appeal options are built in to all DWP benefit processes, even where this is not specifically required by data protection laws.

The Department is always careful to process data lawfully, proportionately, and ethically with safeguards for the protection of individuals. DWP does not use Artificial Intelligence for automated decision making.

DWP’s Personal Information Charter explains how and why we use personal information and citizen’s rights and responsibilities.


Written Question
Members: Correspondence
Tuesday 25th April 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he plans to respond to email correspondence of 22 February, 22 March and 5 April 2023 from the hon. Member for Glasgow East, reference MC2023/14561.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

A reply to the correspondence from the hon. Member was sent on 21 April.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Medical Examinations
Tuesday 25th April 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's prior information notice of 5 April on Additional Healthcare Capacity, reference 2023/S 000-009884, fow what reason additional capacity is required.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

This contract replaces an existing contract, which is coming to an end.

The Health Transformation Programme is developing a new Health Assessment Service through our Health Transformation Area. This is a controlled safe environment where we can develop the service at small scale, exploring ideas from claimants, stakeholders and DWP staff. The healthcare professionals who deliver WCA and PIP assessments within the Health Transformation Area, are directly employed by the DWP.

The new contract provides additional healthcare professionals, providing us with the flexibility to supplement the capacity as required to ensure we can continue to provide a stable service to meet the needs of claimants and to continue to test and build the new service.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Disqualification
Tuesday 4th April 2023

Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 4.148 of the Spring Budget 2023, HC1183, if he will publish the error rate data which informed this policy decision.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

There are no plans to automate the decision making or the application of the sanction’s regime, which will continue to be undertaken by Work Coaches and Decision Makers.

However, feedback from Work Coaches tells us that to create the original referral form for claimants that missed mandatory appointments is very slow and requires them to manually input all the required information. Any data input incorrectly would invalidate the referral meaning any associated decision could not be progressed. So, we are automating the creation of this form. The referral form will then be reviewed by the Work Coach and submitted to the Decision Maker to take the ultimate decision, in the normal way.

We continually use a range of evidence to make improvements in our processes and in turn save taxpayers money.