Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much money her Department has spent on bottled water in each year since 2010.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department introduced a policy several years ago to move away from free standing water chillers with plastic bottles. Instead, where water chillers are required to meet a business need, a plumbed-in supply is normally used.
There remains a very small number of sites where a plumbed-in supply is not practicable, and in these cases, local arrangements may have been made for water chillers. However, no information is held centrally.
Prior to the policy change, bottled water would have been provided for business meetings as part of any wider refreshment cost, and cannot be identified separately. Water now provided for official meetings is no longer supplied in plastic bottles; refillable glass bottles or water jugs are provided.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has spent on benefit appeals in each year since 2010 by type of benefit payment.
Answered by Sarah Newton
This information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The Department has previously published average costs of PIP and ESA mandatory reconsiderations and appeals, which covers direct staff costs only (see Table 24 of Work and Pensions Select Committee PIP and ESA assessments inquiry: supporting statistics).
The total that DWP has spent on mandatory reconsiderations and appeals includes high level support costs such as management and corporate overheads. These costs cannot be split out from overall Departmental spending on benefit payments, and therefore total Departmental spend on mandatory reconsideration and appeal is not available.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has spent on mandatory reconsiderations in each year since 2010, by type of benefit payment.
Answered by Sarah Newton
This information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The Department has previously published average costs of PIP and ESA mandatory reconsiderations and appeals, which covers direct staff costs only (see Table 24 of Work and Pensions Select Committee PIP and ESA assessments inquiry: supporting statistics).
The total that DWP has spent on mandatory reconsiderations and appeals includes high level support costs such as management and corporate overheads. These costs cannot be split out from overall Departmental spending on benefit payments, and therefore total Departmental spend on mandatory reconsideration and appeal is not available.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to visit (a) a food bank or (b) a soup kitchen in his capacity as Secretary of State in December 2017.
Answered by Damian Hinds
There are no such plans.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) official and (b) official sensitive documents have been recorded as lost by his Department since 8 May 2015.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
DWP does not keep a central record of “Official” document losses as these are dealt with locally.
The number of incidents of documents marked “Official-Sensitive” being lost from 8 May 2015 to 28 February 2017 is 77.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which Ministers of his Department have visited a food bank since their appointment; and what the date of each such visit was.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and his Ministers have not visited a food bank since their appointment.
Secretary of State had a productive meeting with Trussell Trust on 28 November 2016. Jobcentre Plus District Managers have discretion to work with food banks in their own areas if they are invited and if resources are available, as part of their wider community outreach work and we will make sure this continuing advice is communicated appropriately.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department spent on travel that was not standard class in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The DWP’s business travel policy requires all alternatives to travel to be explored first. Where travel is deemed appropriate, the policy requires the use of the most cost effective mode of transport.
In the last five years the Department has spent the following amounts on travel that was not standard class.
Financial Year | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
Cost (£) | 111,139 | 188,933 | 181,212 | 114,127 | 118,233 |