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1135484

	registered interest
	date	28/06/2019
	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	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 June 2019 to Question 268401, what information she holds on the reasons why those 156,000 claimants with deductions from universal credit for non-universal credit debts are not repaying their debts.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	270705
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>The table below provides information on why the specified claimants were not repaying their debts.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Zero balance**</p></td><td><p>92,776</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Business as usual/head of work (Includes future instalment confirmation)</p></td><td><p>48,196</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Awaiting Financial Reconciliation</p></td><td><p>12,452</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>In progress – Awaiting further information (e.g. customer correspondence/contact)</p></td><td><p>4,214</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Managed by external contractor (Debt collection agency)</p></td><td><p>618</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Awaiting appeal outcome</p></td><td><p>534</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Waiting for customer to call back</p></td><td><p>306</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Other</p></td><td><p>477</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><em>*The data provided in this response has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar data subsequently released by the Department.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>** The zero balance category is made up of debts that have been fully repaid, but are yet to be removed from the Debt Manager system. It is important to note that no further recovery action will be taken in these cases</em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 15/07/2019 15:06:25 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1138074

	registered interest
	date	10/07/2019
	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	Sahaviriya Steel Industries UK: Redundancy
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the timetable is for the publication of its final report on the effectiveness of programmes to protect former SSI steelworkers from long-term unemployment.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	275684
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>The Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) Task Force, funded by the Government to support individuals and businesses directly affected by the closure of SSI in Redcar, has published 3 annual reports (the most recent in 2018) setting out progress with helping the people affected by the liquidation of SSI. Further details are at: <a href="https://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/SSITaskForce" target="_blank">https://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/SSITaskForce</a></p><p> </p><p>The Task Force has commissioned the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to analyse the outcomes of workers affected by the closure.</p><p> </p><p>The DWP has been working to identify; quality assure; integrate and securely store and handle data on former SSI UK employees and workers in its supply chain to fulfil the commission of the Task Force. The department’s analysis will innovatively combine data from the official receiver; local tracking data from collected by Job Centre Plus; DWP/HMRC administrative data; and published ONS data.</p><p> </p><p>The analysis is currently being finalised and will be published in due course by the Department for Work and Pensions.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 15/07/2019 14:30:53 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1138133

	registered interest
	date	10/07/2019
	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
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have people on universal credit who have turned down a job offer in the last 12 months have cited lack of affordable childcare as the reason; and how many of those people received (a) a civil penalty and (b) a sanction.
	tabling member constituency	High Peak
	tabling member printed	Ruth George
	uin	275817
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>On Universal Credit, claimants are able to claim up to 85 per cent of their childcare costs, compared to 70 per cent on the legacy system. Where the initial month’s childcare costs may prevent a claimant from starting work, Jobcentres can use the Flexible Support Fund to help claimants. This is a non-repayable award, which can be used to meet the upfront costs of childcare to help support a claimant into work.</p><p> </p><p>Civil Penalties may be imposed by both DWP and Local Authorities, where an individual incurs a recoverable overpayment as a result of failing to provide accurate information as part of their benefit claim or in connection with an award of benefit, and have not taken reasonable steps to correct the error. Civil Penalties are not imposed in the event of a claimant refusing to accept a job offer.</p><p> </p><p>The information request about those receiving a sanction is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 15/07/2019 15:15:03 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	4662 label Biography information for Ruth George

1138178

	registered interest
	date	10/07/2019
	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: Fraud
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information her Department holds on the proportion of successful universal credit claims which are fraudulent; and how that figure compares to legacy benefits.
	tabling member constituency	Birmingham, Selly Oak
	tabling member printed	Steve McCabe
	uin	275667
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>Under Universal Credit (UC) claimants will only have one claim to benefit, whereas under Legacy, they may have made claims to multiple benefits. It is therefore not possible to draw a direct comparison between the caseloads of UC and Legacy benefits. UC will also incorporate Tax Credits which is currently administered by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, who record their overpayments differently.</p><p> </p><p>The Department is open and transparent about the cost of fraud and error in the benefit system, publishing our National “Fraud and Error in the Benefit System” statistics each year which detail the amount we estimate is lost to both fraud and error across all benefits.</p><p> </p><p>Most welfare losses, across Government, arise from claimants failing to report changes of circumstances, Universal Credit (UC) provides a single, digital interface through which claimants can more easily report these changes. As such, once UC is fully rolled out, we expect cross-welfare losses to fraud, error and overpayments to be reduced by around £1 billion per year. UC also allows us to adjust benefit entitlement in line with changing circumstances in real time. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping to inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances.</p><p /><p>As of June 2019, the Department has received around 42,000 fraud referrals from staff relating to potential fraudulent advance claims, which equates to less than 1 per cent of all Universal Credit claims.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 15/07/2019 15:11:50 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	298 label Biography information for Steve McCabe

1138234

	registered interest
	date	10/07/2019
	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	Unemployment
	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 (a) make representations to the Office for National Statistics on (a) compiling and (b) publishing monthly data on long-term unemployment in each parliamentary constituency; and (b) allocate funding for the compilation of those statistics.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	275688
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>Estimates of the number of people who are unemployed for sub-regional geographies in the UK are compiled by the independent Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is done using the Annual Population Survey (APS), a large household survey of people in the UK.</p><p> </p><p>The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – along with the Department for Education; the Ministry of Defence; Public Health England; the Welsh Government; and the Scottish Government – contributes funding for the ONS to conduct the APS. The department’s officials work with the ONS to offer advice on the design and delivery of the survey.</p><p> </p><p>It is not possible to produce robust estimates of the number of people who are long-term unemployed (12 months or more) for parliamentary constituency areas, due to the size of the survey sample at this level of geography.</p><p> </p><p>It is also not considered technically feasible to alter the APS to allow for the production of robust monthly estimates of the number long-term unemployed people at parliamentary constituency area.</p><p> </p><p>The ONS are working on alternative approaches to producing labour market estimates, as part of the ONS’s Census and Data Collection Transformation Programme. The outcome of this work may enable the requested data to be produced, however this programme is still in its research and development stage.</p><p> </p><p>The DWP publishes, via its Stat Xplore website, official statistics on the duration people have claimed Universal Credit by parliamentary constituency area.</p><p> </p><p>Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:</p><p><a href="https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html" target="_blank">https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html</a></p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 15/07/2019 14:43:28 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead