Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 15 May 2018 to Question 141380, of the 13 complaints made by women in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency on changes to the state pension age, (a) what the date was of each complaint made, (b) how many complaints have been accepted for examination and (c) what the timetable is for each of those accepted complaints to be examined.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Of the 13 complaints referred to in the answer to Question 141380 from women in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency concerning changes to state pension age:
a) The dates on which the complaints were received by the ICE Office are detailed below: 30/03/2017
11/07/2017
28/07/2017
25/08/2017
04/09/2017
05/09/2017
08/12/2017 (2 complaints received that day)
07/02/2018
14/02/2018
13/03/2018
20/03/2018
04/04/2018
b) Of those 13 cases, 7 have been accepted for investigation.
c) Complaints are investigated by dedicated teams and are usually brought into investigation in strict date order, based on the date they were accepted for examination. The Independent Case Examiners office is currently allocating complaints about changes to state pension age that were accepted for examination April 2017. It is not possible to provide a timetable for examining those cases that are currently awaiting investigation.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many women in Scotland who have been affected by the changes in state pension age have lodged a complaint with the Independent Case Examiner’s office; how many of those complaints have been accepted for examination; and how many accepted complaints have been reviewed by the Independent Case Examiner’s office.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It is not possible to determine what proportion of all the complaints received by the Independent Case Examiner’s Office originate from women in Scotland; or how many of those complaints have been accepted for examination without incurring disproportionate cost. Of the 86 investigations that have been concluded into this group of complaints, 13 were from women in Scotland.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of women affected by changes in the state pension age have made an official complaint to the Independent Case Examiner's Office.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We have interpreted this as a question about the number of women who have made a complaint as part of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign. All women born after 6th April 1950 have been affected by the changes in State Pension age. There are estimated to be 3.58 million women affected by the State Pension age changes born between 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1960 in Great Britain. 3,521 WASPI complaints have been received by the Independent Case Examiner’s Office, therefore around 0.1% of women in the above birth cohort have made an official complaint to the Independent Case Examiner's Office.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how her Department plans proactively to advise women affected by changes in the state pension age of the official complaints procedure to the Independent Case Examiner's Office.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has a two tier complaints process which considers formal complaints about our service.
Complaints received from women born in the 1950s and affected by changes in State Pension age are handled in line with the overall Departmental complaints process.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the economic effect of changes to the state pension age for women born in the 1950s in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Successive governments have not done a constituency specific assessment of the economic effect of changes to the State Pension age for women born in any individual constituency. Therefore this process is not proposed for the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many women in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency who have been affected by the changes in state pension age have (a) lodged a complaint with and (b) had that complaint reviewed by the Independent Case Examiner’s office.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
As of 8 May, the Independent Case Examiner's Office had (a) received 13 complaints from women in Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency concerning change to the State Pension age: (b) and is yet to review any of the complaints that had been accepted for examination from this group of complainants.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the time taken by the Independent Case Examiners Office to (a) allocate a case manager, (b) investigate a case for women affected by changes to the state pension age.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
To date it has taken the Independent Case Examiner's Office an average (a) of 39 weeks to allocate complaints concerning changes to State Pension age to an investigation case manager; and (b) 9 weeks to complete investigations in to this group of complaints (against a target of 20 weeks).
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average amount in collection fees taken by the Child Maintenance Service from receiving parents has been in (a) the UK and (b) Scotland.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It is not currently possible to provide average fees charged per parent.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average amount in collection fees taken by the Child Maintenance Service from paying parents has been in (a) the UK and (b) Scotland.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It is not currently possible to provide average fees charged per parent.
Asked by: Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much money the Child Maintenance Service collected from receiving parents in collection fees in (a) the UK and (b) Scotland in each year since 2014.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The amount collected from parents in non-child-maintenance receipts under the Child Maintenance Service is published yearly in the client fund accounts available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/child-maintenance-client-funds-accounts
Non-child-maintenance receipts in these reports relate mainly to application fees, collection fees and enforcement charges, collected from paying and receiving parents
For GB the total collected since 2014 is:
Year | GB Non-maintenance receipts |
2016-17 | £14.7m |
2015-16 | £8.5m |
2014-15 | £2.9m |
It is not currently possible to give an accurate breakdown of these figures below a national level or to provide average fees charged per parent.