Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether child maintenance caseworkers receive training on identifying when standard procedures may cause undue harm or upset for the paying and receiving parent and their children.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
During the Child Maintenance caseworker learning journey, there are several points where the material places emphasis on the importance of recognising the impact our processes have on our customers. These are highlighted in the Building a Confident and Capable Service modules below:
Telephony
Ensuring processes are explained well and that customers have the time to provide information regarding their circumstances.
Income
Emphasises the importance of recognising that changes in income can have a big impact on both parents. For the paying parent, the impact may be an income change is relatively large but does not breach tolerance. For the receiving parent, a 25% income change will make a significant difference to their maintenance payments. Learners are expected to be sensitive to these changes, support, listen and guide all customers through the process, signposting where required. The My Child Maintenance Case website is promoted to ensure all customers are aware of the ease of using our online service to report income changes.
Debt Negotiation
Recognising the emotions that the receiving parent goes through when payments are late or where the paying parent is unable or unwilling to pay. Learners are expected to engage with customers and make it as positive an experience as possible, manage expectations and signpost where required.
The six-step negotiation model is used to understand paying parent barriers, listen to their issues, signpost as required and set up reasonable, sustainable and affordable agreements for repayment of arrears. The issues with income which has not breached tolerance is again emphasised and examples given to demonstrate the impact on paying parents. Learners are aware of the Stop, Think, Act Strategy when setting up agreements to ensure they meet the criteria of reasonable sustainable and affordable.
Domestic Abuse
Module focuses on recognising domestic abuse and signposting the customer. Learners are aware that a family-based arrangement may not be appropriate in this situation. The customer may have concerns about sharing personal details, having to be in contact with the other parent or being traced. Learners are made aware of the provision of non-geographical bank accounts and the provision of collect and pay. They also understand when an application fee is not required. The module emphasises that our processes may cause distress and that learners must be sensitive to this.
Welfare of the Child
A dedicated topic which explains to learners the importance of considering how any of our discretionary decisions will have an impact on any child affected by our actions. The Welfare of the Child decision is revisited in every appropriate module throughout the learning to emphasise the importance of making correct decisions in the interest of children.
The customer charter emphasises the need to try to understand the customers circumstances and to treat fairly and with respect. Empathy is defined and expectations for its use, are made clear.
We are currently delivering a programme of work to embed improved 1-2-1 coaching and team level performance management and quality assurance activity across all delivery and enabling teams.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of customer service provided by the child maintenance service.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is committed to delivering our DWP Customer Charter promises and has created a customer-focused continuous improvement culture to support and achieve this. The customer charter emphasises the need to try to understand the customers circumstances and to treat fairly and with respect. Empathy is defined and expectations for its use, are made clear.
CMS Customer Experience Strategy involves bringing together all enabling colleagues and regularly reviewing lived customer experience using a dashboard of insight measures including the DWP customer experience survey and then turning this into actionable lessons learnt and improvement plans. Activity includes a programme of work to strengthen our performance management, quality assurance and 121 coaching.
We are also improving our communication with customers by expanding the facilities offered through our online self-service and web chat, allowing parents to access their account 24 hours a day, seven days a week at a time that works for them and simplifying the content of letters.
By improving our online services we’ll be able to use the most appropriate channel routing to get customers to the fastest course of action, increasing online usage and reducing the time spent on telephone calls.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he (a) is taking and (b) plans to take steps to reduce the waiting times for responses from the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is committed to delivering our DWP Customer Charter promises and has created a customer-focused continuous improvement culture to support and achieve this.
CMS has made changes to the way they communicate with customers. This includes expanding the facilities offered through the online self-service and web chat, allowing parents to access their account 24 hours a day, seven days a week at a time that works for them. In addition, changes are being made to customer communication content, so they are clearer especially within letters.
CMS regularly review our resourcing strategy against business demands to ensure we best meet customer demand and priorities.
