Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his department is taking to reduce waiting times for Personal Independent Payment following an unsuccessful Mandatory Reconsideration.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Following an unsuccessful Mandatory Reconsideration, a claimant may appeal to the first-tier tribunal.
The Department for Work and Pensions and His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) have been working together to reduce delays in appeals being processed and heard.
For its part, the DWP has: (i) recruited additional appeals staff; and (ii) reviewed its approach to drafting appeal responses, which has improved productivity. We recognise the importance of getting appeals processed and back to HMCTS without delay. At the same time, HMCTS is developing a new digital system with a view to enabling faster processing of appeals and thereby offering a better service to appellants.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that Local Housing Allowance rates increase in line with rents in Nottingham East constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Secretary of State reviews Local Housing Allowance rates annually.
In April 2020 Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates were increased to the 30th percentile of local rents. This investment of nearly £1 billion provided 1.5 million claimants with an average £600 more housing support in 2020/21 than they would otherwise have received.
LHA rates have been maintained at their increased levels since then, so that everyone who benefitted from the increase will continue to do so.
For those who require additional support with housing costs, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available from local authorities. Since 2011 we have provided almost £1.5 billion in DHPs.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many work coaches who specialise in working with women leaving prison are currently employed by her Department.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
DWP continues to contribute to cross-government work to improve support for female offenders through the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) led Female Offender strategy and the Female Concordat. We provide a range of support to help ex-offenders re-establish themselves back in the community and into work. DWP’s offer is gender neutral, covering both male and female offenders, tailored to their specific individual needs. We are therefore unable to provide the number of work coaches who specialise in working with women prison leavers.
Around 200 Work Coaches are based in prisons across Great Britain, provide benefit advice before release, including booking an appointment at the local jobcentre on or soon after the day of release for those who intend to make a Universal Credit claim. There is also a dedicated National Prison Leaver telephone claim line for those who are unable to claim online.
As part of our commitment in the recently published Prisons White Paper, this year DWP and MoJ will work together to test different approaches to preparing Universal Credit claims and claimant commitments before release in 15 prisons, including female prisons, with a view to rolling out across the prison estate by 2024.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department provides to women leaving prison on signing up for universal credit.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
DWP continues to contribute to cross-government work to improve support for female offenders through the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) led Female Offender strategy and the Female Concordat. We provide a range of support to help ex-offenders re-establish themselves back in the community and into work. DWP’s offer is gender neutral, covering both male and female offenders, tailored to their specific individual needs. We are therefore unable to provide the number of work coaches who specialise in working with women prison leavers.
Around 200 Work Coaches are based in prisons across Great Britain, provide benefit advice before release, including booking an appointment at the local jobcentre on or soon after the day of release for those who intend to make a Universal Credit claim. There is also a dedicated National Prison Leaver telephone claim line for those who are unable to claim online.
As part of our commitment in the recently published Prisons White Paper, this year DWP and MoJ will work together to test different approaches to preparing Universal Credit claims and claimant commitments before release in 15 prisons, including female prisons, with a view to rolling out across the prison estate by 2024.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
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 impact of the five week wait for universal credit on the wellbeing of (a) women from marginalised backgrounds leaving prison and (b) all women leaving prison.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
When claimants are paid Universal Credit is determined by the date of entitlement.
Where there is an immediate need for financial support, Universal Credit advances can be paid on the same day the claim is made, up to 100% of the estimated Universal Credit award during their first assessment period. This advance can then be repaid over a period of 24 months.
Advances are paid quickly, and prison leavers can apply for them online or by using the dedicated National Universal Credit phone line which gives quick access to the benefit system for those unable to claim online.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing women who are due to be released from prison to claim universal credit before their release date to prevent destitution.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Prisoners are not entitled to Universal Credit because they are already housed and fed by the prison estate. An exception to this is where single persons expected to serve short term sentences of 6 months or less, or who are on remand, may retain entitlement to the housing costs element of Universal Credit for up to 6 months, to safeguard tenancies and prevent homelessness on release.
DWP has around 200 Prison Work Coaches based in prisons across Great Britain who provide employment support during sentence in preparation for release, and support in preparing to make a Universal Credit claim on release. We also provide a dedicated National Universal Credit phone line, which gives quick access to the benefit system for those unable to claim online. Claimants then have access to financial support from the day they claim through Universal Credit advance payments – paid up to 100% of their expected monthly entitlement.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure there are specialist staff with trauma training in job centres.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Training and guidance is provided for all staff working with different vulnerable groups. This includes developing the skills they need to support and communicate with a diverse range of customers to provide a tailored service that recognises those with complex needs.
Jobcentre staff have access to information on services and support available in their local area for vulnerable claimants and will signpost claimants to national and local organisations who provide specialist support. This has included Trauma Informed Approach training that many staff have now completed. Nationally DWP works with J9, a domestic abuse awareness national initiative.
Work Coaches will tailor conditionality, setting requirements based on what is reasonable for the individual’s circumstances. A claimant’s work search and availability requirements can be switched off for an agreed period of time, and other work-related requirements can be lifted where appropriate. This includes where the claimant has suffered domestic violence and abuse, or periods where a child in their care is suffering distress due to experiencing or witnessing violence or abuse.
To assist identification and claimant support, each Jobcentre Plus site has a complex needs toolkit in place. These are maintained and reviewed locally and contain a named single point of contact for areas such as Homelessness, Care leavers and Prison leavers. Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) are also on site to support when needed.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will introduce an adoption allowance comparable to Maternity Allowance for the self employed.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government has no plans to extend adoption pay to self-employed adopters. Local Authorities can make discretionary payments to self-employed adopters who do not qualify for adoption pay.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will introduce an Adoption Allowance comparable to Maternity Allowance for self-employed people.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government has no plans to introduce an Adoption Allowance for self-employed people. Local Authorities can make discretionary payments to self-employed adopters who do not qualify for adoption pay.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average waiting time is for customers calling the personal independence payment line.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Wait times for customers needing to make a new claim to PIP remain low with customers, on average, waiting 4 mins and 59 seconds.
Call traffic to the PIP Telephony Enquiry Line fluctuates across the day; the average speed of answer, based on the previous three months, is 23 mins and 30 seconds.
Customers calling to register a PIP Mandatory Reconsideration can expect to wait an average of 3 minutes and 2 seconds.