Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many appeals have been made on the outcome of work capability assessments in each of the last five years; and what proportion of those appeals were successful.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Information on appeal outcomes for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Fit for Work decisions in initial assessment are provided in Table 3 in the statistical release “ESA: outcomes of Work Capability Assessments including mandatory reconsiderations and appeals: June 2018”, available here:
Table 17 of the same publication provides experimental cohort statistics for initial and repeat ESA Work Capability Assessments (WCA) assessments including the number of appeals completed and their outcome.
Statistics on Universal Credit (UC) WCA appeals are not available.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of people participating in a workplace pension scheme in Bolton North East constituency.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Since 2012 in Bolton North East constituency, approximately 13,000 eligible jobholders have been automatically enrolled.
Automatic enrolment is a great success story. Over 9.8 million employees have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension, and more than 1.3 million employers have met their duties as at the end of July 2018.
Nationally in 2012, the percentage of eligible private sector workers participating in a workplace pension hit a low of 42 per cent. This figure has now risen to 81 per cent. This marks a 39 percentage point increase in pension participation of this group since the introduction of Automatic Enrolment.
Young people have embraced pension saving, with 77 per cent of eligible 22 to 29 year olds working in the private sector now enrolled in a workplace pension. For context, only 24 per cent of this group were enrolled into a workplace pension in 2012, before the introduction of Automatic Enrolment. And the proportion of people earning between £10,000 and £20,000 participating in a workplace pension has grown dramatically, from a low of under 20 per cent in 2012 to over 70 per cent today.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North 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 level of uptake of workplace pensions since that scheme's inception; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Since 2012 in Bolton North East constituency, approximately 13,000 eligible jobholders have been automatically enrolled.
Automatic enrolment is a great success story. Over 9.8 million employees have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension, and more than 1.3 million employers have met their duties as at the end of July 2018.
Nationally in 2012, the percentage of eligible private sector workers participating in a workplace pension hit a low of 42 per cent. This figure has now risen to 81 per cent. This marks a 39 percentage point increase in pension participation of this group since the introduction of Automatic Enrolment.
Young people have embraced pension saving, with 77 per cent of eligible 22 to 29 year olds working in the private sector now enrolled in a workplace pension. For context, only 24 per cent of this group were enrolled into a workplace pension in 2012, before the introduction of Automatic Enrolment. And the proportion of people earning between £10,000 and £20,000 participating in a workplace pension has grown dramatically, from a low of under 20 per cent in 2012 to over 70 per cent today.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance and training is provided to staff determining sanctions for (a) jobseekers allowance and (b) universal credit to help them understand mental health problems which may legitimately account for claimants missing appointments with little or no notice.
Answered by Lord Sharma
DWP provides learning and guidance for staff administering Jobseeker’s Allowance to determine if a referral to a Decision Maker is appropriate when determining a sanction. Foundation learning is provided and undertaken to build capability and to recognise when a claimant is vulnerable, has a known mental health condition or other complex needs exists.
Decision makers and work coaches are also supported by material which covers identifying circumstances when a claimant can be treated as having good reason for failure to attend.
Universal Credit staff receive further learning about complex needs and supporting a claimant, such as guidance for decision makers to prompt them to take all of a claimant’s circumstances into account, including known mental health problems, when assessing whether a sanction is appropriate.
Staff are supported to consider ‘good reason’ for failing to attend an appointment and determine if a mental health problem contributed to the missed appointment. The learning and guidance for jobcentre staff explains that when referring cases they must record whether the claimant has complex needs so the decision maker can consider that as part of the decision making process.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many sanctions have been imposed on (a) jobseekers allowance and (b) universal credit claimants who are experiencing mental health problems in the most recent 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
We engage at a personal and individual level with all of our claimants and are committed to tailoring the support that we give, and any conditionality requirements to the specific circumstances of the individuals. Sanctions are only used in a minority of cases and when people fail to meet their conditionality requirements without good reason.
A Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities and any evidence they provide, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether data will be collected by her Department from claimants using the Find a Job website.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
User data is collected in line with forthcoming GDPR legislation, to make it as easy as possible for customers of the Find a Job service to search and apply for job adverts relevant to them.
Further information is available on the site – https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/privacy.html
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Find a Job website will clearly display whether an advertised position is full time, part time, flexible hours or a zero-hours contract.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
At present on Find a job customers can search for full or part time work. If an employer has included details of flexible working in their job description, they will be able to easily search for these keywords. The way flexible hours and working arrangements are best represented on the site will be developed soon after go live.