Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support his Department provides for businesses to assist with the employment of staff with a hearing impairment.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Department does not provide such support direct to businesses, but for individuals whose health or disability affects the way they do their job who are in work, or just about to enter work, Access to Work provides practical and financial support with additional costs.
The type of support is tailored to an individual’s needs and can include travel to work, support workers and specialist aids and equipment for the individual, as well as advice for employers and awareness raising sessions for their staff.
Access to Work does not replace the duty an employer has under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments. Instead it provides support that is over and above that which is a reasonable adjustment.
In addition, the new Disability Confident scheme, launched by the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work in November 2016, works with employers to create a movement for change, by encouraging them to think differently about disability and to take action to improve how they attract, recruit and retain disabled workers. This involves business talking to business, with disability confident employers sharing their evidence and experiences with other employers.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support his Department has given to micro-businesses in adapting to new automatic enrolment pension schemes.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
We are committed to supporting small and micro-businesses to adapt to their new automatic enrolment duties. Together with The Pensions Regulator, we have launched a new broadcast-led communications campaign to raise awareness of automatic enrolment amongst small employers.
The Pensions Regulator has also recently launched a new interactive and simplified online step by step guide to automatic enrolment, designed to meet the specific needs of employers who may not have pensions experience, including those with just one or two staff. Employers using the website can access tailored information relevant to their circumstances. The Pensions Regulator also provides online content for business advisers who play an important role in supporting smaller employers to meet their legal duties. To raise awareness and understanding, the Regulator has had over 500 meetings with intermediary firms and spoken at over 300 events around the UK during the last year
The Regulator sends a series of letters to every employer starting at least 12 months before their staging date, which is the date that the law applies to them. These letters set out what an employer needs to do and by when to comply with the law and signposts to the relevant information on the Regulator’s website.
To help employers adjust to the costs of automatic enrolment the minimum employer contribution level starts at 1% and increases gradually to 3% by October 2018. In addition, to ensure that all firms have access to quality, low-cost pension provision, The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) was established by the Government and has a public service obligation to accept any employer that chooses NEST for automatic enrolment.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
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 potential effect of his proposals for automatic enrolment of employees in pension schemes on businesses with fewer than 10 employees.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
In 2010 the independent Making Automatic Enrolment Work (MAEW) review considered the impact of automatic enrolment on small and micro businesses. DWP’s impact assessments and on-going evaluation of Automatic Enrolment continue to monitor the costs and benefits of automatic enrolment on small businesses, including those with fewer than 10 employees.
DWP’s evaluation reports and impact assessments are all available online.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff in his Department have been employed through employment or recruitment agencies in each year since 2010-11.
Answered by Esther McVey
The department has used employment or recruitment agencies to:
a) provide services for DWP under a commercial arrangement (contingent labour), and
b) support recruitment exercises; identifying people with the skills and experience required to take up permanent employment in the department.
Information held by the department on the use of employment or recruitment agencies to provide contingent labour workers is incomplete for 2014. The following table provides information for the preceding 4 years and a partial view for 2014.
Year | Headcount |
2010/11 | 276 |
2011/12 | 159 |
2012/13 | 249 |
2013/14 | 111 |
2014/15 | 63 |
The department also has information on the number of permanent DWP employees recruited through the use of employment or recruitment agencies and this is as follows:-
Year | Headcount |
2010/11 | 1 |
2011/12 | 2 |
2012/13 | 19 |
2013/14 | 5 |
2014/15¹ | 9 |
Note:
¹ To date