Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance he has issued to the Child Support Agency on reporting allegations of fraudulent tax claims to HM Revenue and Customs.
Answered by Priti Patel
For any suspected issues of fraud, including those relating to HM Revenue and Customs, the Child Support Agency’s Online Business Procedures (OLBPs) advise caseworkers to complete a referral on the Fraud Referral and Intervention Management System (FRAIMS), which is a single, nationally networked IT system.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many liability orders issued by the Child Support Agency (CSA) for the non-payment of child maintenance resulted in (a) bailiffs acting on the CSA's behalf, (b) a county court third-party debt order, (c) an order of disqualification and (d) a warrant of commitment.
Answered by Priti Patel
The Department records statistics on the number of instances of different types of enforcement actions and publishes these in the Quarterly Summary Statistics. This information is set out on Page 41 of the Child Support Agency quarterly summary of statistics which can be accessed online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-support-agency-quarterly-summary-of-statistics-june-2015.
Note:
A County Court third-party debt order was the enforcement action used prior to the introduction of Regular and Lump Sum Deduction Orders.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have (a) been referred to and (b) participated in the Help to Work scheme since April 2014.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The information is not readily available. The Department works to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we publish statistics that meet high quality standards at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in each Welsh parliamentary constituency will no longer receive the Independent Living Fund from 30 June 2015.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
Funding and responsibility for providing care and support to former-ILF users in Wales will transfer to the Welsh Government after the ILF closes on 30 June 2015. The Welsh Government is currently consulting on future arrangements to support users living there.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants have taken part in the mandatory attendance centre pilot announced in October 2013.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Supervised Jobsearch Pilot started on 6 October 2014 and runs until the end of March 2015. We are not in a position to provide information on how many claimants have taken part to date. We will be collecting robust monitoring information as part of this trial as well as an externally contracted evaluation. An externally published research report on the pilots is planned for Autumn 2015.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of people referred to the Help to Work scheme are (a) on a community work placement, (b) attending the jobcentre every day and (c) receiving intensive jobcentre support since April 2014.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The information is not readily available. The Department works to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we publish statistics that meet high quality standards at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of people referred to the Help to Work scheme who (a) participated in a community work placement, (b) attended the jobcentre every day and (c) received intensive jobcentre support have moved into employment since April 2014.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The information is not readily available. The Department works to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we publish statistics that meet high quality standards at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants (a) received an overpayment of widowed parent's allowance and (b) were prosecuted for benefit fraud in respect of that allowance in each of the last five years.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The table below represents the number of claimants in receipt of Widowed Parent's Allowance who received an overpayment and DWP recorded a prosecution outcome.
Claimants in receipt of Widowed Parents Allowance | ||
Fiscal Year | Number of claimants who received an overpayment | Number of cases with a Prosecution Outcome |
2009 – 2010 | 1.42K | 0 |
2010 – 2011 | 1.48K | 4 |
2011 – 2012 | 2.01K | 2 |
2012 – 2013 | 2.59K | 1 |
2013 – 2014 | 2.61K | 6 |
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the letter dated 5 March 2014 from the Minister of State for Pensions to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, when he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to make national insurance credits available for past periods for service spouses; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Steve Webb
Subject to Royal Assent of the Pensions Bill a duty will be placed on the Secretary of State to make regulations to allow service spouses and civil partners, due to reach State Pension age from 6 April 2016, to apply for National Insurance credits for periods during which they accompanied their husband, wife or civil partner on a posting outside the UK. The regulations will make provision to allow credits for periods between 1975/76 and 2010.
We are working with the Ministry of Defence on the finer details of the scheme including the manner in which applications will need to be made and the precise date when the administrative arrangements will be in place.
We estimate that up to 20,000 individuals could have a higher single-tier pension from these credits as some individuals may, at state pension age, already have sufficient qualifying years to gain a full single-tier pension.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the letter dated 5 March 2014 from the Minister of State for Pensions to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, what estimate he has made of the number of service spouses who will be affected by his plans to bring forward legislative proposals to make national insurance credits available for past periods for service spouses.
Answered by Steve Webb
Subject to Royal Assent of the Pensions Bill a duty will be placed on the Secretary of State to make regulations to allow service spouses and civil partners, due to reach State Pension age from 6 April 2016, to apply for National Insurance credits for periods during which they accompanied their husband, wife or civil partner on a posting outside the UK. The regulations will make provision to allow credits for periods between 1975/76 and 2010.
We are working with the Ministry of Defence on the finer details of the scheme including the manner in which applications will need to be made and the precise date when the administrative arrangements will be in place.
We estimate that up to 20,000 individuals could have a higher single-tier pension from these credits as some individuals may, at state pension age, already have sufficient qualifying years to gain a full single-tier pension.