Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to write to every person entitled to but not claiming Pension Credit.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Starting this month pensioners in England and Wales will receive a letter informing them of the change in eligibility to the Winter Fuel Payment and encouraging them to check their eligibility for Pension Credit. Similar letters to pensioners in Scotland and Northern Ireland will follow during November.
In November we will also be writing to approximately 120,000 pensioners who are in receipt of Housing Benefit and who may also be eligible for, but not currently claiming, Pension Credit. We will be inviting these pensioners to claim Pension Credit by the 21 December, which is the latest date for making a successful backdated Pension Credit claim and still qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department spends on publicity to increase the number of people registered for Pension Credit.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Department’s current paid marketing activity to promote Pension Credit which includes radio, national and regional press, paid social media and GP and Post Office screens, has been live since 16th September and is ongoing. It is not possible to provide an accurate cost for this paid activity until it is concluded.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of people who will be entitled to Pension Credit but will have not registered by (a) 31 December 2024 and (b) 1 April 2025.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
No such estimate has been made.
Estimates for pensioner households who are eligible for but not receiving Pension Credit in 2022/23 can be found at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will extend member and trade union representation to the board of the Pension Protection Fund.
Answered by Paul Maynard
There is no legal requirement for the Board of the Pension Protection Fund to include member or trade union representation, and there are no plans to extend representation to these groups.
The Pension Protection Fund does, however, have Member Panels – which Board members are invited to attend – to enable members to feed in views on the service offered and thoughts about changes that could be made in the future.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what number and proportion of Personal Independence Payment decisions overturned at tribunal were due to (a) the tribunal panel drawing a different conclusion based on the same evidence, (b) oral evidence given by the individual and (c) new written evidence provided at the hearing in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Analysis of unpublished Personal Independence Payment (PIP) data held by DWP provides data on why decisions by DWP decision makers have been overturned at a tribunal hearing between January 2014 and September 2023 and is shown annually in the tables below. This information is taken from Decision Notices and recorded on the PIP computer system.
This data only provides one reason per appeal why decisions by DWP decision makers have been overturned at a tribunal hearing, and therefore may not give the full story as there may be other reasons.
Appeals data is taken from the DWP PIP computer system’s management information. Therefore, this appeal data may differ from that held by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.
These figures are the result of a complex data match across a number of data sets. This data is unpublished data. It should be used with caution, and it may be subject to future revision.
Learning from this information, we have made improvements to our decision-making processes to help ensure we make the right decision as early as possible in the claim journey. We have introduced a new approach to decision making at both the initial decision and the Mandatory Reconsideration stage, giving Decision Makers additional time to proactively contact customers where they think additional evidence may support the claim.
Summary reason DWP decision | Appeal clearance year | |||||||||
2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 (to September) | |
Cogent documentary evidence | 100 | 2,000 | 6,300 | 5,000 | 4,400 | 2,600 | 1,900 | 400 | 200 | 300 |
Cogent oral evidence | 1,100 | 14,700 | 22,900 | 26,500 | 25,100 | 26,200 | 11,800 | 8,800 | 8,800 | 11,800 |
Reached a different conclusion on | 200 | 2,900 | 7,700 | 13,600 | 21,100 | 24,600 | 26,100 | 16,300 | 16,700 | 17,500 |
Other | 100 | 2,300 | 5,200 | 8,200 | 7,600 | 7,100 | 5,000 | 1,900 | 1,900 | 2,000 |
Summary reason DWP decision | Appeal clearance year | |||||||||
2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 (to September) | |
Cogent documentary evidence | 6% | 9% | 15% | 9% | 8% | 4% | 4% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
Cogent oral evidence | 75% | 67% | 54% | 50% | 43% | 43% | 26% | 32% | 32% | 37% |
Reached a different conclusion on | 14% | 13% | 18% | 26% | 36% | 41% | 58% | 60% | 61% | 56% |
Other | 4% | 10% | 12% | 15% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 7% | 7% | 6% |
Note:
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the reasons for Personal Independence Payment decisions being overturned at mandatory reconsideration in 2022-23.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The reasons for Personal Independence Payment decisions being overturned at Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) are evaluated locally on a case-by-case basis, and we continue to learn from this. The Department’s overarching focus at the MR stage is on ensuring that each application is thoroughly reviewed, including considering all available evidence and contacting the claimant where necessary. Decisions will be changed at the MR stage where the evidence supports this, resolving disputes as early as possible and reducing the need to appeal.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many appeals against Personal Independence Payment decisions were lapsed by her Department in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
A lapsed appeal is where DWP changed the decision in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at a tribunal hearing.
The table below provides information on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeal registrations and lapsed appeals. Data provided is for the last five financial years.
Table 1: Appeals registered for each financial year and how many were subsequently lapsed
Financial year | Appeals registered | Appeals subsequently lapsed |
2018-19 | 94,000 | 18,000 |
2019-20 | 82,000 | 27,000 |
2020-21 | 55,000 | 23,000 |
2021-22 | 50,000 | 17,000 |
2022-23 | 81,000 | 18,000 |
Notes:
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have been employed by his Department to investigate suspected benefit fraud in each year since 2017.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The table below provides the average staffing (full-time equivalent) utilised for investigating benefit fraud for the years requested.
Year | Average staff (full-time equivalent) investigating benefit fraud |
2017-18 | 1359.0 |
2018-19 | 1245.2 |
2019-20 | 1358.7 |
2020-21 | 128.9 |
2021-22 | 543.3 |
2022-23 | 1022.0 |
2023-24* | 1076.6 |
*Average (full-time equivalent) over April and May 2023 | |
For years 2020-21 and 2021-22, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted DWP’s Fraud Investigation Service, with large numbers of staff redeployed to support the unprecedented demand for financial support.
These numbers do not include our Compliance staff, who carry out robust and challenging interviews to ensure benefit claimants receive their correct entitlement, nor staff employed on preventative fraud work, for example our Enhanced Review Team, who are delivering significant savings for the Department as part of our shift to disrupting fraud at the outset.
Our fraud plan, ‘Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System’, published May 2022, sets out our plans to recruit additional staff into our counter-fraud teams, and we continue to recruit and train new fraud investigators in order to maximise our headcount post Covid. It should be noted that training an investigator can take anywhere between 12 and 18 months.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the number of low-income houses which are unable to afford living essentials due to a lack of funds.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We do not collect this information; however, National Statistics on the number and percentage of people in poverty are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. This can be found here.
A family is in combined low income and material deprivation if they have a material deprivation score of 25 or more and a household income below the relevant threshold of contemporary median income, Before Housing Costs. See here.
The estimated number of children, working-age adults, and pensioners in combined low income and material deprivation can be found in tables 1_4d, 1_5d and 1_6c, respectively, in the summary-hbai-1994-95-2021-22-tables file.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the proposals by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell Trust on an essentials guarantee when setting Universal Credit.
Answered by Guy Opperman
No formal assessment has been made.