Tag: Mark Hendrick

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on how many claims for benefits made by telephone by people in Preston constituency in 2014 to date were interrupted by the claimant running out of credit.

Steve Webb

The requested information is not available from current Management Information systems as no information relating to the causes of call terminations is gathered. As such, it is not possible to distinguish between reasons for termination or to distinguish between calls terminated by agents or callers.

The current Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) policy is that all calls should be free to our 0800 numbers to claim:

• State Pension;
• Pension Credit;
• Jobseekers’ Allowance;
• Income Support;
• Employment Support Allowance; and,
• Personal Independence Payment.

It is free to call DWP 0800 numbers from all major landline providers.

DWP continues to have agreements with O2, Everything Everywhere (formerly Orange and T-Mobile), Vodafone (including Cable & Wireless), Three (also known as Hutchison 3G), Tesco Mobile and Virgin Mobile ahead of the OFCOM changes due in June 2015. This agreement allows many of our customers to make free mobile phone calls from their participating networks to the Department’s 0800 customer numbers.

DWP is aware of possible concerns about call charges to enquiry and claims lines so agents will routinely offer to call a customer back if concerns are raised over the cost of the call. The Department also provides controlled access to telephones for claimants if required in support of job-searches or benefit enquiries.

During June 2014 the average duration of a call to the Primary Benefit New Claims lines (ESA, IS and JSA) from connection to termination was 14 minutes and 43 seconds.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to credit check people with unpaid court fines.

Mr Shailesh Vara

Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service regularly check the details of offenders who have outstanding financial impositions against a credit reference agency database as part of the standard process of enforcing financial court orders.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the potential cost of the Government’s plans to abolish the AS level qualification.

Mr Nick Gibb

The Government has no plans to abolish the AS qualification. The Government is decoupling the AS from the A level, and the AS will remain available as an option for students wishing to broaden their programme of A level study by taking an AS in a particular subject.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many publications produced by his Department other than, Employment and Support Allowance sanctions for the work related activity group (ISBN Number: 978-1-78425-557-2), have been withdrawn from the gov.uk website since 8 May 2015.

Justin Tomlinson

In common with other departments, DWP regularly reviews its publications and other content online at GOV.UK and supplementary websites.

Records for changes to our websites are not held centrally, and this information could only be collated at disproportionate cost.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many claims for compensation have been submitted by residents of Preston constituency to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority that have not yet been resolved.

Damian Green

CICA does not hold information that would allow it to extract figures based on parliamentary constituencies.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-02-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding NHS walk-in centres in (a) Preston, (b) Lancashire and (c) the North West received from Government in (i) 2010, (ii) 2011, (iii) 2012, (iv) 2013 and (v) 2014.

Jane Ellison

This information is not available centrally.

Since 2007, the local National Health Service has been responsible for NHS walk-in-centres. Local commissioners decide on the funding and availability of these services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many registered nurses were made redundant by each NHS health trust in England in 2013.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The number (Headcount basis) of Qualified Nursing Staff made redundant, from National Health Service trusts, during 2013 is estimated in the attached table.

In November 2013 there was a record full time equivalent number of qualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff in the NHS of 312,900.

The 489 redundancies represent just 0.14 % of the total Qualified Nursing workforce in Hospitals and Community Health Services.

The data used in this reply has been extracted from the Electronic Staff Record (ESR) Data Warehouse which is a monthly snap shot of the live ESR system. This is the Human Resources and payroll system that covers all NHS employees other than those working in General Practice, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and organisations to which functions have been transferred, such as local authorities. ESR was fully rolled out across the NHS in April 2008. The ESR data used in this response is not centrally validated and its reliability is subject to local coding practice.

Redundancies are identified as those individuals with a reason for leaving of either voluntary or compulsory redundancy. Only those individuals coded as Qualified Nurses, Midwives or Health Visitors are included in the figures. Only redundancies from NHS Trusts are included in these figures, it is possible that Qualified Nurses were also made redundant from other NHS bodies.

ESR reports based on the current organisation structure. This means that if organisations merged during 2013 it is possible that redundancies from, now defunct, organisations are recorded as being from the newly created organisation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will bring forward proposals to financially assist nurses employed by the NHS to pay the increased fee for the Nursing and Midwifery Council when they come into force later in 2014.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is an independent body and it is therefore for the NMC Council to determine the level of the annual fee it charges for registration. On 26 March 2014, the NMC Council reviewed the level of this fee and agreed a proposal to increase it from £100 per annum to £120 in March 2015. The NMC is running a public consultation between 8 May and 31 July 2014, where its proposal is open to scrutiny. No decision on the proposed fee increase has been made at present.

Ministers keep the issue of professional regulation under regular review and the Department has frequent contact with professional regulators, including the NMC. On 12 March 2014, I met with representatives of the NMC for a regular update meeting. This meeting was not specifically set up to discuss the NMC registration fee, but during this meeting the NMC provided information about its fee review process.