Tag: Stephen Timms

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses are aware of their obligations relating to workplace pensions.

Justin Tomlinson

We are committed to supporting small and micro-businesses to adapt to their new automatic enrolment duties. Together with The Pensions Regulator, we have launched a new broadcast-led communications campaign to raise awareness of automatic enrolment amongst small employers.

The Pensions Regulator has also recently launched a new interactive and simplified online step by step guide to automatic enrolment, designed to meet the specific needs of employers who may not have pensions experience, including those with just one or two staff. Employers using the website can access tailored information relevant to their circumstances. The Pensions Regulator also provides online content for business advisers who play an important role in supporting smaller employers to meet their legal duties. To raise awareness and understanding, the Regulator has had over 500 meetings with intermediary firms and spoken at over 300 events around the UK during the last year

The Regulator sends a series of letters to every employer starting at least 12 months before their staging date, which is the date that the law applies to them. These letters set out what an employer needs to do and by when to comply with the law and signposts to the relevant information on the Regulator’s website.

To help employers adjust to the costs of automatic enrolment the minimum employer contribution level starts at 1% and increases gradually to 3% by October 2018. In addition, to ensure that all firms have access to quality, low-cost pension provision, The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) was established by the Government and has a public service obligation to accept any employer that chooses NEST for automatic enrolment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he has taken to establish whether more senior staff were involved in fraudulent misuse of the Flexible Support Fund since the dismissal of two staff from Plaistow Jobcentre in May 2014.

Priti Patel

Allegations of misuse of the Flexible Support Fund at Plaistow Jobcentre during 2013 and 2014 were investigated fully by the Department’s investigators. Investigators also undertook further work, completed in July 2014, which examined whether there was any evidence of wider misuse of the Flexible Support Fund at this office or other offices in the immediate area. Disciplinary action was taken in all cases where evidence of the misuse of the Flexible Support Fund was proven; there was no evidence of misuse by senior officers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether it is his policy that the day of the week on which claimants are asked to sign on for jobseekers allowance should be varied.

Priti Patel

The day of the week on which claimants are asked to sign on is typically fixed during a claimant’s new jobseeker interview.However, this may be varied because of the personal circumstances of the claimant or for operational reasons. This policy ensures that claimants are able to manage their lives and take advantage of work-related opportunities whilst remaining close to Jobcentre Plus support. Whatever signing day is agreed, be it linked to the NINO or otherwise, entitlement is not affected as this will still be tied to the date of claim.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress he has made on pensions auto-enrolment to small and micro businesses; and if he plans to complete that auto-enrolment for those businesses by 2018.

Justin Tomlinson

Automatic enrolment has been a great success to date, with 5.57 million people automatically enrolled into a workplace pension by 67,892 employers.

From June 2015 onwards, small and micro employers with 49 or less workers began enrolling all eligible workers into a qualifying workplace pension scheme.

We remain on track to complete the roll out of automatic enrolment to all employers from 2012 to 2018.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which faith-based organisations ministers of his Department have visited since June 2015.

Mr Marcus Jones

Ministers in DCLG regularly visit faith-based organisations and a list of meetings with external stakeholders is published quarterly at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dclg-ministerial-data

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to respond to the Children’s Commissioner’s report, Protecting Children from Harm, published in November 2015.

Edward Timpson

The report captures the findings from the first part of the Children’s Commissioner’s inquiry into child sexual abuse in the family environment. The Government will give careful consideration to the findings of the full inquiry when it is completed in December 2016.

Tackling child abuse is a priority for this Government. This Government has set up the first ever cross-government Ministerial Child Protection Taskforce to overhaul the way police, schools, social services and others work together in tackling this abhorrent crime. The taskforce’s work will build on the Government’s wide-ranging reforms to create a care system that puts children’s needs first. This includes the appointment of a Chief Social Worker to champion reform in the profession, a £400 million investment in social work training, and cuts to bureaucracy to free up social workers to do what they do best.

We have also invested an extra £100m to support vulnerable children and we areproviding £7m for services supporting survivors of child abuse.

The Government is committed to driving forward fundamental reforms to protect the most vulnerable children in our society and give them the opportunity to succeed.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 December 2015 to Question 18747, whether people are made aware of advance Universal Credit payments being made available to them at the initial work search interview.

Priti Patel

To be eligible for a Universal Credit (UC) Advance payment, the claimant has to have an underlying entitlement to UC, be in financial need, and be able to afford to repay the Advance. These criteria are contained within the Social Security (Payments on Account of Benefit) Regulations 2013.

If during the initial work search interview, a work coach identifies a claimant is in financial need, or cannot manage until they receive their first UC payment, they will advise them about advance payments.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-01-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 15 December 2015 to Question 20339, what the repayment requirements are for universal credit advance payments; and whether interest is charged on those payments.

Priti Patel

Universal Credit (UC) Advance Payments of benefit are recovered from the UC award over a period of six months. In exceptional circumstances recovery can be deferred for up to 3 months.

No interest is charged on advance payments of benefit.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what advice his Department gives to universal credit applicants on their eligibility for council tax reduction.

Priti Patel

Local Council Tax reduction schemes are delivered by Local Authorities.

Universal Credit claimants are signposted to the Local Authority for information on eligibility.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has met with representatives of the Citizens Advice Bureau to discuss feedback they have received from universal credit claimants.

Priti Patel

Senior officials regularly meet with representatives from Citizens Advice to discuss Universal Credit on behalf of the Secretary of State.

Citizens Advice staff are also actively engaged with the Universal Credit programme to feed their claimant insight into work on Universal Credit claimant orientation.