Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans his Department has to increase awareness of the Disability Confident campaign; and how his Department plans to measure the effectiveness of that campaign.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
We have developed a new Disability Confident employer accreditation scheme. This went live in July.
This will be core to our engagement with employers to raise awareness, improve performance and drive up engagement on the disability employment agenda.
We are developing plans to formally launch the scheme in the Autumn and more information on take up and effectiveness measures will be available from then.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department plans to take to (a) track and (b) report progress made against the Sustainable Development Goals by applying the Food Insecurity Experience Scale.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
DFID helped to establish the use of the Food Insecurity Experience Scale. This is the method the UN’s Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators has recommended for tracking and reporting on the prevalence of food insecurity for Global Goal 2.
DFID is in the process of reviewing its results framework and is also considering ways to apply the Food Insecurity Experience Scale in relevant programmes. For example, this year DFID supported the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme to agree a new Monitoring and Evaluation framework which will use the Food Insecurity Experience Scale to track progress on food security for households supported by the programme.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when his Department plans to publish data on the number of (a) low, (b) medium and (c) high level sanctions applied to universal credit claimants (i) before and (ii) after challenges.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Department updated its strategy for releasing official statistics on Universal Credit (UC) in February 2016. As outlined in the strategy, officials are currently assessing the data for UC and will only release information once the necessary quality assurance work has taken place. These statistics will be published in accordance with the relevant protocols in the Code of Practice for official statistics.
Universal Credit official statistics and the Departments release strategy can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many disability employment advisers are employed by Jobcentre Plus.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The number of Disability Employment Advisers employed by the Department for Work and Pensions is 263 at July 2016.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average number of days was from the posting of a medical certificate by a claimant in support of an employment and support allowance claim to the day his Department acknowledged receipt of that certificate in the last 12 months.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken was to process hardship payments between the day the application was made and the day the claimant received the payment for sanctioned (a) jobseeker's allowance and (b) employment and support allowance claimants before reviews, reconsiderations or appeals for the period between 1 July and 31 December 2015.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of extending the Shared Accommodation Rate to social rented housing on the ability of single people under the age of 35 to access general needs social rented housing.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Full impact and equality impact assessments will be undertaken in due course.
Single people under 35 will be exempt from the Shared Accommodation Rate if they fall into one of the categories below:
For those who are not covered by these exemptions, they will be able to apply for Discretionary Housing Payments if they need help meeting the shortfall in their rent.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish updated mortality statistics for employment and support allowance, incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance.
Answered by Priti Patel
The Department has no plans to update these statistics.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidelines his Department issues to its staff on carrying out Genuine Prospect of Work assessments.
Answered by Priti Patel
Guidance for Department for Work and Pensions staff responsible for carrying out Genuine Prospect of Work tests can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/510008/dmgch0703.pdf
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 28 April 2016 to Question 34944, on Employment and Support Allowance, if he will publish the guidance on all aspects of the Work Capability Assessment including the application of Regulation 35 of the Employment Allowance Regulations 2008.
Answered by Priti Patel
The revised version of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) Handbook, which contains written guidance on all aspects of the Work Capability Assessment including the application of Regulation 35, will be published in due course.