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1010210

registered interest
date	19/11/2018
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: Telephone Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many members of staff directly employed by her Department or contracted to work for her Department have been available to answer incoming calls to each benefit telephone line in each of the last 18 months for which data are available.
tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
tabling member printed	Frank Field
uin	192732
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/11/2018 answer text <p>A large proportion of our staff are multi-skilled to answer the phone and process claims, and therefore we do not capture the data requested. The information we do hold is as follows:</p><p>Across all business groups each day we are likely to have 5,000 - 7,500 DWP staff and contractors actively on the phones delivering customer service. We retain the flexibility to adjust the number of colleagues working on some of the core functions to accommodate fluctuations in demand.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 22/11/2018 16:28:55 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1010366

registered interest
date	19/11/2018
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: Self-employed
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 the calculation of universal credit for self-employed people (a) accurately reflects (i) the amount that they allocate to expenses to maintain their business and (ii) their take-home earnings and (b) leaves those people in a better financial position as a result of being in work.
tabling member constituency	Barnsley Central
tabling member printed	Dan Jarvis
uin	192922
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/11/2018 answer text <p>Claimants with earnings from self-employment are required to report them to DWP on a monthly basis. These earnings are reported on a simplified 'cash accounting' basis, which asks for the total income from receipts into the business and details of payments out of the business under defined categories during the assessment period. We assess net earnings after deducting business expenses. The requirements were designed to be as simple as possible in order for self-employed claimants to easily report their earnings and monthly reporting allows Universal Credit to be adjusted on a monthly basis.</p><p> </p><p>Where claimants are in the 12-month grace period or are gainfully self-employed and earning above the Minimum Income Floor (MIF), the single taper rate acts to ensure that they are better off working and earning more under Universal Credit, removing the cliff edges from the old legacy benefits system.</p><p>We announced at Autumn Budget 2018 that all new gainfully self-employed claimants can, from September 2020, access a 12-month exemption period from the MIF. This change will assist all gainfully self-employed claimants to grow their earnings, prepare and adjust for the application of the MIF. In 2022/23 it will allow 130,000 self-employed people the space to grow a successful business when moving on to Universal Credit.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 22/11/2018 16:20:35 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
tabling member	4243 label Biography information for Dan Jarvis