Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department gives to local authorities on ensuring that benefit claimants are not given conflicting appointments which carry non-attendance sanctions by both his Department and those authorities.
Answered by Esther McVey
DWP does not issue any guidance to local authorities around ensuring that benefit claimants are not given conflicting appointments.
However, whenever a benefit claimant is required to attend an interview with a DWP adviser they are given information, verbally and/or in writing, which includes details about the interview itself and what they are required to do if they are unable to attend that interview.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will assess the cumulative effect of welfare policy reforms instituted since May 2010; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Esther McVey
The Government regularly produces analysis of the cumulative impact of all coalition changes, including welfare, on households across the income distribution. In the interests of transparency this Government introduced the publication of such documents (produced by HM Treasury), alongside every Budget and Autumn Statement. The most recent update was published with the Budget in March 2014, and can be found using the following link:
Impact on households: distributional analysis to accompany Budget 2014
This analysis estimates the effect of coalition measures from all fiscal events from the Budget in June 2010 to the Budget in March 2014. It also includes changes that were announced before the Budget in June 2010 that have been implemented by this Government.