Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for which social security benefits her Department is using artificial intelligence to assist in the (a) processing and (b) auditing of applications; and what plans she has to extend the use of artificial intelligence for the processing and auditing of other categories of social security benefit applications.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department does not use artificial intelligence software or machine learning to make automated decisions regarding people’s benefit entitlement. The Department will increasingly use intelligent forms of automation to focus on everyday repetitive tasks which then enables colleagues to spend more time supporting vulnerable claimants. Our use of machine learning is about making the system simpler for people.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications for personal independence payment lodged by people with epilepsy were referred to a tribunal in each of the last three years; and how many of those referrals resulted in (a) an award of benefit where this had previously been refused and (b) an increase in the level of benefit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The tables below provide information on initial decisions following a Personal Independence Payment assessment for claimants with a primary disabling condition of epilepsy:
Financial year of initial decision | MRs registered | Disallowed at initial decision – award changed at MR | Awarded at initial decision and award changed at MR |
2018-19 | 4,690 | 570 | 370 |
2019-20 | 3,870 | 490 | 670 |
2020-21 (to September) | 1,110 | 180 | 210 |
Financial year of initial decision | Appeals lodged | Disallowed at initial and MR decisions – award changed at tribunal hearing or appeal lapsed | Awarded at initial or MR decision – award changed at tribunal hearing or appeal lapsed |
2018-19 | 2,160 | 980 | 760 |
2019-20 | 1,460 | 430 | 590 |
2020-21 (to September) | 300 | 50 | 80 |
Notes:
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications for mandatory reconsideration of an application for a personal independence payment were lodged by people with epilepsy in each of the last three years; and how many of those mandatory reconsiderations resulted in (a) an award of benefit where this had previously been refused and (b) an increase in the level of benefit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The tables below provide information on initial decisions following a Personal Independence Payment assessment for claimants with a primary disabling condition of epilepsy:
Financial year of initial decision | MRs registered | Disallowed at initial decision – award changed at MR | Awarded at initial decision and award changed at MR |
2018-19 | 4,690 | 570 | 370 |
2019-20 | 3,870 | 490 | 670 |
2020-21 (to September) | 1,110 | 180 | 210 |
Financial year of initial decision | Appeals lodged | Disallowed at initial and MR decisions – award changed at tribunal hearing or appeal lapsed | Awarded at initial or MR decision – award changed at tribunal hearing or appeal lapsed |
2018-19 | 2,160 | 980 | 760 |
2019-20 | 1,460 | 430 | 590 |
2020-21 (to September) | 300 | 50 | 80 |
Notes:
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what measures are in place to ensure that up-to-date information is publicly available on the (a) number and (b) outcome of complaints to her Department about poor customer service.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department defines a complaint as, ‘any expression of dissatisfaction about the Department’s service which is not resolved by operational staff as normal business.’
At the end of each quarter of the financial year, the Department publishes transparency data, which sets out the cumulative total of customer complaints received about our services. In addition, data is published which confirms the number of complaints received - and accepted for investigation - by the Independent Case Examiner (ICE).
Data in relation to complaint numbers can be viewed by accessing the following link to www.gov.uk:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-dwp-financial-year-2020-to-2021
The Department does not routinely publish statistics in relation to complaint outcomes.
The Department also publishes complaint volume data – and information about how customer feedback is used to improve our level of service - in our Annual Report and Accounts publication. This provides details of the full complaint journey which includes the outcomes of ICE and Ombudsman investigations. The reports can be viewed by accessing the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-annual-report-and-accounts-2019-to-2020
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what quality assurance processes her Department has in place for the administration of (a) universal credit, (b) jobseekers allowance and (c) employment support allowance.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Quality Assurance Framework sets out the Department’s quality controls
There are three tiers of assurance within the Framework, with each tier aspiring to report lower levels of error as a means of supporting continuous improvement.
Tier 1 provides an assurance at local centre level and focuses on known areas of highest risk of error or complexity
Tier 2 measures official error and gives an independent assurance of financial accuracy via a review of randomly selected cases.
