Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish data on current levels of social security fraud; and what steps he is taking to reduce social security fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Data on the levels of fraud in the benefit system is published annually, with the latest figures available via the following link:
Fraud and error in the benefit system: financial year 2021 to 2022 estimates - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our plans for reducing the level of fraud and error in the welfare system by:
The full document can be found at: Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System-GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab).
The Government is investing £1.4bn of funding over the next three years to combat fraud and error. This includes additional invest to save funding, which will help stop over £2.0bn of loss in fraud and error during this time.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the adequacy of the (a) size and (b) resources of the data and analytics team within her Department.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
DWP regularly assess Data and Analytics capability and capacity based on assessment of DWP requirements. DWP have assessed this requirement as part of the Spending Review settlement process alongside other priorities. This has included looking at the data and analytics outcomes that DWP need to deliver, and whether the technical infrastructure, capability and capacity are appropriately aligned.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his Department will take steps to provide funding for computer programming courses in (a) Newcastle upon Tyne East constituency and (b) England.
Answered by Andrea Jenkyns
There are a range of just over 200 digital qualifications which are nationally available for funding both those 16 to 19 and adults, and this will include availability in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
These qualifications will be at a range of levels and will include broader qualifications covering a range of IT, digital and computing skills, as well as level 2 and level 3 qualifications in computing which will have a greater focus on aspects of programming.
Three T Levels in Digital are now available in a number of providers across the country, Digital Business Services, Digital Production, Design and Development, and Digital Support Services. They offer a prestigious, high-quality technical option at level 3, supporting progression to occupations such as software development technician. Colleges in Newcastle and its surrounding areas are now offering T Levels in the digital route.
Through the Level 3 Free Courses for Jobs offer, we have made more than 400 level 3 courses free for adults learning below the national living wage and those that haven’t previously obtained a level 3 qualification. Courses are available in a range of digital skills, including: cyber security, coding, network architecture, and systems support. We are also expanding Skills Bootcamps, which are free, flexible courses in job specific skills, including in digital areas such as software development, coding and data analytics. A large number of digital Skills Bootcamps are being delivered online and are available to learners across the country, however there are courses being delivered in person, which are available at Gateshead College, Tyne Coast College and Northumbria University.
Newcastle Upon Tyne is a devolved area for the purposes of the Adult Education Budget (AEB), which means that it is responsible for the provision of adult education and allocation of the AEB in the area including determining what adult provision to fund to meet learner and employer demand.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the capacity of her Department's Data and Analytics team in relation to its (a) level of resourcing and (b) staff headcount; and what recent assessment she has made of the level of capacity being used within that team in July 2022.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
DWP regularly assess Data and Analytics capability and capacity based on assessment of DWP requirements. Recently, DWP have assessed this requirement as part of the Spending Review settlement process alongside other priorities. This has included looking at the data and analytics outcomes that DWP need to deliver, and whether the technical infrastructure, capability and capacity are appropriately aligned.
Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will publish a table showing the (1) lowest, and (2) median, (a) pre-2016, and (b) post-2016, state pension for (i) men, and (ii) women.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The median weekly amount of State Pension paid, by gender, at the end of November 2021 is shown in the below table. These show payments under the two systems: - (i) the basic State Pension (bSP) plus other components such additional State Pension (SERPS and State Second Pension) and Graduated Retirement Benefit, which operated for people who reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016; and (ii) the new State Pension (nSP) system for people reaching State Pension age from that date onwards. The lowest State Pension amounts in payments are less than £1 per week for all groups.
Please note that this does not include any payments of Pension Credit which people may be receiving in addition to their contributory State Pension.
Median weekly amount of State Pension (£) by gender, Quarter ending November 2021
Type of State Pension | Women | Men | Total |
Pre 2016 State Pension | 150.88 | 172.79 | 161.06 |
New State Pension | 175.90 | 179.41 | 177.94 |
Source: DWP, Data and Analytics, Digital Group - Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study, and other administrative data.
Notes:
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the level of fraud and error in the welfare system.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published 19 May 2022, sets out our plans for reducing the level of fraud and error in the welfare system by:
The full document can be found at Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The government is investing £1.4bn of funding over the next three years, to combat fraud and error.
We estimate this investment will stop over £2.0bn of loss in fraud and error during this time.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to protect the public purse by reducing fraud.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Government takes fraud seriously. HM Government has announced the establishment of the Public Sector Fraud Authority, once launched, will ensure increased scrutiny of counter-fraud performance and build broader and deeper expert services for public bodies, including the use of data analytics, intelligence and risk services.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Dr Ruth Watkinson and Dr Alex Turner’s research from the University of Manchester, whether routine monitoring of ethnic disparities in healthcare and potential causing factors have been included as part of performance measurement of local health systems.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The Health and Care Act 2022 provides for statutory arrangements for integrated care systems, comprising an integrated care board (ICB) and an integrated care partnership.
ICBs have a range of new duties on health inequalities under the Act and must have due regard to the need to reduce inequalities in access to and outcomes from health services. NHS England is required to conduct an annual performance assessment of how well each ICB has discharged its functions, including a regard to the duties on health inequalities. NHS England’s ‘2022/23 priorities and operational planning guidance’ sets the expectation that ICB and trust board performance packs are disaggregated by deprivation and ethnicity and NHS England and NHS Improvement are using this approach in performance reporting to its own boards. In addition, using data and analytics to redesign care pathways and measure outcomes to improve equity of access for underserved communities was a specific priority in the guidance.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the level of fraud and error in the welfare system.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System published 19 May 2022, sets out our plans for reducing the level of fraud and error in the welfare system by:
The full document can be found on Welcome to GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
It sets out how we will invest £613m over the next three years in our frontline counter-fraud professionals and establish a brand-new team of trained specialists to conduct Targeted Case Reviews of Universal Credit claims, which will see us review 2 million cases over the next 5 years. This money represents a 75% increase in funding to combat fraud and error, taking our resourcing to £1.4bn over the next three years.
We estimate this investment will stop £2.0bn of loss in fraud and error during this time.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) hire people with technical data skills and knowledge for senior roles in the NHS and (b) train those in senior roles in the basics of data analysis as recommended in the Goldacre review.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are currently considering the recommendations of the Goldacre review, including those relating to modernising National Health Service analytics. However, the data strategy for health and social care, which will be published in summer 2022, outlines the intention to improve the skills of the current data and analytics workforce and build a team of future analytical leaders. This will include unified competency frameworks aligned to the Government Analysis Function skills, as part of a national competency framework for data professionals in health and care. We will work with the NHS to promote analytical and data skills through the strategy alongside existing projects, such as the Digital Readiness Education Programme.