Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with representatives of staff at (a) HMRC and (b) her Department on managed migration from live service to full service of Universal Credit; and when those meetings took place.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The process of moving claimants from Universal Credit Live Service to Universal Credit Full Service is a separate activity to that of managed migration and does not have a direct impact on HMRC.
However, we have regular discussions with HMRC relating to all aspects of Universal Credit, including on plans for managed migration. HMRC is also represented on the programme board for Universal Credit, so their views are fully represented in discussions and design.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Service Requests for (a) a new child maintenance scheme claim, (b) a change of circumstances, (c) a variation request, (d) chasing arrears, and (e) undertaking enforcement action remain outstanding in the 2012 Child Maintenance Scheme computer system.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
As at the end of August 2018 the following CMS case SRs remained outstanding;
Applications | 8,518 |
Change of Circumstances | 89,518 |
Variations | 4,469 |
Arrears | 38,354 |
Enforcement | 36,975 |
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many hours the Child Maintenance System has been (a) unavailable to staff and (b) working with reduced performance in the last six months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We record all incidents where the 2012 Child Maintenance Service has not been available for staff. Over the last six months, this has been:
Month | Minutes lost | Hours Lost | % Availability |
March | 1230 | 20.5 | 97.73% |
April | 0 | 0 | 100.00% |
May | 103 | 1.72 | 99.70% |
June | 30 | 0.5 | 99.93% |
July | 30 | 0.5 | 99.91% |
Aug | 180 | 3 | 99.62% |
Although we manage periods of reduced performance as incidents, there is no formal measure for degraded service as these may impact sub-sets of system users differently.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many processing hours for Child Maintenance service requests were lost as a result of (a) technical and (b) IT faults in the last six months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We record all incidents where the 2012 Child Maintenance System has not been available to staff but we are unable to analyse this data by technical and IT faults. On average over the last six months, the hours lost have been 4.37 hours per month.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has plans to undertake an assessment of the effectiveness of the Child Maintenance Scheme computer system; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The effectiveness of the Department’s systems including the 2012 Child Maintenance System is continuously reviewed. A service improvement programme was established in April 2018 and has resulted in better performance, more stability, fewer incidents and a reduction in known problems.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
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 2012 Child Maintenance Scheme computer system to process in a timely manner service requests for (a) a new child maintenance scheme claim, (b) a change of circumstances, (c) a variation request, (d) chasing arrears, and (e) enforcement action.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The 2012 Child Maintenance System (CMS2012) provides support for the full range of child maintenance administrative processes including new applications, case maintenance and enforcement.
A Service Improvement Programme was established in April 2018, to optimise the performance and stability of the system. Significant improvements have already been implemented through both hardware and software upgrades. These changes have already resulted in quicker response times for users and compared with the period June 2017 to September 2017, the average response time of the core case management system has reduced by over 50%. We are continually working with the system’s users to make further improvements.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
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 adequacy of staffing levels working on the Child Maintenance system.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The numbers of people working within the Child Maintenance Service is reviewed regularly to ensure we have sufficient resources to answer customer calls and progress cases. So far in 2018, we have recruited 510 people into the Child Maintenance Service, with these people joining us between February 2018 and August 2018. We will continue to review the volumes of work against our forecasting model to ensure that we adjust staffing levels as required.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
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 cost of in-work benefits paid to agency workers employed on Pay Between Assignment contracts, and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Information on cost of in-work benefits paid to agency workers employed on Pay Between Assignment contracts is not available as we do not record this level of detail.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To Ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will take steps to ensure that people with Parkinson's disease who undertake therapeutic exercise are not disadvantaged (a) when applying for and (b) if they are in receipt of employment and support allowance or personal independence payments.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is designed to treat people as individuals, considering the impact of their impairment or health condition on their everyday life and how each claimant has personally adapted to living with a disability. The assessment considers all available evidence, including whether an activity can be performed safely to an acceptable standard repeatedly and in a reasonable time period. This principle applies to all claimants, including claimants with Parkinson’s Disease.
Entitlement to Employment and Support Allowance is not based on an individual’s diagnosis or the nature of their particular disabling condition, but rather on the way that condition limits their ability to function. The Work Capability Assessment assesses the effects of a person’s condition on their ability to carry out a number of everyday activities.
ESA has been designed to take full account of progressive conditions such as Parkinson’s. If an individual has a progressive health condition, the Health Care Professional takes this into consideration when providing advice to the Decision Maker.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will take steps to ensure that a person with Parkinson's disease and undertaking voluntary work will not be disadvantaged (a) when applying for or (b) if they are already in receipt of personal independence payments.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is a non-means tested disability benefit that is available to claimants regardless of the employment status of the claimant. Since the Second Independent Review of PIP was published, we have ensured that PIP claimants are not disadvantaged by their employment status by revisiting our current guidance and have reiterated this message to our assessment providers.
We have also used our communication channels to assure claimants that their employment status does not matter when claiming PIP. We will also be re-emphasising this message to claimants through a series of PIP videos which will be released shortly.