When DWP receive correspondence relating to a complaint, they aim to fully resolve or agree a resolution within 15 working days of receipt. Complex issues may take longer to resolve.
DWP triage complaints giving priority to vulnerable claimants who may be at risk, and those with benefit payment issues. We continue to investigate all complaints as quickly as we can and, as part of the triage process, we write or call those customers and honourable members where there may be a delay in answering their complaint. Case conferences are in place to find swift resolution to aging complaint cases. Complaints are used to provide customer insight to shape future services and drive improvements.
Since 2021, Child Maintenance Service complaints team has seen their response times to complainants steadily improve and are now responding to almost all complaints within the timescale.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether staff in his Department are provided training on trauma (a) awareness and (b) prevention procedures.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP is committed to becoming a more Trauma Informed organisation. We have a dedicated programme which will integrate the six key pillars of the approach as defined by the Office for Health Improvements and Disparities (December, 2022) which are safety, trustworthiness, choice, empowerment, collaboration and cultural consideration. Our programme looks at these six pillars within the contexts of application to our colleagues, our customers, our culture, and the context of our interaction- whether that is a physical, telephony, digital or postal interaction. There is significant emphasis within the design of the programme regarding what more can be done to prevent trauma and re-traumatisation for both our customers and our colleagues. We are learning from best practice demonstrated by organisations such as NHS Education Scotland, Work Services Australia and the Wales ACES Hub to shape the future prioritisation of this work
With response to the query around training, we have begun the roll out of an introductory module into the Trauma Informed Approach for all colleagues which is the first in a suite of products and a long-term commitment to upskilling around the topic of trauma. This learning will be complimented by products and initiatives that will enable the skills learned to be embedded into the business-as-usual operations of the whole department.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost to the public purse was of providing free TV licences to people over the age of 75 for qualifying residents in the (a) Livingston constituency and (b) West Lothian local authority area in (i) 2017-18 and (ii) 2018-19.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In the 2015 funding settlement, the Government agreed with the BBC that responsibility for the concession will transfer to the BBC in June 2020.
The government and the BBC agreed this is a fair deal for the BBC - in return we closed the iPlayer loophole and committed to increase the licence fee in line with inflation. And to help with financial planning, we agreed to provide phased transitional funding over 2 years to gradually introduce the cost to the BBC.
This reform was subject to public discussion and debated extensively during the passage of the Digital Economy Act 2017 through Parliament.
On 10 June 2019, the BBC announced that the current scheme will end. From 1 June 2020, a free TV licence will only be available to a household with someone aged over 75 who receives Pension Credit.
The table below provides estimates of the costs for 2017/18 of providing free TV licences to people aged 75 years and over in the geographical areas requested, in nominal prices. The figures for 2018/19 will be available in September.
| Expenditure (£m) (Nominal) |
| 2017-18 |
(a) Livingston constituency | £0.82 |
(b) West Lothian local authority area | £1.39 |
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average cost to the public purse is of each universal credit appeal.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit appeals her Department has challenged in each year since its introduction.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The number of Universal Credit appeals that the Department has challenged in each year since its introduction can be found in the table below:
2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
0 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 1 |
The above information has been provided on the assumption that the reference to “challenged” means “asked the First-tier Tribunal to either set their decision aside, or to grant permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal” and that “appeals” refers to “decisions of the First-tier Tribunal, adverse to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions”.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of universal credit appeals her Department has lost in each year since the introduction of that benefit.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Statistics on the number and proportion of Universal Credit appeals cleared at a hearing where the decision was in favour of the claimant, are published in Table SSCS_3 of the quarterly statistical publication, “Tribunals and gender recognition certificate statistics quarterly: July to September 2018”, published by the Ministry of Justice and available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has spent on contesting universal credit appeals (a) in total and (b) in cases where her Department has lost the appeal.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant of the Answer of 18 December 2018 to Question 202142 on Universal Credit: Overpayments, when her Department plans to provide the full answer to that question.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
I replied to the hon. Member’s Question on 5 February 2019.