Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she plans to take to ensure that increasing working hours is economically advantageous for young people living in supported accommodation.
Answered by Will Quince
The income taper in Housing Benefit and the earnings taper in Universal Credit are designed to ensure that work always pays. They ensure that benefit is not reduced on a pound for pound basis. Whilst receiving Universal Credit, a claimant’s income is disregarded for Housing Benefit purposes and there is no change to the amount they receive.
If their Universal Credit claim ends, then their Housing Benefit claim is reassessed. Some of their earnings will be disregarded based on their personal circumstances. When a claimant’s income, after the disregards have been applied, is higher than their applicable amount, Housing Benefit is reduced by a fixed taper of 65p for every £1 of additional income, meaning that they will always be better off in work.
The applicable amounts in Housing Benefit are made up of personal allowances, paid according to age and family status, added to premiums which are designed to help particular groups of people who may have additional expenses. These amounts are uprated each year alongside other benefits.
Work allowances are already available to Universal Credit claimants who have children or limited capability for work, including those living in supported accommodation. Work allowances provide additional incentives and support for these particular groups who may find it more difficult to get into, or progress in work.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claim decisions have been delayed as a result of claimants waiting for EU Settlement Scheme applications to be processed.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We do not hold the data in the Department that would allow us to provide figures for this question. DWP operates a Habitual Residence Test (HRT) in order to assess whether individuals have legal right to reside for the purpose of accessing benefits and are factually habitually resident.
EU citizens who are exercising a qualifying right to reside, such as worker or self-employed, and are habitually resident in the UK will pass the Habitual Residence Test
A Universal Credit claimant can still pass the HRT without either having applied to the EUSS, or whilst waiting for their application to be processed, provided they can prove their right to reside and factual habitual residency.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are currently in receipt of an advance payment of universal credit.
Answered by Will Quince
Advances are available to support those in immediate financial need until their first Universal Credit payment is made.
If an advance of benefit entitlement is taken, this means that a claimant can receive 13 payments over the course of a year instead of 12. As of October 2021 the period over which you have to repay an advance also doubles from 12 months to 24 months
The department published a set of supplementary management information on the number of Universal Credit Advances paid by the four advance types. It is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-declarations-claims-and-advances-management-information.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how long it takes a claimant to repay a full advance of universal credit on average.
Answered by Will Quince
The average amount of time it takes to repay an advance is 12 months.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people sought an advance payment of universal credit in each of the last 10 months.
Answered by Will Quince
Applications for a Universal Credit advance can be made in a number of ways: in person, by telephone and also online.
The department published a set of supplementary management information on the number of Universal Credit Advances paid by the four advance types. This information is available here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-declarations-claims-and-advances-management-information.
Information on unsuccessful advance applications is not held.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has paid out in response to findings of maladministration in each financial year since 2009-10.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP provides a high quality service to around 20 million people, and of those, less than 1% complain or receive redress for service failing. In instances where issues with payments arise, DWP operates a discretionary special payments scheme, which can provide financial redress if our maladministration has caused a customer hardship or injustice.
The table provides the special payment expenditure from April 2009 to March 2020. Information about payments for maladministration is also contained in DWP’s Annual Report and Accounts. The most recent published report can be found here:
We do not record data in respect of the number of people who have been awarded a special payment by DWP. Instead, we record the number of special payments we have authorised. The number of authorised payments will not necessarily equate to the number of customers because an individual might be awarded redress under different categories (financial loss or a consolatory payment) or receive more than one payment.
Special Payment Expenditure | ||
Reporting Year | Number of payments authorised | Total amount paid* |
2009 – 2010 | 18, 820 | £5.3m |
2010 – 2011 | 16, 280 | £5.1m |
2011 – 2012 | 12, 527 | £3.1m |
2012 – 2013 | 13, 628 | £2.3m |
2013 – 2014 | 13,382 | £2m |
2014 – 2015 | 9,197 | £1.6m |
2015 – 2016 | 6,671 | £1.3m |
2016 - 2078 | 7, 447 | £1.1m |
2017 – 2018 | 7, 079 | £0.86m |
2018 – 2019 | 6, 946** | £1.2m** |
2019 - 2020 | 6, 708*** | £0.98m |
*The special payment figures exclude financial redress paid for Loss of Statutory Entitlement (LOSE), a special payment which can be made if maladministration has caused a claimant to lose entitlement to statutory benefit payments. LOSE is excluded as it is not an extra cost arising from maladministration, but payment that should have been made anyway.
** The special payment figures reported in the Departmental Report 2018/19 (24,175 payments totalling £2.496m) included 17,345 ex gratia payments totalling £1,674,770 (£1.7m). These were for support for mortgage interest and were paid to claimants whose benefit payments were not converted to a loan by 7 May 2019. There were 6,946 payments made for maladministration, totalling £1,221,070 (£1.2m)
***The figure in respect of the number of payments authorised in 2019/20 was not included in the 2019/20 Departmental Report, as that aspect of the special payment data had yet to be finalised prior to the report’s publication
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people qualified for a payment from her Department following a finding of maladministration in each financial year since 2009-10.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP provides a high quality service to around 20 million people, and of those, less than 1% complain or receive redress for service failing. In instances where issues with payments arise, DWP operates a discretionary special payments scheme, which can provide financial redress if our maladministration has caused a customer hardship or injustice.
The table provides the special payment expenditure from April 2009 to March 2020. Information about payments for maladministration is also contained in DWP’s Annual Report and Accounts. The most recent published report can be found here:
We do not record data in respect of the number of people who have been awarded a special payment by DWP. Instead, we record the number of special payments we have authorised. The number of authorised payments will not necessarily equate to the number of customers because an individual might be awarded redress under different categories (financial loss or a consolatory payment) or receive more than one payment.
Special Payment Expenditure | ||
Reporting Year | Number of payments authorised | Total amount paid* |
2009 – 2010 | 18, 820 | £5.3m |
2010 – 2011 | 16, 280 | £5.1m |
2011 – 2012 | 12, 527 | £3.1m |
2012 – 2013 | 13, 628 | £2.3m |
2013 – 2014 | 13,382 | £2m |
2014 – 2015 | 9,197 | £1.6m |
2015 – 2016 | 6,671 | £1.3m |
2016 - 2078 | 7, 447 | £1.1m |
2017 – 2018 | 7, 079 | £0.86m |
2018 – 2019 | 6, 946** | £1.2m** |
2019 - 2020 | 6, 708*** | £0.98m |
*The special payment figures exclude financial redress paid for Loss of Statutory Entitlement (LOSE), a special payment which can be made if maladministration has caused a claimant to lose entitlement to statutory benefit payments. LOSE is excluded as it is not an extra cost arising from maladministration, but payment that should have been made anyway.
** The special payment figures reported in the Departmental Report 2018/19 (24,175 payments totalling £2.496m) included 17,345 ex gratia payments totalling £1,674,770 (£1.7m). These were for support for mortgage interest and were paid to claimants whose benefit payments were not converted to a loan by 7 May 2019. There were 6,946 payments made for maladministration, totalling £1,221,070 (£1.2m)
***The figure in respect of the number of payments authorised in 2019/20 was not included in the 2019/20 Departmental Report, as that aspect of the special payment data had yet to be finalised prior to the report’s publication
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much is owed to her Department in total from people in receipt of advance payments of universal credit.
Answered by Will Quince
Advances are available to support those in immediate financial need until their first Universal Credit payment is made. This means that claimants will receive 13 payments in 12 months.
There were nearly 3 million additional claims to Universal Credit made in the period to July 2020 and nearly 2 million people who have received an advance.
The total value of advances is currently £939,795,907.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans she has to provide additional funding to ensure the adequacy of the Universal Credit Transition Fund.
Answered by Will Quince
The outbreak of COVID-19, which led to an unprecedented surge of over 3 million new Universal Credit claims, resulted in the Department refocusing its resources to deliver frontline activities. This meant we regrettably had to take the decision not to pursue the Universal Credit Transition Fund as had been planned in April 2020. This decision was reported to the Work and Pensions Select Committee in July of this year.
The Universal Credit Transition Fund was intended to assist partner organisations in providing extra help to the most vulnerable claimants, improving access to welfare and labour market opportunities.
The Government has increased the funding for the Flexible Support Fund by £150 million in Great Britain, including to increase the capacity of the Rapid Response Service, which can be spent on delivering support to claimants in conjunction with local partners. The Department also continues to grant fund Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland, worth up to £39 million, to deliver tailored, practical support to people making a Universal Credit claim up to their first full correct payment being received.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how her Department plans to ensure that intermediaries are available for the Kickstart scheme in every local authority region.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department engaged with a wide range of organisations, charities, employers and local authorities across the country to encourage their participation in the Kickstart Scheme as gateway organisations. A list of over 500 organisations willing to act as a gateway organisation has been published alongside guidance on the gov.uk website with good regional and sector coverage.