Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure improved service from the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As more customers apply to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) the demand for our service is increasing. To allow us to meet this demand and provide an efficient service we continuously look at the resources we have and where we should focus our efforts to get the greatest value for money and deliver the best service to our customers.
We review our overall resource supply regularly and take appropriate steps to ensure that staffing levels meet current demands. We have an ongoing recruitment campaign for 2025 which will ensure CMS is resourced to meet current and future forecasted demand.
Through extensive modernisation to both telephony and digital channels, and by promoting self-service online, the CMS are ensuring customers have greater choice of how and when they contact us. Our service improvements allow customers to use the most appropriate and efficient contact method to quickly resolve their queries and reduce demand on our services.
Improvements to our digital service allow us to process simple actions automatically, speeding up the time taken to make a change. Through efficient call routing, we have freed up resources to deliver a more responsive service and allow caseworkers more time to better assist customers who need to reach out to us via telephone. We have improved all forms of communication, including greater use of SMS and email as well as improving letter content. Furthermore, we have taken timely action to further train, support and redeploy resource within CMS to where it is needed most.
The CMS continually reviews the service it provides by regularly gathering feedback from customers. The Customer Experience Survey is a way in which the Department interacts with customers to understand their experience. Through regular insight used to inform ways to improve our service and the ongoing review of resources, the CMS strives to ensure we have the capability to deliver the best service which is accessible to all parents within our growing caseload.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to increase resourcing for the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As more customers apply to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) the demand for our service is increasing. To allow us to meet this demand and provide an efficient service we continuously look at the resources we have and where we should focus our efforts to get the greatest value for money and deliver the best service to our customers.
We review our overall resource supply regularly and take appropriate steps to ensure that staffing levels meet current demands. We have an ongoing recruitment campaign for 2025 which will ensure CMS is resourced to meet current and future forecasted demand.
Through extensive modernisation to both telephony and digital channels, and by promoting self-service online, the CMS are ensuring customers have greater choice of how and when they contact us. Our service improvements allow customers to use the most appropriate and efficient contact method to quickly resolve their queries and reduce demand on our services.
Improvements to our digital service allow us to process simple actions automatically, speeding up the time taken to make a change. Through efficient call routing, we have freed up resources to deliver a more responsive service and allow caseworkers more time to better assist customers who need to reach out to us via telephone. We have improved all forms of communication, including greater use of SMS and email as well as improving letter content. Furthermore, we have taken timely action to further train, support and redeploy resource within CMS to where it is needed most.
The CMS continually reviews the service it provides by regularly gathering feedback from customers. The Customer Experience Survey is a way in which the Department interacts with customers to understand their experience. Through regular insight used to inform ways to improve our service and the ongoing review of resources, the CMS strives to ensure we have the capability to deliver the best service which is accessible to all parents within our growing caseload.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how the new jobs and careers service will work with employers to help tackle ageism in (a) recruitment and (b) the workplace.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government acknowledges the key role employers play in helping older individuals to remain in or re-enter the workforce, and the importance of embracing policies conductive to this support. The 2010 Equality Act provides strong protection against direct and indirect age discrimination in employment, rendering it unlawful for employers to discriminate against employees or job applicants based on age.
We know that work helps everyone, including older people, play active and fulfilling roles in society while building financial security for retirement. That is why we are reforming employment support to ensure it helps everyone who needs it. This includes creating a Jobs and Careers service that will enable everyone, regardless of age, to access support to find good, meaningful work, and help them progress in work or increase their earnings.
We have asked Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead an independent “Keep Britain Working” review as a part of the plan to Get Britain Working again. In recognition of employer's vital role, his review is considering recommendations to support and enable employers to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces, support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence, and recruit and retain more disabled people and people with health conditions. This includes the perspectives of older people themselves, as well as engaging with the Centre for Ageing Better.
My Department also continues to engage with employers to ensure their recruitment practises attract and support the retention of older people. This includes making businesses aware of good practice and encouraging employers to sign the Age-Friendly employer pledge.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
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 that people in their (a) 50s and (b) 60s are included in the design of its new digital employment support offer.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of our reforms announced in the Get Britain Working, we set out our plans to reform Jobcentre Plus and create a new service across Great Britain. We secured £55m at the Autumn Budget to take forward the first steps of building, testing and trialling the new service in 2025/26, including the development of a modern digital offer where people can access support through the channels that best meet their needs.
