Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much expenditure was allocated by her Department in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021 to the (i) production of digital and video content, (ii) the employment of in-house staff to produce digital and video content and (iii) payment of external companies and individuals to produce digital and video content.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) photographers and (b) video producers were employed by her Department in (i) 2019, (ii) 2020 and (iii) 2021.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much expenditure her Department allocated in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021, to (a) internal communications and (b) the employment of staff to work on internal communications.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The roles within Communications Directorate are multifunctional, it is not possible to breakdown the roles further.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were employed by her Department to work on internal communications in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The roles within Communications Directorate are multifunctional, it is not possible to breakdown the roles further.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department spent on (a) focus groups and (b) polling services in 2021.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In this case opinion polling has been taken to mean all quantitative research which measures attitudes, behaviours, and campaign recall.
Spending on focus groups and polling services for financial year 21/22 for communications and social research which informs policy development is as follows:
a) Focus groups | £264,550 |
b) Opinion polling services | £220,900 |
Total | £485,450 |
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department spent on external management consultants in the financial years (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021; and on which ten projects or work areas her Department spent the most on support from those consultants in each of those financial years.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes details about headcount and payroll costs for permanent staff and contractors on GOV.UK on a monthly basis. You can find the information you seek at DWP workforce management information - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The DWP consultancy spend for the financial years 2019 through to 2021 is shown below.
2018/19 £4,446,169
2019/20 £4,570,665
2020/21 £1,284,861
2021/21 £1,041,058
Information on the projects or work areas DWP spent the most on support from those consultants in each of the financial years is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department spent on external recruitment consultants in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021; how many full-time equivalent posts her Department filled as a result of that expenditure; and of those posts how many were filled by people recruited from outside the civil service.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Due to the financial and reporting systems in the department it is not currently possible to separate out spend associated with external recruitment consultancy services from all other consultancy spend for the majority of departmental recruitment. As a result we are also not able to identify the equivalent posts.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Government efficiency savings: technical note, 2021, published on 28 March 2022, what the variety of counter fraud techniques used to prevent or detect fraud were including (a) the programme and project the savings apply to, (b) the amount of savings that relate to each programme and project and (c) the period during which the savings were made for each programme and project.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
DWP takes all types of benefit fraud extremely seriously and is committed to the detection and prevention of both fraud and claimant error, along with the use of appropriate penalties where fraud is identified.
I am unable to share details of the variety of counter fraud techniques used by DWP to prevent or detect fraud, as to do so would be prejudicial to our work in this area. The DWP savings cited in the technical note published by Cabinet Office on 28 March 2022, cover the 2020/21 financial year. The savings of £1.1bn relate to the work of DWP’s Enhanced Checking Service (ECS) part of our Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt Directorate.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
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 measure its carbon footprint.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Greenhouse gas emissions are published annually in the Greening Government Commitments Annual Reports.
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
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 impact of increased homeworking during the covid-19 outbreak on her Department’s carbon footprint.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department monitors and reports on its greenhouse gas emissions - information on this is published in the Greening Government Commitments Annual Report.