Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department is putting in place to support carers with the increases in heating and energy costs.
Answered by Chloe Smith
We value the key role that unpaid carers play in supporting disabled and elderly people. We support them through access to the full range of social security benefits depending on their circumstances.
This Government is wholly committed to supporting people on lower incomes through a range of measures, including by spending over £110 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2021/22.
We understand the pressures people are facing with the cost of living, and we will continue to listen to people’s concerns as we have done throughout the pandemic. We’re providing support worth around £12bn this financial year and next to help families with the cost of living, cutting the Universal Credit taper to make sure work pays, freezing fuel duties to keep costs down, and providing targeted support to help households with their energy bills.
We recognise that some people require extra support over the winter, which is why vulnerable households across the country can access a new £500 million support fund to help them with essentials. The Barnett Formula will apply in the usual way, with the Scottish government receiving £41 million, which they have used to create a Winter Support Fund to help people on low incomes this winter.
Significant social security powers are devolved to the Scottish Government if they wish to use them. These include the power to top up reserved benefits, make discretionary payments or introduce new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to protect Job Centre staff's health and wellbeing when (a) conducting face-to-face appointments and (b) ensuring local work from home covid-19 guidance is followed.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
DWP takes the health, safety and wellbeing of colleagues very seriously and all of our offices are COVID secure. We have a suite of Health & Safety risk assessments in place developed following extensive consultation with departmental trade union representatives that cover all of the measures in place to protect staff and customers. These risk assessments are regularly reviewed, for example following changes to government guidance, including that from the respective governments in the devolved nations.
In addition, DWP offers a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme that offers short and long-term support for any physical or mental health issues that staff face.
DWP also has a network of Mental Health First Aiders on hand across all parts of the DWP to offer immediate emotional support and also to signpost to expert support.
The DWP’s network of Wellbeing Advocates are a community of staff representing all grades, job roles and geographical areas who regularly cascade key Wellbeing messages and support packages to their local teams and sites who also provide an invaluable service in feeding back to the central Wellbeing team on challenges that their colleagues are facing.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when her Department plans to publish the results of the public consultation in response to the Health and Disability Green Paper.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper explores how the benefits system can better meet the needs of claimants now and in the future by improving claimant experience of our services, enabling independent living and improving employment outcomes.
We had over four and a half thousand responses to our consultation and, following this, a White Paper will be brought forward next year, setting out our next steps.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many organisations have signed up to the Government’s Voluntary reporting on disability, mental health and wellbeing framework in (a) Scotland and (b) the UK.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Employers are not required to inform government whether or not they are using the Voluntary Reporting Framework (VRF), which is intended primarily as a tool to foster transparency and help employers drive cultural change at an organisational level. However, in November 2019 we introduced a requirement that new and renewing Disability Confident Leaders (Level 3) would record information on disability employment and mental health using the VRF. As of 30th September 2021 there are 375 Disability Confident Leaders, 251 of which have notified us they are recording information using the VRF. The remaining Disability Confident Leaders will be expected to confirm that they are recording information using the VRF when they reach their renewal dates. We do not keep detailed information on the geographic location of these employers.
The Cabinet Office's Disability Unit will be undertaking a consultation on disability workforce reporting in the coming months, as announced in the National Disability Strategy.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in how many of the current Child Maintenance Service Collect & Pay cases has payment been delayed; and in how many cases has the delay been (a) 0 to 6 months, (b) 6 to 12 months, (c) 12 to 18 months, (d) 18 to 24 months and (e) over 24 months.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This information is not collated as a matter of normal business and is only available at disproportionate cost to the Department.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in what proportion of current Child Maintenance Service Collect & Pay cases are has (a) all money due been paid, (b) no money due been paid, (c) 1 to 25 per cent of money due has paid, (d) 26- to 50 per cent of money due been paid, (e) 51 to 75 per cent of money due been paid and (f) 76 to 99 per cent of money due been paid.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Child Maintenance Service (CMS) compliance statistics for Paying Parents are published quarterly and can be found in “Table 2: Compliance (Collect and Pay) by quarter” of the “CMS Paying Parents” section of Stat-Xplore here:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/.
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of time taken was for Collect & Pay case arrears to be cleared from April 2019 to April 2021.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This information is not collated as a matter of normal business and is only available at disproportionate cost to the Department.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken was between the Child Maintenance Service’s decision to take an enforcement measure and it being implemented, in respect of the 12,200 enforcement measures that were in process by the Child Maintenance Service at the end of June 2021.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This information is not collated as a matter of normal business and is only available at disproportionate cost to the Department.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Maintenance Service Collect & Pay cases have had their arrears cleared to £0 in the last 24 months; and what proportion that represents of total Collect & Pay cases in the same time period.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This information is not collated as a matter of normal business and is only available at disproportionate cost to the Department.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in how many cases was money recovered under the Child Maintenance Service Collect & Pay service from April 2019 to April 2021; and what proportion of total Collect & Pay cases that represents in the same time period.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
From the quarter ending September 2019 to the quarter ending June 2021, 173,000 out of 194,000 cases had money recovered under the Child Maintenance Service Collect & Pay service.