Tier 3 assurance constitutes a formal review of cases for financial error in relation to fraud, customer error and official error.
These assurances apply to all product lines, including UC, JSA and ESA. Wherever possible, award types identified as being high risk are selected for assurance ahead of any payment being made.
DWP reports Tier 3 assurance via its published Monetary Value of Fraud Error statistics. The latest published version can be found via this link.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints about poor customer service lodged in each of the last three years for (a) universal credit, (b) jobseekers allowance and (c) employment support allowance have been about delays in departmental responses.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department does not measure complaints as described in the question and to determine this request, we would need to examine each individual case, which the Department considers to be cost prohibitive to provide.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints about poor customer service have been lodged in respect of applications for (a) universal credit, (b) jobseekers allowance and (c) employment support allowance in each of the last three years.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department does not measure complaints as described in the question and to determine this request, we would need to examine each individual case, which the Department considers to be cost prohibitive to provide.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the communication to customers of her Department's complaints processes.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Departments complaints process which considers formal complaints about our service can be found on Gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/complaints-about-the-department-for-work-and-pensions)
As part of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to make changes to our complaints model to allow staff to be deployed to support processing claims and payments. From 9 July 2020, the Department triage complaints to prioritise vulnerable claimants who may be at risk, and those with benefit payment issues for example.
We continue to look into all complaints as quickly as we can and, as part of the triage process, we write or call those customers where there may be a delay in answering their complaint.
We are reviewing the approach we have taken throughout the pandemic as part of developing the future complaints operating model.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many companies are signed up to the Disability Confident scheme; and what estimate she has made of the impact that scheme has had on the number of disabled people in employment.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
There are currently over 20,000 employers signed up to the Disability Confident scheme, covering over 11m employees.
In November 2018, we published the results of survey research which explored the effect that signing up to the Disability Confident scheme had on recruitment and retention attitudes towards disabled people. The researchers interviewed employers of all sizes, ranging from very small organisations with low levels of staff turnover to large companies employing thousands, and a key finding was that signing up to Disability Confident resulted in half (49%) of employers interviewed taking on at least one disabled member of staff, rising to 66% amongst larger firms. The full report may be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/disability-confident-survey-of-participating-employers.
We will be conducting further research this year, to establish the value added by Disability Confident and explore the behaviours of employers and their recruitment and retention practices. Disability Confident employers have also offered over 60,000 specific work opportunities, which include: work experience, work trials, Apprenticeships, Traineeships, job shadowing, student placements, Sector Based Work Academy Placements as well as job vacancies.
The Government is committed to a goal of seeing a million more disabled people in work in the decade to 2027 and reducing the disability employment gap. In the first three years of the goal (between 2017 and 2020), the number of disabled people in employment increased by 800,0001. Between 2014 and 2020 the disability employment gap also reduced by 5.2 percentage points.
1The underlying data behind this figure is currently under review by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and is therefore subject to change.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that companies that are signed up to the Disability Confident Scheme are supporting their disabled employees.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Employers that have signed up to the Disability Confident (DC) scheme are provided with the knowledge, skills and free resources they need to attract, recruit, retain and develop disabled people in the workplace. The scheme is designed as a learning journey with all employers starting at Level 1 and encouraged to progress through the scheme to Levels 2 and 3. No employer is too small or new to start the journey and even the most experienced employer will still find new techniques and best practice that can help better support their employees. For example, employers signing up to the scheme are committing to ‘Ensure their recruitment process is inclusive and accessible’ and ‘Supporting any existing employee who acquires a disability or long term health condition, enabling them to stay in work’.
Throughout the pandemic, we have ensured that employers have received timely and appropriate support through the delivery of a series of practical national webinars, covering a range of employer hot topics, ranging from: New Ways of Working, Access to Work, Mental Health and Wellbeing, Virtual Hiring and Autism and Neurodiversity. We have also delivered a number of employer events, focusing on the support available to employees. In addition, all Disability Confident employers receive regular Disability Confident newsletters and other communications to support them and their employees. There are currently over 20,000 employers signed up to the Disability Confident scheme, covering over 11million employees.