Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 16 February 2016 to Question 26169, on social security benefits: disqualification, what the established safeguards are which are in place to prevent the accrual of sanctions.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The sanctions regime has a range of safeguards for claimants, including ensuring all requirements placed on claimants are reasonable, taking into account individual capability and circumstances, such as health conditions, disability and caring responsibilities.
A further safeguard exists so that sanctions at the same level do not increase in duration when the claimant accrues 2 or more within a two week period. This ensures claimants cannot accrue lengthy sanctions within a short period in between meetings with their work coach. We keep the sanctions process under constant review and use research analysis and insight to improve the clarity of all our products and policies.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to cap the number of times a person in receipt of benefits can be sanctioned in a month.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The Department has no plans to cap the number of times a sanction might apply to a claimant’s benefit in a month.
There are established safeguards to prevent the accrual of sanctions. This prevents the duration of a sanction escalating if the sanctionable failure occurs within two weeks of a previous similar failure.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many new employment support allowance claimants there were in (a) Burnley, (b) Lancashire and (c) the North West in each of the last six years.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The information requested has been published and can be found at: http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/flows/flows_on/tabtool.html.
Guidance on how to extract the information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-tabulation-tool-guidance.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Burnley who are in receipt of employment and support allowance and incapacity benefits are also in receipt of housing benefit.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The information requested is not readily available, and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who were in receipt of disability benefits re-joined the workforce in (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012, (d) 2013, (e) 2014 and (f) 2015.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not available. Disability benefits are comprised of Attendance Allowance (AA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP). These benefits are all non-means-tested, cash benefits available to disabled people to provide a contribution towards extra costs and can be paid regardless of the employment status of the claimant. Because of this, the employment status is not collected during the claims process or at any other point during the lifetime of a claim.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many work coaches are employed by job centres in (a) Burnley, (b) Lancashire and (c) the North West.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
| Responsibility Centre | Number of WC’s |
| JCNW Burnley JC Plus | 19 |
| Lancashire | 235 |
| JCNW North West England | 1436 |
The information available for the number of Employment and Support Allowance claimants by phase of claim and geography is published and can be found at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp
Guidance for users is available at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/home/newuser.asp
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Burnley receive income support.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The information requested regarding income support is published and available at:
http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/100pc/tabtool.html
Guidance on how to extract the information can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-tabulation-tool-guidance
Statistics on the claimant count, which shows the number of Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants, can be found at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/home/newuser.asp
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Burnley receive income-based jobseeker's allowance.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The information requested regarding income support is published and available at:
http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/100pc/tabtool.html
Guidance on how to extract the information can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-tabulation-tool-guidance
Statistics on the claimant count, which shows the number of Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants, can be found at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/home/newuser.asp
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what training jobcentre work coaches receive.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
All Jobcentre Work Coaches complete learning that has been designed specifically for their role. This learning combines the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to coach claimants effectively so that they are able to identify for themselves what they need to do to find work and how best to do it.
It includes diversity and equality, working with vulnerable claimants and working with claimants who have a mental health condition.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what provision there is for ICT training for recipients of universal credit.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
People without digital skills will be offered support to make and manage their Universal Credit (UC) claim online, to acquire and to improve their digital skills. This help will be provided by work coaches in Jobcentres and by Local Authorities and other partner organisations via the ‘Universal Support delivered locally’ programme.