Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on advertising the Back to Work Plan since November 2023 by advertising method.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
To date, the Department has not spent anything on advertising the Back to Work Plan.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his Department has made on rectifying errors in state pensions.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The overall rate of State Pension underpayment due to official error remains low as a proportion of expenditure (0.5% in 2022/2023). Where errors do occur, we are committed to fixing them as quickly as possible.
The Department of Work and Pensions is currently progressing Legal Entitlement and Administrative Practice (LEAP) exercises to rectify errors in the State Pensions caseload. Our priority is to ensure that everyone receives the State Pension payments to which they are entitled.
The latest update on the progress activity for the State Pension LEAP activity was published on 30 November and shows that between 11 January 2021 and 31 October 2023:
o 593,964 cases were reviewed
o 82,323 underpayments were identified
o £497 million was paid in arrears.
DWP is on track to complete the exercise for Category BL and Category D cases by the end of 2023.
The Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) corrections activity started in Autumn 2023 with HMRC sending letters to potentially affected customers, who are invited to make a claim for missing HRP. Once a customer’s national insurance record has been corrected, DWP will process any state pension changes to ensure ongoing payments are correct and any arrears are paid as quickly as possible. Updates on progress will be communicated as the exercise progresses.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of providing full compensation to people affected by underpayment errors in state pensions.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is fully committed to rectifying any historical errors resulting in State Pension underpayments to ensure individuals receive the State Pension they are due in law, with any arrears payments paid as quickly as possible.
The Department for Work and Pensions is currently addressing, through Legal Entitlement and Administrative Practices (LEAP) exercises, two areas where we know there are State Pension underpayment errors. The Department does not routinely make special payments in such exercises.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have been affected by underpayment errors in state pensions in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not held by the Department.
The overall rate of State Pension underpayment due to official error remains low as a proportion of expenditure (0.5% in 2022/2023).
Information on the broad categories where State Pension underpayments are most often identified was set out in the DWP Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23.
DWP annual report and accounts 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
DWP is taking action to rectify historic errors in the State Pensions caseload. Our priority is to ensure that everyone receives their correct State Pension entitlement.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure the accuracy of state pension payments.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Overall error within State Pension is low – the 2022/2023 Annual Report and Accounts show 0.01% overpayment and 0.6% underpayment.
A robust Quality Framework of both local and independent quality checking is in place to assure the accuracy of State Pension payments. Where error is identified proportionate action is taken through root cause analysis and focused improvement activities. Appropriate oversight and governance is provided by a Quality Governance Board.
Fraud and Error risks are further mitigated through the development and design of our online ‘Get your State Pension’ digital service.
In addition to robust quality checking and digital design, lessons learned from the State Pension LEAP exercise have resulted in new data matching rules to reduce the risk of further error entering the caseload and amendments to legacy IT systems reduce the likelihood of human error.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Reducing Parental Conflict programme in supporting at-risk children of alcohol dependent parents.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Reducing Parental Conflict programme aims to improve child outcomes by reducing parental conflict that is frequent, intense and unresolved.
In 2018 the DWP and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) launched the Children of Alcohol Dependent Parents (CADeP) programme. This included funding of £5.7 million for 9 areas (13 local authorities), to reduce parental conflict alongside improving existing systems of treatment for parents with alcohol dependency.
To ensure that the learning from the programme was shared, DHSC commissioned an independent evaluation of the innovation fund. This evaluation has been published and can be found at Evaluation of the Children of Alcohol Dependent Parents programme innovation fund: full report - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The following findings of the evaluation were of particular interest to DWP in relation to the RPC elements of this programme:
The current phase of the Reducing Parental Conflict programme runs between 2022 and 2025, with up to £19 million to fund training, delivery of support, co-ordination and evaluation. This supports Local Authorities to choose activity that best suits local need.
This government remains committed to strengthening the support available to children and families, working with local authorities through government funded programmes including Reducing Parental Conflict, Supporting Families and Family Hubs /Start for Life.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much funding his Department has provided to the Reducing Parental Conflict programme in each local authority.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Grants for Local Authorities have been one strand of the Reducing Parental Conflict programme since its inception in 2018.
This strand has provided funding of £27.6 million to individual Local Authorities as set out in the attached information.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of adequacy of the provisions available to UK citizens unable to return from abroad during the covid-19 pandemic who incurred a loss of access to public funds.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the department put into place measures to support existing benefit recipients in exceptional cases where their absence abroad went over the period allowed under the temporary absence benefit rules and could not return to the UK due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. Once these temporary measures came to an end, the department was instructed to review cases where claimants had not yet returned to the UK.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many income-related Employment and Support Allowance claimants have been found to have a diagnosable mental health illness.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The latest available data on the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) caseload with ‘Mental and Behavioural disorders’ as their primary medical condition, split by payment type (i.e. ‘Income based’ and ‘Both income and contributions based’), can be found on Stat-Xplore.
Data is based on primary medical condition as recorded on the ESA computer systems. Claimants may have multiple disabling conditions on which their entitlement is based, but only the primary condition is available for statistical purposes and shown in these statistics.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 potential effect of managed migration on exacerbating existing mental health conditions among legacy claimants.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
I refer the Hon member to the written answer to Question 362 tabled on 10th of May 2022 by the previous Minister.