Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to implement safeguards in situations where her Department makes backdated payments of benefits to vulnerable people with mental health issues or drug or alcohol dependencies.

On legacy benefits when we identify a customer is vulnerable every endeavour is made to contact the claimant or their appointee, discuss and explain the high value payment we intend to issue and identify if they have any concerns over receiving such an amount of money. As part of this process both from the conversation and the earlier information we had available we would encourage using split or phased payments if we viewed a risk in making one large payment to the claimant. If we cannot make contact, we will refer to our visiting team to make attempts to visit them at home and have those conversations. On Universal Credit, vulnerability is dealt with on a case-by-case basis so that the necessary support can be given to claimants.

Current payment regulations only permit us to restrict amounts of payments with a claimant’s consent. If we did not feel that claimant was able to manage their affairs, or make that decision for themselves, we would then consider if an appointee was appropriate.

The Department is currently working to enhance safeguarding procedures across all benefit products to help staff to identify claimants who may need additional support because their circumstances make them vulnerable. A multi-disciplinary working group is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of the processes and procedures we have in place across DWP to identify and support vulnerable claimants who are entitled to backdated payments of benefits. This will include sharing best practice from legacy processes and exploring what more we can do to ensure vulnerable claimants in this situation are given access to the support they need, and developing a proposal for the implementation of these improvements. This will ensure that the Department will be able to fully support the eligible claimants on Universal Credit who will be entitled to a Severe Disability Premium transitional payment.