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947127

	registered interest
	date	23/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what are their plans to address payment errors and delays for people attempting to claim Universal Credit.
	tabling member printed	Lord Taylor of Warwick
	uin	HL9817
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>Around 80 per cent of new claims are paid in full and on time. In many cases, where full payment is not made on time by the end of the first assessment period, this is as a result of unresolved issues such as: some claimants have not signed their Claimant Commitment or passed identity checks, and the others have outstanding verification issues, such as for housing and self-employed earnings. Whilst their verification is on-going, many of these claimants receive a part payment for those elements of the claim that have been resolved. Within five weeks of the payment due date, 95 per cent of claims are paid in full.</p><p>DWP continues to monitor payment timeliness and we have made changes to improve payment timeliness. For example, we have built processes into the system to make it easier and quicker for people to verify information such as their housing costs.</p><p> </p><p>Advances are available to provide financial support until the first payment and these can now be repaid over a course of 12 months and can consist of up to 100 per cent of the indicative monthly award. We have also abolished waiting days and now provide 2 weeks of housing support to claimants moving to Universal Credit from Housing Benefit.</p><p> </p><p>If a claim has been delayed due to error, DWP can also consider awarding an ex-gratia payment, as set out in the guide of Financial Redress for Maladministration, available on gov.uk, and which is attached.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 13:50:40 question first ministerially corrected 31/07/2018 14:41:10 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe attachment 1 file name HL9817 Financial Redress for Maladministration FR.PDF title Financial Redress for Maladministration previous answer version 72633 answering member printed Baroness Buscombe answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	1796 label Biography information for Lord Taylor of Warwick

947537

	registered interest
	date	24/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Poverty: Children
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, or intend to make, of the report of the Resolution Foundation, Living Standards Audit 2018, published on 24 July, and its conclusion that the proportion of children in poverty has risen by 21 per cent in the five years to 2016, rather than their estimate of 11 per cent.
	tabling member printed	Lord Bird
	uin	HL9830
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>Benefit under-reporting in household surveys is a well-known, long standing issue. To date it has not been possible to accurately resolve this. The Resolution Foundation’s report published on 24 July attempts to correct this issue. However, they do not have accurate information on which households are under-reporting. Consequently, they use a series of assumptions to select a number of households in the survey, allocating them additional income from benefits. This means the conclusions in the report will be sensitive to the households selected; different assumptions will give different results.</p><p> </p><p>DWP is currently working towards a more accurate solution to correct this issue, whereby survey records are combined with administrative data to improve the quality of the survey data. Making this correction is likely to reduce the number of individuals classed as being in low income.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 13:51:06 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	4564 label Biography information for Lord Bird

947108

	registered interest
	date	23/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Local Housing Allowance: Care Leavers
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to implement the recommendation in the Social Security Advisory Committee’s report Young People Living Independently, published in May, to extend the exemption for care leavers from the Shared Accommodation Rate of Local Housing Allowance until they reach age 25.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Lister of Burtersett
	uin	HL9798
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>The Government has no plans at present to implement the recommendation in the Social Security Advisory Committee’s report “Young People Living Independently” to extend the exemption for care leavers from the Shared Accommodation Rate until age 25. We will, however, keep this under review as the current lack of data means we are unable to be clear about the size of the problem. We continue to work with the Department for Education to develop the evidence base and consider evidence from stakeholders on the impact that the shared accommodation has on care leavers.</p><p> </p><p>Since 2011 the Government has provided around £1 billion in Discretionary Housing Payment funding to local authorities to help support vulnerable people, including care leavers, mitigate rent shortfalls.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 13:50:06 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	4234 label Biography information for Baroness Lister of Burtersett

947081

	registered interest
	date	23/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Personal Independence Payment
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Buscombe on 19 July (HL9263), on what evidence they determined that gender is relevant to the needs arising from long-term health conditions or disabilities while ethnicity is not; and whether they will place a copy of that evidence in the Library of the House.
	tabling member printed	Lord Boateng
	uin	HL9771
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>Whilst designing Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the Department considered the relevance of what data should be collected and recorded to support the good management of a PIP claim. PIP is based on needs arising from a long-term health condition or disability so gender is not a factor in the decision making process in PIP.</p><p> </p><p>However, the collection of data on gender supports the good management of PIP claims as it supports our communications with claimants.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 13:49:29 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	147 label Biography information for Lord Boateng

947080

	registered interest
	date	23/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Personal Independence Payment
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Buscombe on 19 July (HL9263), whether they will publish the outcome of their consideration of how to give assurance that the assessment process for Personal Independent Payments does not disproportionately affect BAME communities.
	tabling member printed	Lord Boateng
	uin	HL9770
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>We are currently considering the approach we will take to this work and will decide on the most suitable method of disseminating the outcomes as part of that activity.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 13:49:04 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	147 label Biography information for Lord Boateng

