Asked by: Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2019 to 228698, when electronic access will be provided to a claimant in order for them to access their previous universal credit claim without the need for a claimant to ask a case manager for information.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department has no plans, at present, to provide claimants with direct access to their previous claims.
A key reason a claimant cannot access a previous claim is that it could contain information the Department has an obligation to protect. This could include, for example, information about a previous partner. However, if a claimant, who has had a previous claim closed, needs to access their own information contained in previous statements or their journal, a case manager can access this information on their behalf and provide them with any information they might require.
Asked by: Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, where and how the universal credit helpline staff and case managers record the contents of a telephone enquiry including any advice given in cases where a person has not yet submitted their universal credit claim or has a previous universal credit claim which is now closed.
Answered by Lord Sharma
All calls taken by helpline staff and case managers in UCFS are recorded in full and are retrievable from our telephony provider based on the originating telephone number.
For callers with an active claim, agents will update the Universal Credit system with any relevant information from the call to allow for a continuous service across multiple interactions. Where a caller does not have an active claim this is not possible and the call recording would be the repository for the content of the call.
Asked by: Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the length of time claimants are waiting for a decision to be made on their mandatory reconsideration of carer’s allowance claims in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Average Actual Clearance Times (AACT) for a Mandatory Reconsideration for a Carer’s Allowance claim are shown in the table below.
| Apr 2018 | May 2018 | Jun 2018 | Jul 2018 | Aug 2018 | Sep 2018 | Oct 2018 | Nov 2018 | Dec 2018 | Jan 2019 | Feb 2019 |
Average Actual Clearance Time (working days) | 0.8 | 1.0 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 1.6 | 15.6 |
Source: Decision Making and Appeals Case Recorder (DMACR).
This is unpublished data based on internal management information. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision.
The increase in clearance times in February 2019 was due to work being undertaken on the Carer’s Allowance backlog and this has resulted in more older cases impacting the AACT. This backlog is due to be cleared by the end of April 2019.
Asked by: Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many medical assessments for personal independence payment have been held in private gyms and spas in (a) County Durham, (b) North East of England and (c) the UK in each of the last three years.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Due to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the number of assessments for Personal Independence Payment held in private gyms and spas is only held for the last two years, not the three that has been requested.
For the last two years for which data is available; covering March 2017 to February 2019, the total number of assessments held in private gyms and spas in (a) County Durham, (b) North East of England and (c) the UK is set out in the table below.
| March 2017 - Feb 2018 | March 2018 - Feb 2019 |
(a) County Durham | 6000 | 5300 |
(b) NE England | 6000 | 5300 |
(c) UK | 8800 | 7200 |
These numbers have been supplied direct from the provider and have been rounded to the nearest 100. The answers to (a) and (b) are the same as all assessments carried out in private gyms and spas in the North East of England are carried out in County Durham.
Capita do not carry out PIP assessments at private gyms or spa locations; the numbers included in this response are from Independent Assessment Services (IAS).
IAS uses its network of supply chain partners and their estates to help in the delivery of PIP consultations. All locations comply with the required contractual specifications and all of the sites used by IAS have been selected to ensure that they meet the standards set by the Department.
Asked by: Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many home consultations were (a) requested, (b) granted and (c) refused for work capability assessments for universal credit claimants in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Information is not held on the number of home Work Capability Assessments (a) requested or (c) refused for Universal Credit claimants in the last 12 months.
However, I can confirm that over 1,000 home Work Capability Assessments for Universal Credit claimants were (b) granted in the last 12 months.
Asked by: Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Family support, housing and child maintenance to the Work and Pensions Select Committee on 21 November 2018, what progress has been made on introducing implicit consent in universal credit for organisations offering support to claimants.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
We have had a number of workshops with stakeholders during which consent has been discussed. As we said in our response to the Social Security Advisory Committee, we will do further work on explicit consent. This activity will include working with claimants and their representatives to ensure the process works effectively for vulnerable claimants to access the service. We expect to complete this in the autumn.
Asked by: Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 November 2018 to Question 190938, whether (a) for a closed universal credit claim there is read-only access to the payment statements as well as the journal and (b) there is read-only access to all closed previous universal credit claims even after a new claim has been opened.
Answered by Lord Sharma
In the event of a closed claim, claimants can still see their previous journal entries and payment statements in a read-only format.
If a claimant opens a new claim, this read-only access will no longer be accessible to the claimant. However, if a claimant, who has had a previous claim closed, needs to access their previous statements or their journal, a case manager can access them on their behalf and provide them with any information they might require.