The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many new staff have been appointed to his Department since 21 March 2016.
Justin Tomlinson
A total of 337 new employees were appointed to the Department for Work and Pensions during the period 21 March 2016 to 25 April 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-04-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many ongoing legal disputes his Department is currently engaged in.
Justin Tomlinson
The Department does not hold any central register of on-going legal disputes.
To collate the information requested would take the costs of responding to the question over the disproportionate cost threshold.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2015-11-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on (a) temporary agency staff, (b) consultants, (c) non-payroll staff, (d) administration and (e) marketing and advertising in real terms in each year since 2010-11.
Justin Tomlinson
Administration has been assumed to be the Departmental Expenditure Limit Administrative spend and has been taken from the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2014/15 (Table 4, page 184).
The information that is available is in the table below:
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The Department for Work and Pensions spent the following amounts:
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Information on marketing and advertising costs could only be provided at disproportionate cost. To put this into context, the cost of temporary agency staff was just over 1% of the Department’s paybill in 2014-15.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-01-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many temperature tests there were to determine eligibility to receive winter fuel allowance of people living abroad in 2015.
Justin Tomlinson
The winter fuel payment eligibility criteria for people who normally live in the EEA, was changed for winter 2015-16. A temperature criterion was introduced by the DWP using information from a report it commissioned from the Met Office. This report showed the average winter temperature data for each EEA country and Switzerland and for the regions of the UK. The Met Office report was produced in 2012 and used information from a dataset for the reference period 1961-1990 available through the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.
The average winter temperature in the warmest part of the UK, the South West, is 5.6oC. This point is the basis for the changes made to the winter fuel payment eligibility criteria. People living in countries with an average winter temperature of no more than 5.6oC, or a temperature that is close enough to that to be statistically equivalent, are eligible for a winter fuel payment.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-02-08.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of people receiving child benefit on behalf of children living outside of the UK.
Damian Hinds
I refer the honourable Member to my response of 16 June 2015 (UIN 2064)
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Lifetime ISA will be included in assessments of savings under universal credit.
Priti Patel
Further details about how the Lifetime ISA will work will be announced in the autumn. Following this the Government will confirm how it will be treated for Universal Credit purposes.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 10 of the explanatory memorandum to the Universal Credit (Work Allowance) Amendment Regulations 2015, if he will publish the calculations used to estimate savings arising from the introduction of those regulations.
Priti Patel
The savings were estimated using DWP’s and HMRC’s models of the tax and benefit system. Extracting the full details of the calculations carried out within the models would only be possible at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-04-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the under-occupancy penalty on families with severely disabled children.
Justin Tomlinson
The rules allow severely disabled children who are normally expected to share a bedroom with another child to have a bedroom of their own.
This easement applies when a severely disabled child is in receipt of the middle or higher rate care component of Disability Living Allowance and their disabilities would mean that they would disturb the sleep of the other child; or there is a potential threat of violence. This easement applies across both the private and social rented sectors.
Discretionary Housing Payments are available for those who do not satisfy these conditions.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2015-11-03.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of how many people over the age of 55 are likely to be affected by the Government’s changes to tax credits.
Damian Hinds
This information is not available.
This Government is committed to moving from a high welfare, high tax, low wage economy to a lower welfare, lower tax, higher wage society. As the Chancellor has made clear, the Government will set out at Autumn Statement how we plan to achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy, while at the same time helping in the transition.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2015-11-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in receipt of the independent living fund have had that funding reduced following the transfer of that fund to local authorities.
Justin Tomlinson
The Government believes that local authorities are best placed to provide for the care needs of people in their local community. The Care Act 2014 introduced stringent minimum standards for this care and it is within this context that local authorities took over responsibility for the care and support of former Independent Living Fund users from 1st July 2015.
The government has fully-funded them to meet their additional obligations for the remainder of the 2015/16 financial year, but does not hold information on the care packages of individual former users. It has, however, committed to conducting research on the impact of the Fund’s closure and has already identified a sample of former users who have agreed to participate.