Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2024 to Question 16811 on State Retirement Pensions: National Insurance Contributions, how many days his Department took on average to reassess a citizen's claim to state pensions following notification of an updated National Insurance record by HMRC in the latest year for which data is available; and how many people waited more than one month for their claim to be reassessed in that period.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This information is only available at disproportionate cost to The Department for Work & Pensions as the Department does not have a business requirement for this information to be retained.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice exercise to identify people who have been underpaid State Pension, how many people identified as having received an underpayment have deceased, by each category of error; in how many of those cases his Department (a) has been unable to identify an heir and (b) has sent a letter to an heir and (i) has not received a response and (ii) has received a response but payment has not yet been made; and what steps his Department is taking to (A) identify heirs and (B) follow up cases where no response has been received to an initial contact letter.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This information is only available at disproportionate cost to The Department for Work & Pensions as the Department does not have a business requirement for this information to be retained.
The Department uses all available resources to identify heirs. In the instance when a response is not received for the initial contact letter, we issue further letters inviting the heir to contact DWP.
The Department will be publishing its progress with the State Pension Underpayment Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) exercises to the end of February 2024 before the end of March 2024.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to (a) collect and (b) publish management information on the number of people who have (i) had changes to their National Insurance record and (ii) are waiting to have their state pension calculation updated.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP does not publish this information as changes to a citizen’s National Insurance Record forms part of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) function. When DWP receives notification from HMRC of a change in a citizen’s National Insurance record, DWP reviews the State Pension claim accordingly.
The vast majority of changes to a citizen’s National Insurance Record are processed by DWP within days. However, more complex cases requiring specialist caseworkers can take longer to resolve.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of automating data-sharing between his Department's Disability Service Centre and its Universal Credit section.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is always looking to make improvements to the design of the service and continues to review the way in which processes can be further automated.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many civil servants are employed in roles relating to the administration of the Access to Work scheme as of 30 January 2024.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 30 January 2024, there were 487.48 full time equivalent civil servants employed to administer Access to Work.
Please note that the data supplied is from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. They should therefore be treated with caution.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the longest time taken to transfer a claim for a Personal Independence Payment to a claim under Social Security Scotland for an Adult Disability Payment was in each month in 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold the data requested. The process for transferring claims from Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to Adult Disability Payment (ADP) has been designed and agreed with the Scottish Government in order to facilitate a safe and secure process. Most cases transferring from PIP to ADP are designed to take between 13 weeks and 16 weeks and 6 days to transfer, aligning with pay cycles. However, the time it takes for ADP to be put into payment following a case transfer trigger is a matter for the Scottish Government.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average processing time was for transferring a claim for the Personal Independence Payment to the Adult Disability Payment under Social Security Scotland in each month in 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold the data requested. The process for transferring claims from Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to Adult Disability Payment (ADP) has been designed and agreed with the Scottish Government in order to facilitate a safe and secure process. Most cases transferring from PIP to ADP are designed to take between 13 weeks and 16 weeks and 6 days to transfer, aligning with pay cycles. However, the time it takes for ADP to be put into payment following a case transfer trigger is a matter for the Scottish Government.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of Carers Allowance and State Pension being overlapping benefits on levels of pensioner poverty.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made. Although there is no upper age limit to claiming Carer’s Allowance, it cannot normally be paid with the State Pension. It has been a long-held feature of the UK’s benefit system, under successive Governments, that where someone is entitled to two benefits for the same contingency, then whilst there may be entitlement to both benefits, only one will be paid to avoid duplication for the same need.
Although entitlement to State Pension and Carer’s Allowance arise in different circumstances, they are nevertheless designed for the same contingency – as an income replacement. Carer’s Allowance replaces some income where the carer is not able to work full time due to their caring responsibilities, while State Pension replaces income in retirement. For this reason, social security rules normally operate to prevent them being paid together. However, if a carer’s State Pension is less than Carer's Allowance, State Pension is paid and topped up with Carer's Allowance to the basic weekly rate of Carer's Allowance, which is currently £76.75.
Where underlying entitlement of Carer’s Allowance occurs (all entitlement conditions are met, but the overlapping benefit rule prevents payment), additional financial support may be available through Pension Credit, notably including the additional amount payable to carers. This additional amount is currently £42.75 a week – over £2,200 a year - and around 100,000 carers receive it as part of their Pension Credit award. It is paid to recognise the additional contribution and responsibilities associated with caring and means that lower income pensioners with caring responsibilities can receive more than other lower income recipients of Pension Credit. If a pensioner’s income is above the limit for Pension Credit, they may still be able to receive Housing Benefit.
The Government is committed to action that helps to alleviate levels of pensioner poverty. The State Pension is the foundation of state support for older people. In April 2023 the State Pension was increased by 10.1% and, subject to parliamentary approval, will be increased by a further 8.5% increase from April 2024. In 2021/22, there were 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty after housing costs than in 2009/10. As far as pensioner carers are concerned, additional financial support is already available, focussed on those in most need.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit recipients had payments reduced to nil due to two earnings payments in the assessment period between (a) 26 January 2023 and 25 February 2023 and (b) 18 August 2023 and 17 September 2023.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is the subject of an upcoming statistical release, and cannot be released before that publication is ready, subject to usual quality assurance.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he is taking steps to monitor the adequacy of claimant reviews conducted by work coaches in relation to the Back to Work plan.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Claimant Commitment review meetings are currently in development and will be for those claimants who are still unemployed after the 12-month Restart programme.