The new service must work for everyone, and we are committed to working with all users, including older individuals, on the new service, and organisations representing their needs, throughout the design process.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of including an increase in employment among people aged 50–59 and 60–66 as a distinct intermediate outcome metric in the Get Britain Working framework.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A key outcome in our Get Britain Working outcome metrics framework is our ambition to raise the country’s employment rate to 80%. To achieve this ambition, we will need to improve employment across a range of groups of the population, including people aged 50 and over.
The outcomes framework intermediate outcome metrics monitor progress of the effect of policies announced in the Get Britain Working White Paper that provide extra support for specific groups of people - for example young people; people with health conditions and disabled people.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Armed Forces Covenant Duty on the work of her Department.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions treats its responsibilities under the Armed Forces Covenant very seriously and has a number of special rules and arrangements in place.
These range from National Insurance Credits for forces spouses who have a gap in their records because they have accompanied their partner overseas; to exemptions to residency tests to those who have served abroad; to a network of Armed Forces Champions in Jobcentres who provide expert help and support to those veterans who need it most.
As we reform and modernise our services, and make other changes, we will, of course, continue to consider the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to better equip local police forces to ensure the safe return of missing children.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to ensuring that police forces are equipped to respond appropriately urgently when children go missing, and that missing people and their families receive the best possible protection and support.
The Missing Persons Authorised Professional Practice, issued by the College of Policing, sets out best practice guidance for all missing person investigations for police forces in England and Wales in order to prevent missing incidents as well as ensure the safe return of missing children.
The National Police Chief’s Council has also developed a ‘Missing Children from Care Framework’ which aims to ensure that children in care receive appropriate and timely responses when their whereabouts are unknown. This should reduce the risk of harm; help return the child to their care setting; and, reduce the likelihood of repeat missing incidents.
The new National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection will also improve the response to missing children by developing best practices and delivering training to officers across a range of vulnerabilities.
Recognising that many children go missing as a result of county lines exploitation, we are also providing specialist support for children and young people to escape county lines and child criminal exploitation, and this includes funding Missing People’s SafeCall service, which provides a national, confidential helpline and support for young people, families and carers who are concerned about county lines exploitation.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to develop a cross-Government strategy for reducing the numbers of missing children.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government champions the need for an effective multi-agency response that reduces the number of children going missing, whether this is from a family home or from the care of the local authority.
The department’s long-standing statutory guidance on safeguarding children at risk of going missing is already clear on the expectation that local authorities and safeguarding partners need to work together to reduce missing episodes, and to respond effectively when children do go missing.
In addition, the government’s statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ promotes robust information-sharing across safeguarding partners, which we know is essential for identifying local contexts and disrupting local patterns of behaviours that can raise the risk of children in and outside the care system going missing, including being missing from education.
Children in care can be especially vulnerable to going missing. That is why the department, working with the Home Office, has supported the National Police Chiefs' Council to develop a ‘Missing Children from Care' framework. This good practice framework can be adopted by local areas when designing their multi-agency protocols for strategic and operational responses to missing episodes, ensuring that the appropriate safeguarding partner responds in the best interest of the missing person.
Since April, the government is providing £500 million to local authorities nationally, to roll out family help and multi-agency child protection support. We have set up the Families First Partnership programme to support the delivery of these reforms, with local areas beginning transformation from April 2025.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to improve connections between the Greater Manchester City Region and (a) Yorkshire, (b) the Liverpool City Region and (c) North Wales.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government has already demonstrated its commitment to improving Northern transport infrastructure. At and since the Budget last Autumn, further commitment and funding has been provided for key transport programmes in the North, including the Transpennine Route Upgrade, an £11 billion programme that will transform rail connectivity from Manchester through to York.
Through City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) Round 1 (2022/23–2026/27), the Government has also provided Greater Manchester Combined Authority with £1 billion to invest in local transport priorities.
Future investment priorities for Northern transport infrastructure will be considered in the round as part of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how the Infrastructure Strategy will support infrastructure enhancements in the North West.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy will reduce uncertainty by bringing together a long-term plan for the social, economic and housing infrastructure across the UK, including the North West
Alongside considering the UK’s economic and social infrastructure needs, the strategy will set out how we are reforming institutions and changing the way we make decisions and deliver infrastructure, maximising the benefits of our strong fiscal and spending frameworks, breaking down regulatory and planning barriers, and resetting our relationship with the private sector.