Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when his Department plans to respond to the correspondence of 19 July 2023, reference JK41078, from the hon. Member for Solihull.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
When DWP receive correspondence relating to a complaint from a Member of Parliament, they aim to fully resolve or agree a resolution within 15 working days of receipt. Complex issues may take longer to resolve
The correspondence referenced was received from the MP on 19 July 2023. On 25 July, the complaint resolution manager contacted the customer to discuss their complaint. During the call, the customer asked CMG to audit her child maintenance account to confirm the arrears owed to her are correct. On 25 July, CMG wrote to the MP’s office confirming they would be unable to provide a full response within 15 days as actions were being progressed. On 2 August, CMG started to audit the customer’s account. This is a complex piece of work, and it can take several weeks to complete, depending on the complexity of the case. The MP contacted CMG on 31 August, 19 September and 16 October asking for a full response to be provided. On each occasion, CMG contacted the MP’s office by email, explaining their investigations were ongoing and a full response would be provided once their investigations were concluded. On 18 October, CMG contacted the MP’s office and confirmed a full response to the MP would be provided by Friday 20 October. I can confirm the response was issued to the MP’s office on Thursday 19 October.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much the Health and Safety Executive spent on equality and diversity training in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Health and Safety Executive’s expenditure on equality and diversity training in 2022/23 was £35,043.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data their Department holds on the average response time to enquiries by Members; and what assessment they have made of the adequacy of that response time.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Department follows the Cabinet Office guidance on correspondence and aims to reply to members within 20 working days. However, there may be occasions where it is not possible to do so (for example, in complex cases). In these circumstances the Department aims to responded as quickly as possible.
The Cabinet Office publishes statistics on Departmental performance which are published on the gov.uk website and can be viewed here.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps their Department is taking to improve its digital services to provide better (a) accessibility and (b) user experience for the public.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
DWP is continually working to improve the accessibility of DWP gov.uk services and for users of assistive technologies.
Colleagues now follow a formal DWP Digital Accessibility Policy, which sets out the standards that product teams must adhere to when creating new products or updating existing products.
Training and consultancy is provided for product teams to enable them to create accessible content and test it with assistive software.
It is our ambition to digitalise our experience although we will also ensure we are inclusive in our design and provide an alternative non-digital service for users who are unable to use a digital channel.
Some of our improvements include also changes to our channels and the ways in which customers interact with us, such as enabling voice activated customer service on our telephony channel introducing new channels, including webchat in some areas.
We are also in the early stages of designing a new interface where a user can access key information across their benefits.
We know that access to our products and services is key, and to make this easier we are improving our identity solution. We intend to converge with the Government One Log in service which will provide a single identity access solution across Government. In the meantime, DWP has its own online identity solution that enables a user to identify themselves once, and then re-use that identity across multiple channels with a simple credential check. This will ensure fast and simple access to support for our users.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information their Department holds on the level of staff retention; and what steps they are taking to improve staff retention.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Department holds data on numbers of leavers, turnover and length of service. A voluntary leavers’ survey provides insight on a monthly basis, on reasons for leaving and contributing factors to a decision to leave. Response rates to the survey are 26% of leavers and to assist with driving up response rates we have updated the survey and are now targeting directly to leavers. As a separate activity, from October, we will start piloting the use of exit interviews in areas with higher turnover.
We undertake targeted interventions to increase retention which include increasing awareness of flexible working options such as partial retirement and changes to working hours and/or working pattern; during regular performance one to ones signposting managers to ensure they are holding regular conversations to better understand individual engagement levels and explore ways to retain those considering a move. We use learning from pulse and engagement survey data to further target actions that ensure we are creating an environment where colleagues feel valued and motivated.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average response time to subject access requests was by their Department in the latest period for which data is available; and if they will make an assessment of the adequacy of that response time.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
In the current financial year, the average response time to Subject Access requests in DWP has been within the 30-day statutory limit for all months except August 2023. The monthly and year to date figures is set out below:
DWP is undertaking a transformation programme to digitise the RAR process from end to end, with the objective of streamlining the process for both customers and colleagues. We expect this to consistently improve monthly average clearance times from 2024.
Monthly and Year to Date Actual Average Clearance Times (AACT) for the DWP Right of Access Requests (RAR) service |
|
|
| |||
RARs AACT 2023/2024 | Apr-23 | May-23 | Jun-23 | Jul-23 | Aug-23 | YTD |
Actual Average Clearance Times | 27.5 | 29.2 | 28.0 | 28.4 | 30.1 | 28.6 |
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to (a) enhance cybersecurity and (b) protect personal data.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Department operates in line with the Government Cyber Security Strategy 2022, including the adoption of the Cyber Assessment Framework. Within that strategy, the Department has an ongoing programme of work dedicated to the continual enhancement of cyber security capability.
The Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) also undertakes independent audits of the programme. This year GIAA has given a Substantial audit opinion of the Department’s overall programme approach to protect systems and data. It also gave a Substantial audit opinion of the Department’s cyber incident response function. It also gave a Substantial audit opinion following a more detailed examination of the Department’s measures to protect systems and data from malware.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if they will take steps to visit Solihull constituency in 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Secretary of State is committed to visiting a wide range of settings and regions across the country including the West Midlands, which he has visited since his appointment. We will continue to consider all regions when planning future Ministerial visits, including Solihull.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data their Department holds on the average response time to written parliamentary questions in the last six months; and what assessment they have made of the adequacy of that response time.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The latest official statistics produced by the Table Office are as follows and show that DWP answered the following Parliamentary Questions on time:
Jan 2023 – Mar 2023:
Named Day PQs – 94%
Ordinary Written PQs – 92%
Statistics for April to June 2023 are currently being compiled.
Departmental performance on Written Parliamentary Questions is published at the end of each session by the Procedure Committee and is therefore publicly available. You can find details of the last session's PQ performance here.
The Department continually monitors and looks for ways to improve PQ performance.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps their Department is taking to improve response times to written parliamentary questions.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The latest official statistics produced by the Table Office are as follows and show that DWP answered the following Parliamentary Questions on time:
Jan 2023 – Mar 2023:
Named Day PQs – 94%
Ordinary Written PQs – 92%
Statistics for April to June 2023 are currently being compiled.
Departmental performance on Written Parliamentary Questions is published at the end of each session by the Procedure Committee and is therefore publicly available. You can find details of the last session's PQ performance here.
The Department continually monitors and looks for ways to improve PQ performance.