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.
Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Spring Budget 2023 on Scotland.
Answered by John Lamont - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Scotland Office)
It is my firm view and assessment that the Chancellor’s Budget will have a positive impact for Scotland, by stimulating the economy, attracting investment and creating jobs.
This is in addition to providing the Scottish Government with an extra £320m in the Spring Budget, an extra £1.5bn in the Autumn Statement, and a record Block Grant settlement of £41bn per year.
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 discussions were held with the (a) Canadian Government and (b) Canadian High Commission in the UK on UK pensioners in Canada who had their pensions stopped in 2022 because of problems with life certificate forms.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Department for Work and Pensions confirmed in writing to the Canadian High Commission in London on 24 August 2022 that measures had been implemented to enable the clearing of life certificates by telephone and that pensioners who had been impacted were encouraged to contact the International Pension Centre. It was confirmed that suspended payments would be backdated and that the Department had extended the period in which Canadian customers could return life certificates because of issues with the Canadian Postal System.
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, how many UK pensioners living overseas received a letter from his Department stating that their pensions had been stopped because of failing to return a completed life certificate form.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
This information is only available at disproportionate cost to The Department for Work & Pensions as the Department does not have a business requirement for this information to be retained.
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 4.146 of the Spring Budget 2023, HC1183, if he will publish the data which informed the policy decision to remove the couples Administrative Earnings Threshold.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Data is already in the public domain about the In-Work Progression Randomised Control Trial (RCT), which found that more intensive support delivered by Jobcentre Work Coaches helped claimants to increase their earnings. See link Universal Credit: in-work progression randomised control trial - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
It demonstrated the importance of the relationship between the claimant and their Work Coach, with more regular engagement more likely to result in positive steps being taken to progress.
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 4.146 of the Spring Budget 2023, HC1183, if he will publish the data which informed the policy decision to increase the Administrative Earnings Threshold to the equivalent of 18 hours at National Living Wage.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Data is already in the public domain about the In-Work Progression Randomised Control Trial (RCT), which found that more intensive support delivered by Jobcentre Work Coaches helped claimants to increase their earnings. See link Universal Credit: in-work progression randomised control trial - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
It demonstrated the importance of the relationship between the claimant and their Work Coach, with more regular engagement more likely to result in positive steps being taken to progress.
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 4.147 of the Spring Budget 2023, HC1183, published on 15 March 2023, whether an equality impact assessment of the proposed change to the work search requirements placed on Universal Credit claimants that are lead carers of children aged 1-12 has been carried out.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
We have carried out Equality Impact Assessments for the proposed changes to the requirements for lead carers of children aged 1 to 12 years.
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, when work on design of the additional training programme commenced.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
There are no plans to automate either decision making or the application of the sanctions regime which will continue to be undertaken by Work Coaches and Decision Makers. However, we are automating the creation of the referral form for claimants who miss mandatory appointments. 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.
The department is committed to the continuous upskilling of all Work Coaches to ensure a consistent application of sanctions policy and protection of claimants. As with all changes to process that are undertaken, Work Coaches will be provided with guidance and support as required.
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, published on 15 March 2023, which parts of the sanctions process will be automated.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
here are no plans to automate either decision making or the application of the sanctions regime which will continue to be undertaken by Work Coaches and Decision Makers. However, we are automating the creation of the referral form for claimants who miss mandatory appointments. 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.
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 20 March 2023 to Question 166319 on Access to Work Programme: Finance, when the earliest outstanding access to work funding application which has not been placed on hold at the request of the customer was received by his Department.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
In addition to the response to question 166319 on 20th March, we have also looked at the second and third oldest application, and both are also awaiting information from the customer, employer, and/or outcome of workplace assessment, for the case manager to proceed with the application.
We currently have 7282 applications with case managers. It would be considerably resource intensive to look through all of these to identify the oldest that is not awaiting information from an external source. I can confirm that we do conduct internal checks on the older cases to ensure they are not unnecessarily delayed and that the average clearance time in February for all applications was 58 working days, with 42% of applications having a decision in 25 days.
Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal departmental use only, and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. They should therefore be treated with caution.