Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what income his Department derived from telephone helplines for benefits in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) does not receive any income from any of its Telephone lines including 0345.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will list the numbers and subjects covered by telephone helplines for benefits provided by his Department.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The current Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) position is that all calls should be free to our 0800 numbers to apply for benefit, including the following:
0800 731 7898 State Pension,
0800 991 234 Pension Credit,
0800 055 6688 Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA), Income Support (IS), & Employment Support Allowance (ESA)
0800 917 2222 Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
The Department uses 0345 telephone numbers where its customers call for other reasons, as these are calls that typically take less time to resolve. If a customer raises concerns over the cost of a call, we will offer to call them back.
The majority of the calls received by the Department are managed through the 0345 numbers available below in order of most frequently used lines.
0345 608 8545 | Legacy Benefit Enquiry Line (ESA, JSA, & IS) |
0345 600 0723 | Universal Credit Helpline |
0345 850 3322 | Personal Independence Payment Enquiry Line |
0345 603 6967 | Social Fund Enquiry Line |
0345 266 8792 | Child Maintenance 2012 Enquiry Line |
0345 606 0265 | State Pension & Pension Credit Enquiry Line |
0345 604 3719 | Jobcentre Enquiry Line |
0345 600 4272 | Universal Credit Digital Service Centre |
0345 712 3456 | Disability Living Allowance Enquiry Line |
0345 600 0643 | National Insurance Number Appointments |
0345 608 4321 | Carer's Allowance |
0345 850 0293 | Debt Management Enquiries |
0345 605 6055 | Attendance Allowance |
0345 300 0168 | Future Pensions Enquiry Line |
0345 601 0008 | International Pensions Enquiry Line |
0345 600 1011 | The Pensions Regulator Enquiry Line |
0345 608 8610 | Maternity Allowance Enquiry Line |
0345 609 0082 | Child Support Helpline - North West |
0345 609 0062 | Child Support Helpline - Midlands |
0345 609 0042 | Child Support Helpline - Northern |
0345 600 0685 | Debt Management Employer Helpline |
0345 604 4015 | Provider Direct Enquiry Line |
0345 609 0052 | Child Support Helpline - South East |
0345 609 0072 | Child Support Helpline - South West |
0345 915 1515 | Winter Fuel for non-benefit customers |
0345 609 0092 | Child Support Helpline - East England |
0345 604 3349 | DWP Online Helpdesk (Technical helpdesk) |
0345 268 8489 | Access to Work Enquiry Line |
0345 601 2001 | Employer Direct / Universal Jobmatch Enquiry Line |
0345 713 3133 | Child Support General Enquiry Line |
0345 608 8601 | Bereavement Support Payment / Bereavement Benefit Enquiry Line |
0345 850 0051 | Debt Management Enquiries |
0345 641 5008 | National Insurance Number Enquiry Line 1 |
0345 266 8978 | Child Maintenance 2012 - Northern Ireland Enquiry Line |
0345 600 2475 | The Pensions Regulator Enquiry Line |
0345 758 5433 | Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit Enquiry Line |
0345 603 9439 | Warm Home Discount Scheme Enquiry Line |
0345 266 0041 | Universal Credit Housing Escalation Enquiry Line |
0345 266 9658 | Child Maintenance 2012 - Employer Enquiry Line |
0345 600 0707 | The Pensions Regulator Enquiry Line |
0345 600 2537 | Pension Tracing Service |
0345 605 7064 | Benefit Cap Enquiry Line |
0345 608 0022 | Child Support Helpline - Northern Ireland |
0345 301 3011 | State Pension Enquiry Line |
0345 713 6010 | Child Support - Employer Enquiry Line |
0345 600 5666 | The Pensions Regulator Enquiry Line |
0345 606 9970 | Universal Credit Live Digital Enquiry Line |
0345 600 1063 | Child Maintenance 2012 - Belfast |
0345 602 7301 | Department for Communities - Northern Ireland - ESA Enquiry Line |
0345 603 0526 | National Insurance Number Enquiry Line 2 |
0345 600 2859 | Payment Resolution Service - Third Party Payments |
Following a recent announcement all 0345 DWP telephone numbers will move to 0800 Freephone numbers by the end of the calendar year starting with Universal Credit in November 17.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to revise the criteria for determining applications for personal independence payments and employment and support allowance for people with Crohn's disease.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The assessment criteria for Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payment are intended to treat all health conditions and disabilities fairly and measure the functional impact of a person’s health condition or impairment on their ability to work or manage daily living and mobility activities rather than focusing on the health condition or disability itself.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many calls to his Department's helplines have been made in Wrexham constituency in each month in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department for Work and Pensions does not hold this data.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total cost of calls to his Department's helplines has been by people in Wrexham constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department for Work and Pensions does not hold this data.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in Wrexham constituency have had their original personal independence payments overturned as a result of (a) mandatory reconsideration and (b) an appeal hearing in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The latest available data on personal independence payment (PIP) clearances split by type of clearance (i.e. whether the claim was awarded, disallowed or withdrawn) can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html
The table below shows the number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Mandatory Reconsideration decisions and appeal decisions where the award was changed by year of each decision since the introduction of PIP in the Parliamentary Constituencies of Cardiff Central, Swansea East, Ogmore, Wrexham and Neath
Number of Initial decisions and Mandatory Reconsiderations decisions where the award changed by year of decision.
Year of Mandatory Reconsideration | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 (to April) | Total |
Number of Awards Changed at Mandatory Reconsideration | ||||||
Cardiff Central | # | 40 | 70 | 50 | 20 | 180 |
Swansea East | # | 40 | 90 | 230 | 40 | 390 |
Ogmore | # | 30 | 90 | 70 | 30 | 230 |
Wrexham | # | 20 | 70 | 190 | 30 | 300 |
Neath | # | 30 | 100 | 180 | 60 | 360 |
Year of Appeal Decision | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 (to April) | Total |
Number of Awards Changed at Appeal | ||||||
Cardiff Central | # | 10 | 70 | 60 | 20 | 160 |
Swansea East | # | 10 | 120 | 150 | 130 | 400 |
Ogmore | # | # | 100 | 90 | 20 | 210 |
Wrexham | # | # | 20 | 70 | 50 | 140 |
Neath | # | 10 | 100 | 140 | 100 | 350 |
# is used for instances where there are less than 5 cases to avoid the release of confidential data.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in Wrexham constituency were categorised as lifelong recipients of Disability Living Allowance and have subsequently been judged ineligible for Personal Independence Payments in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of children the Government classified as living in poverty in Wrexham in each of the last 10 years for which data is available.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
National statistics on the number of children in relative low income are set out in the annual "Households Below Average Income" publication. The number and proportion of children in relative low income is not available at local authority or constituency level in this publication because the survey sample sizes are too small to support the production of robust estimates at this geography.
Latest 3-year estimates for Wales of the proportion and number of children in low income are available in Table 4.16ts and Table 4.17ts in the file “4_children_timeseries_risk” from this link: