Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
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 effect on the financial circumstances of universal credit claimants who receive their wages on a fixed day each month and therefore have multiple pay days during an assessment period; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Universal Credit payments reflect, as closely as possible, the actual circumstances of a household during each monthly assessment period. Assessment periods allow for Universal Credit awards to be adjusted on a monthly basis, ensuring that if a claimant’s income falls, they do not have to wait several months for a rise in their Universal Credit award.
Some claimants receive earnings from work multiple times within an assessment period if they are paid via four-weekly, fortnightly, or weekly patterns. This in turn may reduce, or in some cases, nil the Universal Credit award the claimant receives that month. Claimants can always discuss the implications of this with their case managers and work coaches and can be referred to Personal Budgeting Support to help them manage their budgeting.
If a claimant’s Universal Credit claim is closed due to this, claimants can re-claim the following month via a more simplified process than for an initial claim. We have produced guidance to help ensure claimants, staff and representatives are aware of the importance of reporting accurate dates and the impact on payment cycles. This is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-different-earning-patterns-and-your-payments/universal-credit-different-earning-patterns-and-your-payments-payment-cycles
The Government is working with employers to ensure that they use the most appropriate payment practices and comply with RTI guidelines in order to minimise the incidence of erroneous or late reporting by employers. HMRC have recently updated guidance to reiterate to employers the importance of reporting accurate dates and the impact on payment cycles; the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is working closely with HMRC and employers to do this.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2018 to Question 195064, what the maximum length of time was between the date of a successful First Tier Tribunal personal independence payment decision and arrears being paid for claimants in Blaenau Gwent during 2017-18.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the answer of 13 November 2018 to Question 188789 on Social Security Benefits: Blaenau Gwent, what the total number of appeals made for both those benefits were in that same (a) constituency and (b) timeframe; and what proportion of those appeals were successful.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals
In the Blaenau Gwent constituency, 170 appeals were completed in relation to PIP in 2017-18. Of these, 79% (130 appeals) were successful.
40 appeals were completed between April and June 2018, the latest date for which statistics have been published. Of these, 79% (30 appeals) were successful.
These figures include all PIP appeals; so they will contain appeals where claimants appealed for a higher PIP award as well as those appeals against a disallowance decision.
Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
Appeals data taken from the DWP PIP computer system’s management information. Therefore this appeal data may differ from that held by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.
The Parliamentary Constituency geography relates to the origin of the claim (i.e. derived from claimant’s postcode) rather than the location of where the tribunal was.
Decisions overturned at appeal may include a number of appeals that have been lapsed (which is where DWP changed the decision after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at Tribunal).
Since PIP was introduced 3.5m decisions have been made nationally up to June 2018, of these 9% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) appeals
Information on appeal outcome by claim start date and Parliamentary Constituency is available on Stat-Xplore under “ESA Work Capability Assessments”.
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html
Between April 2014 and March 2018, 3.5m ESA (post WCA) decisions have been made nationally, of these 8% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure the same claimant data sharing arrangements under universal support currently extended to local authorities will be extended to the Citizens Advice network when the delivery of that service moves to Citizens Advice in April 2019.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland are designing their new service at present ready to begin delivery in April 2019, and that includes developing specifications to access the data that they need in order to deliver.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of (a) personal independence payment and (b) employment and support allowance in Blaenau Gwent constituency were successful in appeals in relation to their entitlement in (i) 2017-18 and (ii) since April 2018.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals -
In the Blaenau Gwent constituency, (i) 130 claimants were successful in appeals in 2017-18 and (ii) 30 claimants were successful in appeals between April and June 2018, the latest date for which statistics have been published. These figures include all PIP appeals; so they will contain appeals where claimants appealed for a higher PIP award as well as those appeals against a disallowance decision. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
Appeals data taken from the DWP PIP computer system’s management information. Therefore this appeal data may differ from that held by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.
The Parliamentary Constituency geography relates to the origin of the claim (i.e. derived from claimant’s postcode) rather than the location of where the tribunal was.
Decisions overturned at appeal may include a number of appeals that have been lapsed (which is where DWP changed the decision after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at Tribunal).
Since PIP was introduced, 3.5m decisions have been made nationally up to June 2018. Of these, 9% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) appeals -
Information on appeal outcome by claim start date and Parliamentary Constituency is
available on Stat-Xplore under “ESA Work Capability Assessments”.
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html
Between April 2014 and March 2018, 3.5m ESA (post WCA) decisions have been made nationally, of these 8% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress her Department has made on proposed verification and security measures for individual users of the proposed Pensions Dashboard.
Answered by Guy Opperman
On Tuesday 4 September 2018, I published a written statement providing an update on pensions including the pensions dashboard. This statement can be found here: https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2018-09-04/HCWS933/
An industry-led Dashboard, facilitated by Government, will harness the best of industry innovation. We will continue to engage with industry, consumer groups and other stakeholders on this model and Government will protect pension savers and personal information by legislating where necessary.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the participation of pension schemes in the Pensions Dashboard will be compulsory.
Answered by Guy Opperman
As set out in the Autumn Budget, DWP will consult on the detailed design for pensions dashboards, and on how an industry-led approach could harness innovation while protecting consumers. As part of the consultation, due to be published shortly, the Department will explore how to maximise the participation of pension schemes.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to enhance the (a) information-gathering and (b) anti-avoidance powers of the Pensions Regulator.
Answered by Guy Opperman
We have announced in the White Paper, Protecting Defined Benefit Pension Schemes, that we intend to introduce a stand-alone interview power and enhanced inspection powers to enable the Pensions Regulator to conduct its investigations in a more efficient way.
The Government’s recent consultation on a stronger Pensions Regulator asked for views on proposals to strengthen the Pensions Regulator’s powers, including specifically enhancing its anti-avoidance powers, which deal with moral hazard. We are considering the responses and hope to publish our conclusions shortly, with a view to taking forward any necessary legislation in due course.