Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much funding his Department (a) allocated for and (b) spent on magazine subscriptions in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The attached spreadsheet provides detailed spend on journals and magazines at DWP for the last three years. Journals are in digital format apart from one print title – Vachers.
A small number of print journals are provided to ministers and press office along with hardcopy newspapers. The costs of these journals are estimated as they are included in the monthly invoices for newspapers.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals his Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The attached spreadsheet lists newspapers, magazines and online journals that have been paid for by DWP in each of the last three years. All journals are provided digitally apart from one print title – Vachers.
A small number of print journals are provided to ministers and press office with their newspaper deliveries. These are listed on the Newspapers tab.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of digital posts in his Department are vacant.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The following table provides the current breakdown of vacant digital posts in DWP. These are divided into contingent labour and also shows posts where exercises are underway to fill them permanently.
Type |
|
Workforce target | 4606 |
Vacant posts | 195 |
Contingent Labour | 181 |
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much funding his Department has (a) budgeted for and (b) spent on software updates to legacy computer systems in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP Digital supports a number of legacy core IT systems. As well as the run costs of those systems there is also an element of maintenance costs which will include software updates.
The Digital maintenance budgets of the system owners which include the legacy system costs for the last three years is as follows:
| 21/22 | 22/23 | *23/24 | Total |
Maintenance Budget | 114,700 | 83,900 | 87,200 | 285,800 |
Maintenance Spend | 80,900 | 82,000 | 83,700 | 246,600 |
*23/24 spend figures are based on the latest forecast as at Period 9.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether any non-executive directors employed in his Department are non-domiciled.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Non-Executives’ personal data, including those relating to personal taxation or status, are protected by the UK General Data Protection Regulation. Collection of personal data on non-dom status is not routinely collected and is generally not required for making public appointments. If any such data was held it could only be published if doing so was in compliance with data protection law.
Non-Executive Board Members are not employees of the Department for Work and Pensions, and act in an advisory capacity.
Data relating to public appointments are covered by the Public Appointments Privacy
Statement found here: https://apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk/privacy
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department spent on external recruitment consultants in the (a) 2020-21, (b) 2021-22 and (c) 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Due to the financial and reporting systems in the department it is not currently possible to separate out spend associated with external recruitment consultancy services from all other consultancy spend for the majority of departmental recruitment.
However, we are able to provide the following figures, which apply to Senior Civil Service Recruitment only. To note, this does not include digital recruitment.
2020/21: £190,627.84
2021/22: £211,054.00
2022/23 (Mar22 to Feb23) : £171,608.46
These figures represent executive search activity spend on SCS (Deputy Director – Director General) recruitment for non-digital roles across these years.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Youth Hub work coaches are employed by his Department as of 19 October 2023; and how many were employed on the same date in (a) 2022 and (b) 2021.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As referenced in PQ190114, due to changes in claimant needs new Youth Hubs may open, and existing Youth Hubs may close. The number of open Youth Hubs and their required Youth Hub Work Coach resource may therefore fluctuate, as claimants access wider Youth Offer support.
Role | ABM FTE | ||
| Sep-23 | Sep-22 | Sep-21 |
Youth Hub Work Coach | 90 | 130 | 150 |
Source: DWP’s internal Activity Based Model (ABM)
Notes:
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the press notice entitled Government announces employment support boost for over 30,000 economically inactive young people, published by his Department on 25 September 2023, how his Department estimated the number of additional 16 to 24 year-olds that would benefit from the expansion of the youth offer to economically inactive claimants.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support for 16-24-year olds on Universal Credit to help them find work. Eligibility for the Youth Offer has, as of the 25th September 2023, been expanded to include additional young people on Universal Credit who are not currently searching for work, including young parents and carers.
The estimate of over 30,000 young people provided was based on DWP administrative data as of 12th September 2023 date and shows the number of young people in Work Focused Interview or Work Preparation groups, who are not in employment or on the health journey who could now take up the offer of support through the Youth Offer.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the £3.5 billion package of measures to increase employment announced in the 2023 Spring Statement, on which measures his Department intends to spend this additional funding in each financial year.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Spring Statement set out a significant, wide-ranging package of departmental measures that represent an investment of £3.5bn over 5 years to boost workforce participation.
Details of the funded measures and profile were included in the 2023 Spring Budget publication.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the budget for the Flexible Support Fund was in financial year 2022-23, and what estimated expenditure on that fund is for financial years (a) 2023-24 and (b) 2024-25.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The budget for the Flexible Support Fund in 2022-23 was £54.7m.
Estimated expenditure for the Flexible Support Fund across the remaining Spending Review period is as follows:
2023-24 - £88.8m
2024-25 - £117.0m
NB