Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will provide compensation to women who have been affected by changes to the State Pension age.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many full-time equivalent staff worked in his Department’s Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt unit in each of the last ten years for which figures are available.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Please see the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) numbers for Counter Fraud Compliance & Debt (CFCD) and its predecessor Counter Fraud & Compliance (CFC). To ensure compliance with GDPR, seven years of data is the maximum that we hold.
Paid Staff at specified date, Full Time Equivalent | ||
Date | FTE | CFC/CFCD |
31-Mar 2018 | 5209.8 | CFC |
31-Mar 2019 | 5488.3 | CFC |
31-Mar 2020 | 7519.4 | CFCD |
31-Mar 2021 | 6941.6 | CFCD |
31-Mar 2022 | 8289.7 | CFCD |
31-Mar 2023 | 9080.2 | CFCD |
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has had discussions with the Leader of the House on making Parliamentary time available for Members to debate and approve the recommendations in the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's report into the communication of state pension age increases, published on 21 March 2024.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an estimate of how many women affected by State Pension age changes have died since the publication of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's report into the communication of state pension age increases on 21 March 2024.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department accepts the findings of maladministration in the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's report into the communication of state pension age increases, published on 21 March 2024.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to meet with representatives of the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign following the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's report into the communication of state pension age increases, published on 21 March 2024.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.
Asked by: Simon Lightwood (Labour (Co-op) - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the time taken to assign to an investigator a complaint to the Independent Case Examiner.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The rate at which complaints can be allocated to an investigator is dependent on multiple factors including the volume and complexity of complaints received, as well as available investigative resource.
ICE is a demand led service and continues to receive high complaint intake volumes. It has experienced a 37% increase in referrals since April 2022, with an 18% increase in the 2023/24 operational year. Not all referrals into ICE are accepted for investigation. ICE has experienced an 83% increase in the volume of cases it has accepted since April 2020, with a 9% increase in the 2023/24 operational year.
The ICE office continues to review its process and operating model and continuously seeks opportunities to maximise productivity, ensuring it operates with optimum investigative resource. In the past 20 months (August 2022 – March 2024) resource levels at the ICE office have increased by 18%. The unit is operating at 99.11% of its agreed headcount.
The Office has reduced the volume of cases awaiting allocation to an investigator by 49% over the 2023/24 operational year. The combined number of cases being handled by the ICE Office at the end of March 2024 was 1462, this represents a 33% reduction from March 2023 despite the high intake levels experienced.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Cold Weather Payments have been made to pensioners in (a) South Holland and (b) Kesteven district in the last five years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Cold Weather Payment (CWP) scheme is administered at weather station level rather than at a constituency or regional level etc. The coverage area for each weather station is determined by the Met Office, which assesses the most appropriate weather station for each postcode area. Cold weather payments are triggered when the average temperature recorded at the weather station has been recorded as, or is forecast to be, 0° C or below over seven consecutive days, during the Cold Weather season (November to March).
a) The area of South Holland covers all or part of the following postcode areas: PE11, PE12, PE10, PE6, PE13, PE14, PE34.
From the 2019/20 to 2023/24 Cold Weather Payment seasons, the above postcode areas are covered by various weather stations. These weather stations cover the following postcode areas, in Table 1, which include areas not in South Holland. Table 2 shows the number of cold weather payments to pensioners by weather station and cold weather season.
Table 1: Postcode districts mapped to Weather Stations
Weather station | Postcode Districts Covered |
Marham | CB6-7, IP24-28, PE12-14, PE30-38. |
Waddington | DN9-10, DN15-22, DN31-41, LN1-13, NG23-24, PE10-11, PE20-25. |
Wittering | LE15, NN14-18, PE1-9, PE15-16, PE26-29 |
Table 2: Number of Cold Weather Payments to pensioners by weather station and Cold Weather Season
Weather Station | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 |
Marham | 0 | 10,000 | 0 | 27,000 | 9,000 |
Waddington | 0 | 26,000 | 0 | 23,000 | 0 |
Wittering | 0 | 10,000 | 0 | 24,000 | 0 |
b) The area of South Kesteven covers all or part of the following postcode areas: PE6, PE9, PE10, NG23, NG31, NG32, NG33, NG34.
From the 2019/20 to 2023/24 Cold Weather Payment seasons, the above postcode areas are covered by various weather stations. These weather stations cover the following postcode areas, in Table 3, which include areas not in South Kesteven. Table 4 shows the number of cold weather payments to pensioners by weather station and cold weather season.
Table 3: Postcode districts mapped to Weather Stations
Weather station | Postcode Districts Covered |
Nottingham Watnall | CV13, DE1-3, DE5-7, DE11-15, DE21-24, DE55-56, DE65, DE72-75, LE1-9, LE11-14, LE16-19, LE65, LE67, NG1-22, NG25, NG31-34. |
Waddington | DN9-10, DN15-22, DN31-41, LN1-13, NG23-24, PE10-11, PE20-25. |
Wittering | LE15, NN14-18, PE1-9, PE15-16, PE26-29 |
Table 4: Number of Cold Weather Payments to pensioners by weather station and Cold Weather Season
Weather Station | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 |
Nottingham Watnall | 0 | 60,000 | 0 | 55,000 | 0 |
Waddington | 0 | 26,000 | 0 | 23,000 | 0 |
Wittering | 0 | 10,000 | 0 | 24,000 | 0 |
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
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 increasing the number of weeks for which a person can undertake training and remain eligible for universal credit.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Work Coaches recommend options to customers to address skills barriers and provide support for them to access a wide range of provision. Which can include essential Maths, English and Digital Skills, and other vocational opportunities such as Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs).
Whilst periods of training are generally expected to be directly linked to customer’s work search goals, we have increased the amount of time Universal Credit customers in the All Work Related Requirements conditionality group can take part in full time, work-related training for up to 16 weeks in Great Britain.
Where a longer period of training is required to equip someone with the skills for work whilst also maintaining employment, other options are available including apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are designed by employers and open to learners of all ages, with vocational courses ranging from level 2 up to post-graduate qualifications.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants have received tax credit overpayments since their migration to Universal Credit in St Albans district.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A claim for Universal Credit (UC) closes any tax credit claim with any associated overpayment arising from tax credits passed to DWP for recovery.
The number of individuals in St Alban’s that had received a migration notice by Dec-23 was nil/negligible. We are therefore unable to provide the requested data to prevent releasing potentially disclosive information about individuals.