Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what additional steps she will take to improve response times to personal independence payment inquires from hon. Members.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department aims to provide substantive replies to inquiries from hon. Members within 20 working days. Where issues are complex substantive replies may take longer.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Order by Consent issued by the High court on 13 July 2021 (CO/4263/2020), whether her Department carried out an equalities impact assessment of its policy to make on-the-spot personal independence payment benefit calls to recipients of that benefit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department’s aim is that claimants are paid the correct amount of benefit at the earliest opportunity. Where new evidence or information becomes available after an appeal has been lodged, but before it is heard at a tribunal, DWP is able to revise a decision and increase the award where appropriate. In circumstances where the decision can be revised but not to the level the claimant is seeking on appeal, we contact claimants to give them the option to continue with their appeal or to have the decision revised, in which case they can still appeal the new decision. The right of appeal was always set out in the decision letter claimants receive notifying them of the new decision. Accordingly, we have no plans to further review the Department’s handling of past calls.
We began contacting claimants in this way in 1998 consequent on the change in the law introduced by the Social Security Act 1998, whereby the Secretary of State may revise a decision in the claimant’s favour even if they would not get everything they were seeking on appeal. An equality impact assessment was not conducted at that time and has not been conducted pursuant to the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Order by Consent issued by the High court on 13 July 2021 (CO/4263/2020), what assessment she has made of the potential merits of conducting an inquiry into her Department's handling of Personal Independence Payment benefit calls.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department’s aim is that claimants are paid the correct amount of benefit at the earliest opportunity. Where new evidence or information becomes available after an appeal has been lodged, but before it is heard at a tribunal, DWP is able to revise a decision and increase the award where appropriate. In circumstances where the decision can be revised but not to the level the claimant is seeking on appeal, we contact claimants to give them the option to continue with their appeal or to have the decision revised, in which case they can still appeal the new decision. The right of appeal was always set out in the decision letter claimants receive notifying them of the new decision. Accordingly, we have no plans to further review the Department’s handling of past calls.
We began contacting claimants in this way in 1998 consequent on the change in the law introduced by the Social Security Act 1998, whereby the Secretary of State may revise a decision in the claimant’s favour even if they would not get everything they were seeking on appeal. An equality impact assessment was not conducted at that time and has not been conducted pursuant to the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the consent order in K v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions CO / 4263 / 2020, what steps her Department is taking in response to that consent order to ensure that people who received on the spot benefit calls and as a result accepted a lower Personal Independence Payment (PIP) payment than they were legally entitled to are (a) contacted and (b) have that PIP payment (i) corrected and (ii) fully backdated.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department’s aim is to ensure that claimants are paid the correct amount of benefit at the earliest opportunity. Accordingly, if new evidence or information becomes available after an appeal has been lodged, it is right that decisions are reviewed and claimants put in the best position where they can choose either to continue with their appeal, or have the decision revised. At the same time claimants have, and have always had, a right of appeal against the revised decision, and to have their payments fully backdated if successful at appeal. Claimants are notified of this right of appeal in their revised decision letter.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2021 to Question 28245 on Personal Independence Payments: Long Covid, how many people have applied for personal independence payments with covid-19 as a primary disability since March 2021.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
In the application process for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a claimant’s main disabling condition is only recorded centrally on Departmental computer systems at assessment. Disabilities are not recorded centrally at the point of application. The Department does not therefore hold data on the number of applicants to PIP with particular conditions. Only those who have a disability assessment determination decision will have a main disabling condition recorded for them.
The latest available data on the number of people who have “Coronavirus COVID-19” recorded as their primary disability following assessment for PIP each month can be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. As described in my response to Question 28245, this disabling condition has been available to record for PIP assessments following a computer system change in March 2021. Due to the nature of the qualifying period for PIP claims, these cases will all be “long COVID” or “post-COVID syndrome” cases rather than initial COVID-19 infections.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the inclusion of covid-19 as a registrable cause for a long term health condition when applying for personal independence payment (PIP) since March 2021, what discussions his Department has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on developing a system of monthly published reporting of PIP application numbers to allow for additional tracking of the economic impact of long covid.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Entitlement to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is assessed on the basis of the needs arising from a health condition or disability, rather than the health condition or disability itself.
PIP statistics are published on a quarterly basis and include breakdowns by month. From March 2021, the published statistical series that include low level disability breakdowns (clearances, PIP cases with entitlement, MR registrations and clearances, Award Review & Change of Circumstance clearances) include the additional category “Coronavirus covid-19”. This reflects an operational change implemented in March 2021 to include this code on the PIP Computer System. This will allow us to track the volume of clearances with Coronavirus covid-19 as a primary disability and the corresponding volume/proportion of the PIP caseload. There are currently no plans to publish the PIP statistics on a monthly basis.
There are regular, ongoing discussions between the Secretary of State and Cabinet colleagues.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to allow discretion in taking recovery action for overpayment of universal credit when that overpayment occurred as a result of her Department's error.
Answered by Will Quince
Following the introduction of the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, all overpayments of Universal Credit and new style benefits paid in excess of entitlement are recoverable.
The trend in recent years has been to ensure claimants are left with more of their benefit; through two successive reductions in the proportion of UC we will deduct – from 40% of the UC Standard Allowance to 30% and now 25% from April 2021.
The Department seeks to recover benefit overpayments without creating undue financial hardship; any person who does experience such hardship is encouraged to contact the Department’s Debt Management unit. Where a person cannot afford the proposed rate of repayment a lower amount can be negotiated.
In exceptional circumstances discretion not to pursue recovery can also be applied under guidelines set out by HM Treasury. Typically, this would be where the continuing recovery would cause severe hardship or risk to the customer and/or their family. Further details of which are publicly available in HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
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 average waiting time for a decision on whether an award should be made in the case of a new Personal Independence Payment application; and what assessment she has made of acceptability of that waiting time.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
I refer the Hon member to the answer I gave on 24 May 2021 to Question UIN3035.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
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 reduce the time taken for a decision on a new personal independence payment claim.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment in a timely manner. We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all available evidence.
We are currently operating within expected levels. Average clearance times from initial claim to a decision being made for new claims are currently 19 weeks, which is the same as average clearance times achieved in January 2020.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions officials in her Department have had with representatives of (a) chambers of commerce and (b) local authorities on registering as gateway providers to enable local small and medium sized enterprises to use the Kickstart Scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Officials from the Department for Work and Pensions have had discussions with organisations and employers across the country about involvement in the Kickstart Scheme. This includes the Scottish and Welsh governments, mayoral combined authorities and local authorities and chambers of commerce.
We are delighted that these discussions have resulted in more than 900 organisations being approved as Gateways for the Kickstart Scheme including around 35 members of the British Chambers of Commerce network. There are also over 100 Local Authorities approved to be Kickstart Gateways. We closed applications to organisations seeking to be a new Gateway.
Since 3rd February we have also removed the 30 job minimum requirement for direct applications to Kickstart. This will make the scheme accessible to even more employers – especially smaller ones - giving them choice about whether to apply direct or via one of the approved Kickstart Gateways. We continue to engage with employers to maintain the high interest in the scheme with over 180,000 jobs approved to date.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing Kickstart applications, referrals and starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system which has been developed quickly. The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics, but is provided in the interests of transparency.