Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria the Child Maintenance Service uses to determine whether pensions contributions made by non-resident parents are reasonable when deciding whether to make a child maintenance payment variation on grounds of diversion of income.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Child Maintenance Service can consider whether pension contributions made by the non-resident parent are reasonable if the parent with care has sufficient grounds for a variation application, based on diversion of income. Pension contributions can then be compared to the non-resident parent’s personal circumstances, such as their age and income, to determine whether they should be considered excessive.
The Service will always try to ensure that the maintenance calculation accurately reflects the non-resident parent’s ability to pay child maintenance. If pension contributions could be considered to be affecting support given to the child, the Service will investigate and take action if appropriate.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many work capability assessment cases were overturned as a result of incorrect decisions made by outsourced assessment centres in the last six months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Healthcare Professionals (HCP), who work in the assessment centres, produce reports on which Work Capability Assessments (WCAs) decisions, both for ESA and UC, are based. The decision itself is made by DWP staff not the HCP. Those decisions can be changed at both Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) and appeal.
Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance Work Capability Assessment (WCA) outcomes are published quarterly. The latest figures covering the outcome of completed initial and repeat WCAs, including appeals decisions and mandatory reconsiderations, can be found at:
Additional breakdowns of the ESA WCA figures can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance for users is available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Statistics on Work Capability Assessments for Universal Credit, including the outcome of MRs and appeals, are currently under development for future publication and have not previously been published as official statistics. We will issue them in due course as an official statistics release in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of holding external contractors liable for costs incurred when appeals against decisions made by Assessment Centres are upheld by tribunal.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Assessment Providers do not make decisions on benefit claims. Decision Makers in the Department for Work and Pensions make the decision using all available evidence including the recommendations of the Assessment Provider.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the average waiting time at welfare assessment centres in the most recent period for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
I have interpreted your question to mean the average waiting time at Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Work Capability Assessment (WCA) assessment centres.
The department does not monitor the average waiting time at the assessment centres for claims to PIP.
The average waiting time at assessment centres for WCA in February 2020, was 14.9 minutes.
As a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, all face to face assessments for health and disability benefits have been suspended in line with public health advice since March 2020. Where possible, paper based assessments are completed. However, the department has worked collaboratively with the health assessment providers and introduced telephone assessments. We have also introduced a trial of video assessments and once completed this will be evaluated and a decision made on the feasibility of wider roll-out.
Once face to face assessments are reinstated we will work closely with suppliers to improve waiting times, whilst maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will increase support for separated families who use the Child Maintenance Service during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has been clear in its commitment to support both paying and receiving parents in this difficult time.
To help reduce the short-term financial pressure that will be experienced by many paying parents, the time period for reconsidering a maintenance liability on the basis of a change in income was reduced from 12 weeks to 2 weeks and in response to a drop in income, the CMS had advised the paying parent to reduce their payments and then retrospectively amended the calculation for the period of low income.
In order to ensure that receiving parents do not lose out in the long run, we are updating cases with notified changes. Where payments have been missed the Service is taking action to re-establish compliance and collect any unpaid amounts that may have accrued.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what additional support and training her Department offers to unemployed people to help them to fill long-term vacancies in (a) the UK, (b) Scotland and (c) Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP offers significant support to unemployed people across Great Britain, through our network of Jobcentres. Since the start of June, our work coaches have made over a quarter of a million outbound customer support calls, each week. They are providing support on finding a job, help with retraining or skills advice, CV, job applications and access to the new vacancies we record every day, as well as signposting to our new Jobhelp website.
DWP are also using technology to host virtual jobfairs, working with employers to deliver online mentoring circles and facilitating sector based work academies.
We also work with partners to help customers access key provision. In Scotland this includes close working with Scottish Government to ensure customers can access the employability programme Fair Start Scotland. And in Falkirk Jobcentre customers are now able to access Fair Start Scotland from the first day of their qualifying benefit claim as part of a pilot with Scottish Government.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the amount of child maintenance arrears is in Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The total amount of arrears for Child Maintenance Service as of December 2019 in Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency is £599,000.
New Compliance and Arrears powers which came in July 2019 have increased the departments enforcement powers, such as removal of driving licence to encourage parent to cooperate and pay the maintenance they owe.
As a result, as at November 2019 the compliance in overall Child Maintenance Service payments increased to an all-time high of 90.2%.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department is providing to people aged 18 to 25 who are classified as long-term unemployed in Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We acknowledge that it is important that Jobcentres continue to support young people through the economic recovery post-COVID-19. They have already started to re-engage with new and existing claimants and are signposting them to appropriate support.
Anyone over the age of 18 can claim New Style Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance if they have sufficient paid National Insurance contributions. Neither of those benefits is means-tested. Those on low incomes and with limited capital can claim Universal Credit or legacy Jobseeker’s Allowance.
For Universal Credit, New Claims Advances of up to 100% of potential entitlement are available within a few days if a claimant needs support during their first assessment period. Face-to-face checks for Universal Credit advances have been scrapped due to Covid-19, so people get the support they need despite COVID-19 restrictions. We have also increased the Standard Allowance for everyone by over £80 a month on top of the existing 1.7% (CPI) increase already announced. This additional increase means all claimants will be up to £1040 better off.
DWP is also engaging with a number of external stakeholders including the Youth Employment Group (set up by the Prince’s Trust, Youth Employment UK, the Institute for Employment Studies, the Youth Futures Foundation and Impetus) as well as continuing to work across Whitehall to develop appropriate support aimed at young people.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit claimants have been sanctioned in Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The number of Universal Credit claimants who have been sanctioned is published quarterly. The latest figures for Universal Credit sanction rates are up to February 2020 and can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about/statistics
Geographical breakdowns of the figures can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance for users is available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
The number of Universal Credit claimants who have been sanctioned since 1 March 2020 will not be available until the next publication of these statistics in August 2020.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate the Government has made of the number of workless households in Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Sub-regional estimates of workless households* are produced annually by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) using the Annual Population Survey (APS). The latest available statistics were published on 31 July 2019 and cover the period January to December 2018.
ONS do not publish Parliamentary constituency figures on workless households but they do produce local authority figures. Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency covers the eastern portion of the Falkirk local authority and the western portion of the West Lothian local authority area.
ONS estimate that between January to December 2018 there were approximately:
These estimates are based on a sample of cases and therefore subject to sampling uncertainty.
ONS will publish updated figures for January-December 2019 on 29 July 2020 and will pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic which began in March 2020.
* A workless household is a household that contains at least one person aged 16 to 64, where no-one aged 16 or over is in employment.