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1129988

	registered interest
	date	05/06/2019
	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	Pensions: Consumer Information
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that consumer interest is central to the development of the pensions dashboard product.
	tabling member constituency	Wallasey
	tabling member printed	Ms Angela Eagle
	uin	260556
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2019 answer text <p>Pension dashboards are a priority for this government and ensuring they are delivered in the interest of consumers is of the upmost importance to us.</p><p> </p><p>That is why the Money and Pensions Service will convene an industry delivery group to oversee the development, delivery and governance of dashboards. On 3 June 2019, the Money and Pensions Service announced that Chris Curry from the Pensions Policy Institute will be the Principal of the industry delivery group, the most senior role within the group. As the Principal, he will identify and agree who in industry will sit on the delivery group to ensure they are best placed to deliver dashboards for the benefit of the consumer. The industry delivery group will be made up of stakeholders from across the industry, consumer groups, regulators and government.</p><p>Once the industry delivery group is up and running, what we expect to see from them in 2019 is to:</p><ul><li>create a roadmap for delivering the supporting architecture;</li><li>start to work with industry on agreeing data standards and schemes readiness to provide data and;</li><li>design a robust governance and security framework.</li></ul><p>In parallel we expect industry to start creating and testing consumer facing dashboards. This will help determine what information is necessary and show how it can be presented in a meaningful way that best meets the needs of the consumer. The industry delivery group must carefully consider how and when the first live dashboards are promoted to consumers.</p><p>We also set out in the government’s response to the consultation on pensions dashboards, the ten design principles which the industry delivery group must adhere to when designing the dashboard system to help ensure the privacy and security of individual’s data. These include that the system must comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation and that the system must not include a central database.</p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman question first answered 10/06/2019 15:47:35 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	491 label Biography information for Dame Angela Eagle

1129612

	registered interest
	date	04/06/2019
	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: Pensioners
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what transitional protection is available to pensioner couples who no longer receive pension credit because one of them is below state pension age, are no longer entitled to housing benefit as a result and have applied for universal credit.
	tabling member constituency	East Ham
	tabling member printed	Stephen Timms
	uin	259830
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2019 answer text <p>The mixed age couples change will not apply to couples already claiming Pension Credit and/or Housing Benefit for pensioners on 14 May for as long as they remain entitled to either benefit. DWP wrote earlier this year to mixed age couples already receiving Pension Credit and/or Housing Benefit for pensioners to ensure they know about the change and how they could be affected if their circumstances change on or after 15 May.</p><p>Couples who would be eligible for the pension age benefits under the previous rules but have not claimed before 15 May will have up to 13 August to make a backdated claim to 14 May and we encourage them to do so</p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman question first answered 10/06/2019 15:27:37 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	163 label Biography information for Sir Stephen Timms

1129768

	registered interest
	date	04/06/2019
	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	Post Office Card Account
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Post Office card accounts were active in each of the last five years; and how much his Department paid into those accounts.
	tabling member constituency	Motherwell and Wishaw
	tabling member printed	Marion Fellows
	uin	260046
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2019 answer text <p><strong> </strong></p><p>The figures for the number of active accounts at year end for the last five years are as follows:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>At Year End</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Total Number of Accounts</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>March 2015</p></td><td><p>2409075</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>March 2016</p></td><td><p>2179279</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>March 2017</p></td><td><p>1790546</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>March 2018</p></td><td><p>1383266</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>March 2019</p></td><td><p>1103328</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>The figures for the amount paid into Post Office card accounts for the last five financial years are as follows:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Financial Year</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Monies Paid in by DWP</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2014-2015</p></td><td><p>£17,333,287,535.11</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2015-2016</p></td><td><p>£16,228,823,143.88</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2016-2017</p></td><td><p>£14,141,533,797.78</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2017-2018</p></td><td><p>£12,047,638,556.85</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2018-2019</p></td><td><p>£9,515,393,806.89</p></td></tr></tbody></table> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman question first answered 10/06/2019 16:02:06 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	4440 label Biography information for Marion Fellows

1129769

	registered interest
	date	04/06/2019
	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	Post Office Card Account
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to extend the use of Post Office card accounts beyond 2021.
	tabling member constituency	Motherwell and Wishaw
	tabling member printed	Marion Fellows
	uin	260047
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2019 answer text <p>The Post Office card account contract ends in November 2021. There are currently no plans to extend this contract.</p><p>The DWP has written to customers who use the Post Office card accounts to encourage them to receive payment into a mainstream account. This is part of our policy of reducing reliance on payment exception services and promoting financial inclusion through the use of mainstream accounts. Mainstream accounts offer more features and reduce the cost to the taxpayer. One of the key messages we highlight, is that 99% of banks’ personal accounts enable customers to withdraw cash, deposit cash and cheques, and make balance enquiries at a Post Office counter via its network of 11,600 branches.</p><p>For those claimants and pensioners who are unable to open a mainstream account, the DWP will implement an alternative payment service that allows users to obtain cash payments in their local area (including suburban and rural locations) before the end of the Post Office card account contract in November 2021.</p><p>All DWP letters provide a free telephone number where the customer can call to discuss their payment options further and change their method of payment over the telephone. A copy of these letters will be placed in the House of Commons Library.</p><p>As we approach the end of the Post Office card account contract, the DWP and POL will work together to issue joint guidance on Post Office card account user’s options, to transfer to other payments methods.</p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman question first answered 10/06/2019 14:30:01 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	4440 label Biography information for Marion Fellows

1128257

	registered interest
	date	24/05/2019
	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	Winter Fuel Payment: Maladministration
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions the winter fuel payment has been incorrectly paid; and what steps he has taken to recover those payments in each of the last three years.
	tabling member constituency	Moray
	tabling member printed	Douglas Ross
	uin	257526
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2019 answer text <p>The DWP makes around 12 million Winter Fuel payments each year.</p><p>The DWP is working hard to prevent overpayments from occurring in the first place. However, these do sometimes occur due to a claimant failing to inform DWP of a change of household composition, or that they have moved abroad. Winter Fuel staff annually undertake an extensive Data Matching exercise to identify if any overpayments have occurred, and reduce the possibility of incorrect payments.</p><p>The table below shows the volume of Winter Fuel payments that were overpaid in the last 3 financial years rounded to the nearest 100. This represents less than 0.05% of the total Winter Fuel payments made.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Year</p></td><td><p>Volume Of Winter Fuel Payments Overpaid</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2016-17</p></td><td><p>3,600</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2017-18</p></td><td><p>5,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2018-19</p></td><td><p>5,200</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><em>*The data in this response has been sourced from internal management information. It should therefore not be compared to any other similar data subsequently released by the Department.</em></p><p /><p>The DWP has an obligation to ensure that public money is administered responsibly. Therefore, where permitted under Social Security legislation, the DWP seeks to recover any overpaid benefit. Where possible, the DWP will recover through on-going deductions from a claimant’s benefit.</p><p>The DWP ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants who have deductions from their benefit to repay overpayments. There are maximum rates of deduction that are set out in legislation, and if a claimant is struggling they can contact the DWP’s Debt Management Team to discuss lowering their repayment rate.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Hexham answering member printed Guy Opperman question first answered 10/06/2019 15:06:10 answering member 4142 label Biography information for Guy Opperman
	tabling member	4627 label Biography information for Douglas Ross