945623

	registered interest
	date	20/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits: Ethnic Groups
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they conduct ethnic monitoring of social security benefits, including Universal Credit; and if so, whether this system collects data on the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Lister of Burtersett
	uin	HL9752
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>Claimants, including Universal Credit claimants, are given the option to provide their ethnicity for monitoring purposes. We have published volumes of claimants broken down by ethnicity for some benefits. This is publically available and can be accessed using DWP’s Stat-Xplore function on the gov.uk website, or the Nomis service provided by the Office for National Statistics.</p><p> </p><p>The data is not broken down to Gypsy, Roma and Travellers. These individuals are captured in the larger ethnic group they identify with.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 13:48:38 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	4234 label Biography information for Baroness Lister of Burtersett

944945

	registered interest
	date	19/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Buscombe on 19 July, stating that "on underpayments, I should be clear that no one suffered a cash loss", what is their definition of a cash loss; what term a claimant should use to describe an underpayment; what is the difference between an underpayment, a payment in full and an overpayment; and whether they consider an overpayment to be a cash benefit to the recipient.
	tabling member printed	Lord Touhig
	uin	HL9728
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>No-one suffered a cash loss when they were converted from incapacity benefits to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) because where the amount of ESA they were entitled to was lower than the previous incapacity benefit award, it was ‘topped up’ to match their previous award by a transitional addition.</p><p> </p><p>We are unable to say whether someone has been underpaid on conversion from incapacity benefit to ESA and is due arrears of benefit until we have gathered the necessary financial information (by way of an ESA3 form) and reviewed their award.</p><p> </p><p>Overpayments are when a claimant is paid more in benefit than they are entitled to. Underpayments are when a claimant is paid less than they are entitled to. The Department seeks to recover overpayments of benefit in accordance with the appropriate legislation.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 12:22:19 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	542 label Biography information for Lord Touhig

944944

	registered interest
	date	19/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what improvements in payment timelines they expect to achieve for claimants of Universal Credit in 2018.
	tabling member printed	Lord Touhig
	uin	HL9727
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>Around 80 per cent of new claims are paid in full and on time. In many cases, where full payment is not made on time by the end of the first assessment period, this is as a result of unresolved issues such as: some claimants have not signed their Claimant Commitment or passed identity checks, and the others have outstanding verification issues, such as for housing and self-employed earnings. Whilst their verification is on-going, many of these claimants receive a part payment for those elements of the claim that have been resolved. Within five weeks of the payment due date, 95 per cent of claims are paid in full.</p><p>DWP continues to monitor payment timeliness and we have made changes to improve payment timeliness. For example, we have built processes into the system to make it easier and quicker for people to verify information such as their housing costs.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 12:22:38 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	542 label Biography information for Lord Touhig

944943

	registered interest
	date	19/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reduce the number of Universal Credit claimants experiencing financial difficulties from four in 10, as reported in their Universal Credit Full Source Survey, published in June.
	tabling member printed	Lord Touhig
	uin	HL9726
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>We have introduced a number of measures to support and reduce the number of claimants facing financial difficulties.</p><p>We are investing up to £200 million into budgeting and digital support, to help claimants with the transition to Universal Credit and our work coaches work closely with claimants, ensuring they can identify any vulnerabilities or specific needs, such as financial difficulties, at an early stage. We have also invested £1.5 billion in a package of measures to support claimants financially in the first assessment period.</p><p>From 3 January, claimants have been getting advances of up to 100 per cent of their indicative monthly entitlement within a few days. From 14 February, waiting days were removed, and from 11 April, claimants transitioning to Universal Credit from Housing Benefit have been getting an additional 2 weeks of housing cost payments.</p><p>In June, we announced additional protection for people who receive Severe Disability Premium – they will stay on legacy benefits until Transitional Protection applies and we will introduce protection for those who have already moved on to Universal Credit.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 12:21:49 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	542 label Biography information for Lord Touhig

944942

	registered interest
	date	19/07/2018
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they measure the number of claimants of Universal Credit who are experiencing financial hardship; and if so, how many such claimants there are.
	tabling member printed	Lord Touhig
	uin	HL9725
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/07/2018 answer text <p>For many people who do experience financial difficulties, these pre-date their claim to Universal Credit. For example, in their report published on 11 July 2018, the National Federation of Arms-Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) of Social Housing providers found that of those Universal Credit households in rent arrears, 76 per cent had arrears prior to moving onto Universal Credit.</p><p> </p><p>In the Universal Credit Claimant survey, published in June 2018, 4 in 10 claimants reported they were having difficulties keeping up with bills. In 2011/12 in the report “Work and the welfare system: a survey of benefits and tax credits recipients” from 2011/12, one in three main claimants said they run out of money before the end of the week/month always or most of the time, and a further third said this happens more often than not or sometimes. Both surveys are available on gov.uk.</p><p> </p><p>Unlike in the legacy system, we are investing around £200 million over the Universal Credit implementation period into Universal Support to help claimants with budget management and digital support. Our work coaches work closely with claimants, ensuring they can identify any vulnerabilities such as financial hardship at an early stage. They can then tailor support according to claimants’ individual needs and help to address these issues.</p><p> </p><p>We also have a system of advances and budgeting support to help people with the transition to Universal Credit. From 3 January 2018, we increased the repayment period of Universal Credit advances to 12 months, with claimants able to get up to 100 per cent of their estimated monthly entitlement upfront. These advances are available to claimants interest-free, and from July 2018, can be applied for online.</p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 31/07/2018 12:18:44 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	542 label Biography information for Lord Touhig