Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many frontline inspectors the Health and Safety Executive has employed in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The number of frontline inspectors the Health and Safety Executive has employed in each of the last 10 years are as follows:
HSE (including ONR) | ||||
2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 |
1,463 | 1,495 | 1,450 | 1,432 | 1,367 |
HSE (excluding ONR) | ||||
2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 |
1,051 | 1,038 | 1,037 | 988 | 978 |
HSE inspector numbers are as per the respective Annual Report and Accounts.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) became an independent statutory public corporation on 1 April 2014 and are excluded from 2013/14 onwards.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many proactive inspections were carried out by the Health and Safety Executive in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The number of proactive inspections carried out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in each of the last 10 years is as follows:
Year (a) | Number of proactive inspections |
2009/10 | Not available |
2010/11 | Not available |
2011/12 | c.21,700 |
2012/13 | c.22,240 |
2013/14 | c.23,470 |
2014/15 | c.20,200 |
2015/16 | c.18,000 |
2016/17 | c.20,000 |
2017/18 | c.20,000 |
2018/19 (b) | Not yet available |
Figures on the numbers of inspections were not part of HSE’s targets or performance measures prior to 2011/12 and were not collated.
(a) Years commencing 1st April
(b) Year to date
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 potential merits of paying state pensions on a fixed date in every month rather than a four weekly cycle.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The position on the payment of the State Pension has not changed under this Government, the coalition or its predecessors.
We receive very few representations on fixed date payments of the State Pension. While we understand it may be preferred by some, and we do keep the method of payment under review, there are no plans to change the current payment periods.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 amount of debt to be written-off from arrears accrued under the Child Support Agency because parents had not responded to (a) letters and (b) telephone calls within 60 days.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The estimate can be found on page 24 of the Child Maintenance Compliance and Arrears Strategy consultation document which was published in December 2017
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department (a) has spent and (b) plans to spend in the next three months on publicity in relation to the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Government has a duty to inform citizens and businesses about how leaving the EU might affect them, and to advise on the steps they may need to take to prepare for EU Exit.
We have developed a cross-departmental public information campaign to help achieve this. Over the coming weeks, we will be using a range of channels to direct UK citizens, businesses, EU citizens living in the UK and UK nationals living in the EU to a dedicated area on GOV.UK at Gov.uk/euexit.
Information on the costs associated with this campaign will be released in due course as part of normal data transparency releases.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will amend universal credit regulations to allow for the housing cost element for renters to be calculated for a 53-week year in 2019-20; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Universal Credit is calculated and paid on monthly cycles to reflect the fact that the vast majority of people receive their wages monthly. Many social landlords still expect their tenants to pay rent on a weekly basis, a practice based upon a time when both wages and benefits were paid weekly. The effect of this is that, roughly every six years, there will be 53 payment days in a twelve-month period with the result that, over the cycle, the average social sector tenant will receive approximately 35p a week less towards their rent. A key principle of Universal Credit is that it simplifies the benefit system for working age claimants and re-assessing housing costs to reflect the number of rent payments in any particular year would be complicated and lead to confusion. As such, the Department has no plans to amend these regulations.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Health and Safety Executive inspector posts are currently vacant; and what assessment she has made of the effect of those vacancies on the ability of the Health and Safety Executive to attend incidents.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) currently has 29 regulatory inspector vacancies.
HSE does not investigate all incidents reported to them, only the most serious work-related incidents are investigated. These include those which result in the death of a person and incidents which meet HSE’s incident selection criteria.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/og/ogprocedures/investigation/incidselcrits.htm
HSE is an arms-length body and the Chair has assured me that current resources are sufficient for HSE to respond to incidents that meet HSE’s incident selection criteria for investigation.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of incidents reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) were attended by an HSE inspector in each of the last three years for which figures are available.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR 2013) require dutyholders to notify enforcing authorities of certain incidents. The total number of incidents reported to the HSE under RIDDOR for each of the last three years are:
2015/16 | 53,338 |
2016/17 | 58,170 |
2017/18 | 51,703 |
The total number of HSE investigations of incidents reported under RIDDOR 2013 for each of the last three years are:
2015/16 | 2,950 |
2016/17 | 2,378 |
2017/18 | 2,221 |
HSE does not investigate all incidents reported to them, only the most serious work-related incidents are investigated. HSE’s Incident Selection Criteria (http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/og/ogprocedures/investigation/incidselcrits.htm) outlines the criteria for the selection of reported incidents which are investigated by HSE.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people with a primary disability of deafness or hearing impairment aged 16 to 25 applied for personal independence payments in the latest year for which figures are available.
Answered by Sarah Newton
In the application process, claimants’ main disabling condition is only recorded for collation by the Department at assessment. It is not recorded at the point of application. The Department does not therefore hold data on the number of applicants to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) with a primary disability of deafness or hearing impairment.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the outcome was of all applications that deaf people aged 16 to 25 made for personal independence payment; how many of those people (a) requested a mandatory reconsideration or (b) appealed to the social security tribunal; and what the outcome was of those (i) reconsiderations and (ii) appeals in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Sarah Newton
In the application process, claimants’ main disabling condition is only recorded for collation by the Department at assessment. It is not recorded at the point of application. The Department does not therefore hold data on the number of all applicants or outcome of all applications to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for people with a primary disability of deafness or hearing impairment.
For those who have undergone a PIP assessment, information on the number of initial decisions in 2017/18, and mandatory reconsiderations and appeals, for people aged 16 to 25 with a main disabling condition of a hearing disorder are shown in the table below.
Initial decisions, mandatory reconsiderations and appeals
| Number |
Initial Decisions |
|
Total | 1,450 |
Awarded | 620 |
Disallowed | 830 |
Withdrawn | # |
|
|
Mandatory Reconsiderations |
|
Registrations | 410 |
|
|
Clearances | 400 |
New Decision - Award Changed | 60 |
New Decision - Award Unchanged | 340 |
Decision Not Revised | 0 |
Withdrawn/ | # |
|
|
Appeals |
|
Receipts | 160 |
|
|
Clearances | 60 |
Decision overturned | 40 |
Decision maintained | 20 |
Data has been rounded to the nearest 10. Components may not sum to totals due to rounding.
'#' fewer than 5 decisions in this category.
The data relates to initial PIP decisions in 2017/18 and any MRs and appeals relating to those initial decisions recorded up to June 2018 (the latest published data on appeals). Claimants who have received benefit decisions more recently may not yet have had time to complete the claimant journey and progress to appeal.
PIP data includes normal rules and special rules for the terminally ill claimants, and is for both new claims and DLA reassessment claims.
Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer system. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.
Appeals data is taken from the DWP PIP computer system’s management information. Therefore this appeals data may differ from that held by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.
Some decisions which are changed at mandatory reconsideration, and where the claimant continues to appeal for a higher PIP award, are then changed again at tribunal appeal. Therefore the number of people who had a decision changed at mandatory reconsideration and the number of people who had a decision changed at tribunal appeal cannot be added together.
Decisions overturned at appeal may include a number of appeals that have been lapsed (which is where DWP changed the decision after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at Tribunal).