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Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Fraud
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Q27 of the oral evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee on 10 January 2024, HC 417, what biases there are in the (a) AI and (b) machine learning systems used by his Department to detect and prevent fraud in the benefit system; and how these biases have been used to identify fraud.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Please be assured that assessments of bias have been conducted for all IRIS machine learning models and the screening to date has not identified any areas of concern. The outcomes will be published in summer 2024 within DWP’s Annual Report and Accounts.

The department always ensures appropriate safeguards are in place. There are detailed Data Protection Impact Assessments and Equality Analysis that accompany our machine learning models, and these are live documents that are kept updated. We also work closely with legal colleagues to ensure our use of machine learning is legal and proportionate. As an additional safeguard, all decisions on claims are made by DWP case workers based on all the facts and individual circumstances of the claim.


Written Question
Artificial Intelligence
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential for bias in the automated machine learning and decision-making systems used to audit.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Please be assured that assessments of bias have been conducted for all IRIS machine learning models and the screening to date has not identified any areas of concern. The outcomes will be published in summer 2024 within DWP’s Annual Report and Accounts.

The department always ensures appropriate safeguards are in place. There are detailed Data Protection Impact Assessments and Equality Analysis that accompany our machine learning models, and these are live documents that are kept updated. We also work closely with legal colleagues to ensure our use of machine learning is legal and proportionate. As an additional safeguard, all decisions on claims are made by DWP case workers based on all the facts and individual circumstances of the claim.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Fraud
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the (a) Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service, (b) Enhanced Checking Service, (c) Risk Review Team, (d) Enhanced Review Teams, (e) Universal Credit advances claims decision risk model, (f) Common Risk Engine, (g) General Matching Service, (h) Fraud Referral and Intervention Management System (i) Targeted Case Review and (j) any other systems have been used as part of fraud surveillance in the benefits system in the last year.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

None of the teams or systems referenced carry out surveillance in the benefits system.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of claimants referred by a DWP algorithm for case review as potentially containing fraud or error were (a) in receipt of disability benefit and (b) registered as disabled; and of these claims how many experienced benefits (i) stoppages and (ii) suspensions in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The department does not hold the information requested.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits
Wednesday 13th March 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of cases in the targeted case review system were (a) discontinued and (b) endorsed on the grounds that they were likely to contain (i) fraud and (ii) error after being checked by a human reviewer in the most recent period for which data is available.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The TCR process is led by specialised agents to find incorrectness on claims and put it right. Prior to starting a claim review, agents will preview the claim to make sure it meets the criteria for selection. Claims selected for review are not endorsed on the grounds they are likely to contain fraud or error. It is only once a claim review is complete that an agent can determine the outcome. Performance for the financial year 22/23 is included in the DWP Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) Report, available on GOV.UK. The ARA report for financial year 23/24 is expected to be published Summer 2024.

We do not categorise claims as discontinued. A claim may be deselected for review if it does not meet the criteria.


Written Question
Hospitals: Parking
Tuesday 30th January 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what her planned timetable is to ensure free NHS car parking for those with greatest need.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Free National Health Service carparking for those with the greatest need has already been delivered. The Government committed in 2019 to provide free hospital car parking for in-need groups, including disabled people, parents of children staying overnight, frequent outpatient attenders and NHS staff working overnight. As of October 2022, all trusts that charge for car parking have fully implemented this commitment. This is the first time that free hospital car parking in England has been made available to those who need it the most.


Written Question
Hospitals: Parking Offences
Tuesday 23rd January 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information her Department holds on the number of NHS clinical staff that were issued with parking penalty notices by NHS hospitals in each region in the last 12 months.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information requested is not collected centrally. National Health Service hospital car parking is free for those with greatest needs. This includes disabled blue badge holders, frequent outpatient attenders, parents of children staying in hospital overnight and NHS staff working overnight.

NHS organisations decide locally on the provision and charging for their car parking within the policies set out in the NHS Patient, Visitor and Staff Car Parking Principles. This will include when it is appropriate to issue parking penalty notices.


Written Question
Dementia: Screening
Monday 22nd January 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of patients waited more than 15 weeks for an initial dementia assessment in 2023; what is the average waiting time for an initial dementia assessment; and what steps she is taking to improve those waiting times.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information requested is not held centrally. To improve waiting times, we have set an expectation that everyone who needs an appointment at a general practice should get one within two weeks, with the most urgent patients being seen on the same day.

The Dementia Care Pathway: Full implementation guidance, commissioned by NHS England, outlines the dementia care pathway and associated benchmarks to support improvements in the delivery and quality of care and support, for people living with dementia and their families and carers. The guide showcases good-practice examples of services that have successfully reduced their waiting times. More information is available at the following link:

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/improving-care/nccmh/dementia/nccmh-dementia-care-pathway-full-implementation-guidance.pdf


Written Question
Hospitals: Parking Offences
Monday 22nd January 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an estimate of how many NHS clinical staff were issued with parking penalty notices by NHS hospitals in the last year.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information requested is not collected centrally. National Health Service trusts decide locally on their strategy for car parking based on their needs and the local environment. This will include when it is appropriate to issue parking penalty notices.

The Government has delivered on its commitment to ensure that free hospital car parking is provided for those with greatest need, which includes NHS staff working overnight. All NHS trusts that charge for car parking have implemented this policy.


Written Question
Health and Safety Executive: Inspections
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many inspections have the Health and Safety Executive conducted by sector in each year since 2008.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The table below shows the number of inspections, by year and by sector, carried out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for each financial year since 2017. HSE’s data deletion policy only allows for retention of detailed inspection data for up to 7 years, therefore data before 2017 can be found on Gov.uk website.

The figures below are based on raw live data and can be subject to change due to updates to historical cases. Therefore these figures may differ to the figures published in the Annual Reports.

‘Sector’ as used in this table is a term used by HSE internally and is a categorisation of the main economic activity of a workplace. The figures below include inspections to major hazard sites. A breakdown by sector is not always published in the Annual Reports as the focus will be on the respective priorities of business plan for that work year.


Year Inspected

Sector

2017/18

2018/19

2019/20

2020/21

2021/22

2022/23

Agriculture

574

773

708

229

405

868

Construction

7,872

7,472

5,004

4,582

6,134

6,146

Extractive Utilities

135

42

40

148

44

86

Manufacturing

6,068

5,289

4,322

6,080

5,729

5,417

Services

3,304

3,195

2,291

3,717

3,426

2,959

Unknown

7

5

1

4

4

2

Water/Waste Management

1,626

1,418

1,148

2,225

1,258

1,434

Total

19,586

18,194

13,514

16,985

17,000

16,912