Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish her Department's guidance for Decision makers on issuing sanctions.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department’s guidance for its decision makers is already available to see on www.gov.uk. For decision makers dealing with awards of Jobseeker’s Allowance, the guidance can be found in the “Decision Makers Guide” (“DMG”) at chapter 34. Guidance for Employment and Support Allowance can be found in DMG chapter 53.
The “Advice for Decision Makers” (“ADM”) contains guidance for decision makers dealing with awards of Universal Credit at chapters K1 to K9. Guidance for awards of new-style Employment and Support Allowance and new-style Jobseeker’s Allowance, guidance can be found at chapters V7 and S4 to S7 respectively.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many records her Department holds that have reached the time limit for their transfer to the National Archives but have not been transferred.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
DWP reviewed 45,981 files in 2018 and transferred 1369 files to The National Archives (TNA) in October 2018. 3205 files are due to be transferred to the TNA in March 2019.
DWP has 569 files that are awaiting review, these files have start dates pre-1995. Some of these files may be selected for transfer to the TNA.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the trend in the number of benefit recipients receiving the Christmas bonus in each year since 2010; and what estimate her Department has made of the number of benefit recipients eligible to receive the Christmas bonus in the next three years.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The number of benefit recipients receiving the Christmas bonus in previous years and forecasts for future years can be found in table 1c of the “Outturn and forecast: Autumn Budget 2018” publication.
This information is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2018
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
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 ensure confidentiality of medical information handled by contracted employment support allowance and personal independence payment assessors.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The contracts for the Departments Health Providers who are assessing the needs of claimants for Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payment include strict confidentiality clauses for the protection of personal medical information. The highest priority is placed on confidentiality, protecting the information the Health Providers hold about claimants securely. The Health Providers have detailed and strictly enforced policies relating to data protection and records management to ensure that the data they hold is dealt with in accordance with the requirements of the contracts.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure employment support allowance and personal independence payment assessors are (a) informed of and (b) abide by mandates instructing communications via an agreed advocate rather than directly with the client.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Where Employment Support Allowance or Personal Independence Payment claimants have an approved appointee, this will be flagged in the initial referral to the Assessment Provider. If a face-to-face assessment is deemed necessary, the Assessment Provider will send the invite to the appointee only.
In regards to any other ‘advocate’ ie: not an approved benefit appointee, as long as the claimant has made this request clear when claiming PIP or ESA, either by providing a correspondence address, the advocate’s personal details or on their Questionnaire – the PIP2 or the ESA50, then this will be acted upon.
Department works with providers to ensure guidance is understood and applied in line with policy intent.