Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many complaints have been made to Capita on the disability benefit assessment process since 2010; and how many of those complaints were upheld by (a) Capita (b) DWP and (c) the Ombudsman.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Capita commenced their delivery of the Personal Independent Payment contract in June 2013. Since the beginning of their contract Capita has received 15,666 complaints of which 9,834 were upheld by Capita. The number of upheld complaints equates to 1.03% of the number of referrals to Capita during the same period.
Capita’s complaint process signposts complainants to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) in the event that they are dissatisfied with the providers final response to their complaint. The Independent Case Examiner (ICE) is an independent complaints review service which investigates complaints about the Department for Work and Pensions and its providers. Data from ICE can only be provided from 2015 as records are only kept for the last three years. Over this three year period there were 17 complaints escalated to ICE for the Capita PIP contract of which six were partially upheld and one was fully upheld. The remaining 10 were not upheld.
DWP does not hold information about the number of complaints the Ombudsman received about Capita for 2010 to 2012. For the reporting years 2013 to 2017 the Ombudsman received eight enquiries about Capita Business Services Ltd. However we are unable to identify if these are in relation to the PIP Capita contract specifically. None of the eight enquiries progressed to an investigation.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much the Government has made available in real terms through (a) budgeting loans and (b) crisis loans in each year between 2010/11 and 2016/17.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The amount made available through Budgeting Loans is published in the annual Social Fund Accounts in nominal terms. These figures have been adjusted to real terms in 2016/17 prices and are outlined in the table below.
Year | Budgeting Loan payments - £m (2016/17 prices) |
2010/11 | 495.1 |
2011/12 | 491.4 |
2012/13 | 485.2 |
2013/14 | 434.2 |
2014/15 | 428.2 |
2015/16 | 414.1 |
2016/17 | 411.5 |
Notes:
The amount made available through Crisis Loans is published in the annual Social Fund Accounts in nominal terms. These figures have been adjusted to real terms in 2016/17 prices and are outlined in the table below.
Year | Crisis Loan payments - £m (2016/17 prices) |
2010/11 | 155.3 |
2011/12 | 153.8 |
2012/13 | 114.1 |
2013/14 | 3.6 |
2014/15 | 0.2 |
2015/16 | 0.1 |
2016/17 | 0.2 |
Notes:
Sources:
The links to the annual Social Fund Account for each of the last seven years are given below.
2010/11:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/247280/1307.pdf
2011/12:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/246945/0454.pdf
2012/13:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/209380/SFWPA_2012-13.pdf
2013/14:
2014/15:
2015/16:
2016/17:
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 29 November to Question 115390, whether people in receipt of (a) income Support, (b) income-related employment and support allowance or (c) income-related jobseeker's allowance who will in future receive universal credit will be permitted to access Social Fund Budgeting Loans.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Claimants who are in receipt of Income Support, income related Employment and Support Allowance and income based Jobseeker’s Allowance can qualify for a Social Fund Budgeting Loans if the satisfy the eligibility conditions. Claimants in receipt of Universal Credit can qualify for a Universal Credit Budgeting Advance which is also a loan that is interest free and for intermittent expenses such as furniture or household equipment.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much funding has been provided for Social Fund Budgeting Loans in each of the last 10 years; and how much funding will be provided in each of the next five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Recoveries of the existing Social Fund debt stock are used to fund new Budgeting Loan payments therefore no funding is provided by Parliament, the money available is limited each year by the level of recoveries expected.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, at what rate interest will be set on support for mortgage interest when that benefit becomes a loan rather than a grant in April 2018.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Interest will be charged on SMI loans based upon the cost of gilts as published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). This rate reflects the cost of Government borrowing. The Gilt Rate Forecast for 2018-19 is 1.5%, as specified in the latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook published on the 22nd November 2017 by the OBR.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will assess the potential merits of providing interest-free credit to people receiving certain benefits in order to avoid the use of rent-to-own schemes for household essentials.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
DWP currently provides interest-free loans for customers in receipt of income related benefits who satisfy certain eligibility conditions.
Social Fund Budgeting Loans are interest-free loans which are repayable from benefit awards. They are designed to help people who have been in receipt of a qualifying benefit for at least six months, with intermittent expenses that are considered difficult to budget for. The qualifying benefits are: Income Support, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, income-related Jobseeker’s Allowance, and Pension Credit. Universal Credit can be used as a qualifying benefit but only for claimants that migrate from Universal Credit to Pension Credit.
Budgeting Advances are available to Universal Credit claimants who have been in receipt of benefit for at least six months to help meet intermittent expenses, such as buying essential items like furniture or household equipment. These advances ensure that low income families, that have an emergency financial need and don’t have access to adequate savings or affordable loans, can access funding to meet the emergency.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the Department's target times are for getting disability benefits claims back into payment after a tribunal rules in a claimant's favour; and what the times achieved were in the last 12 months.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
We do not have any target times, but aim to deal with any case as quickly as possible paying arrears where necessary. The times taken to process appeal decisions post hearing are not available.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 16 October 2017 to Question 106777, if he will carry out an assessment of the effect of the freezing of the rate of local housing allowance on the rate at which housing benefit recipients (a) fall into rent arrears and (b) become homeless.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
There are many factors that contribute to a claimant falling into arrears or becoming homeless. DWP has no plans to carry out such an assessment.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment has been made of whether the local housing allowance rates are keeping pace with increasing rents in the private sector.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Local Housing Allowance rates are monitored against the 30th percentile of local rents which are collected by the Rent Services in England, Scotland and Wales. The Rent Services publish the 30th percentile data and the Local Housing Allowance rates each year on their respective websites.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to introduce a hotline for inquiries from hon. Members about universal credit before its wider roll-out begins.
Answered by Damian Hinds
I refer the Right Honourable Member to the answer I gave on 5 September 2017 to question 6374.