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Tag: Stephen Timms

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-04-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what average time is taken to re-imburse a jobseeker’s allowance claimant who has been wrongly sanctioned.

    Esther McVey

    We do not hold any information that just captures the average time it takes to reimburse a Jobseeker’s Allowance Claimant who has been wrongly sanctioned.

    Once a decision is made that a sanction is no longer appropriate the decision maker notifies our JSA claims maintenance teams. They identify these decisions as priority work and endeavour to input the revised decision into our system and pay any benefit due as soon as possible. For JSA our aim is to clear 90% of changes in 6 days. Based on Year to Date information, up to February 2014, we are achieving 94.9% on JSA.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-03-31.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which companies have entered into contracts to deliver community work placements in each region and country of the UK.

    Esther McVey

    The procurement exercise is still in progress. As a consequence, at this stage the information requested is not yet available and therefore cannot be disclosed.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-04-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on the new enterprise allowance in each year since its introduction.

    Esther McVey

    We do not have complete figures for 2013/14 as the yearly accounts have not yet been finalised, and won’t audited until May.

    Spend figures for NEA in the two full financial years to April 2013 are:

    Financial year 2011/12

    Financial year 2012/13

    DEL spend

    £11.4m

    £14.7m

    AME spend

    £5.0m

    £18.3m
  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-04-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department is monitoring the progress and effect of the EU Youth Guarantee.

    Esther McVey

    My Department takes part in a range of discussions at the EU level on issues relating to youth unemployment.

    The European Commission also continues to collect information from Member States in this respect.

    We believe that action is best taken at a national level because governments are best placed to know what measures are needed to address the particular situation in their country.

    This government introduced the youth contract, which is in addition to the support already on offer through the jobcentre.

    Latest statistics show that we are making real progress in tackling youth unemployment. Overall, youth unemployment in the UK is lower than most EU countries; it has fallen by 127 000 since peaking in 2011 and continues to fall. The Government remains focused on addressing this issue.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-05-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he takes to monitor whether Work Programme prime providers fulfil their minimum service standards; and if he will make a statement.

    Esther McVey

    The Department has developed a clearly defined compliance monitoring regime which commits to an appropriate level of checking for each of the 40 Work Programme contract package areas.

    The compliance management team work closely with Work Programme performance managers to ensure clear factual information is available for consideration as part of monthly Contract Performance Reviews with providers.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-06-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants in the Employment and Support Allowance Work Related Activity Group are currently on the Work Programme; and how many such claimants had the period before they were fit for work assessed as (a) up to three months, (b) three to six months, (c) six to 12 months and (d) over 12 months.

    Esther McVey

    The information we have in respect of both referrals and attachments, by prognosis group, are given in the table below:

    Number of Work Programme Referrals and Attachments by ESA prognosis Customer Groups, Great Britain: 1 June 2011 – 31 December 2013

    ESA Prognosis Customer Group

    Referrals

    Attachments

    All ESA WRAG

    242,510

    234,210

    ESA (c) WRAG Mandatory

    10,470

    9,990

    ESA (c) WRAG Voluntary

    1,060

    1,040

    ESA (IR) WRAG 12Mth Mandatory

    37,370

    35,560

    ESA (IR) WRAG 12Mth Voluntary

    1,970

    1,900

    ESA (IR) WRAG 3/6Mth Existing

    5,470

    5,230

    ESA (IR) WRAG 3/6 Mth Mandatory

    98,290

    96,100

    ESA (IR) WRAG 3/6 Mth Voluntary

    750

    730

    ESA (IR) WRAG 3/6 Mth Mandatory ExIB

    23,230

    22,590

    ESA (IR) WRAG 3/6 Mth Voluntary ExIB

    210

    210

    ESA Mandatory (IR) WRAG 12m

    42,710

    40,840

    ESA (IR) WRAG 12m Mandatory EXIB

    20,980

    20,040

    ESA Credit Only

    230

    210

    ESA (IR) Support Group

    360

    350

    ESA (c) Support Group

    100

    100

    ESA (IR) Support Group ExIB

    100

    100

    ESA (c) Support Group ExIB

    100

    90

         

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-06-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many officials have acted as Senior Responsible Officer for the Universal Credit project since 2010.

    Esther McVey

    Five officials have acted as Senior Responsible Officer for the Universal Credit project since 2010.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-06-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the number of homes in the UK served by fibre to the home broadband services.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    Ofcom monitors and publishes broadband coverage data for the UK indicated in its 2013 UK fixed broadband market report that superfast broadband was available to 73% of UK premises. Ofcom did not, however, publish a separate figure for the number of homes with fibre to the home broadband services.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-03-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department spent on the Jobcentre estate in 2012-13.

    Mike Penning

    It is not possible to provide a figure specifically for the delivery of Jobcentre business, as other parts of the Department, such as staff from the Corporate Centre, the Pensions Service and Child Maintenance Divisions are co-located in Jobcentre sites, and each business unit pays for their space proportionate to their occupancy.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-03-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who have been given a prognosis that engagement in work is unlikely in the longer term have been placed in the work-related activity group for employment and support allowance since October 2008.

    Mike Penning

    The information requested is shown in the table below:

    Outcomes of functional assessments by prognosis of 2 years or more for the ESA work-related activity group, Great Britain: October 2008 – September 2013

    WRAG: Claimants with a prognosis of 2 years or more

    New Claims – Initial assessment

    11,800

    New Claims – Repeat assessment

    19,700

    Incapacity Benefit Reassessments

    73,100

    Source: Data in the tables above is derived from administrative data held by the DWP and assessment data provided by Atos Healthcare.

    Notes:

    1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 100.

    2. The outcome recorded is the final DWP Decision Maker’s decision or the recommendation made by the Atos Healthcare Professional where the Decision Maker’s decision is not yet available.

    3. The data presented above comes from benefit claims data held by the Department for Work and Pensions. It related to new and repeat ESA claims and Incapacity Benefit (IB) claims reassessments. In October 2008, ESA replaced IB for new claims. Starting with a trial in October 2010, and reaching a full scale national roll-out in April 2011, existing IB claims began to be phased out, with claimants reassessed to see if they qualify for ESA instead.

    The reassessment of existing incapacity benefits claimants started in October 2010 with a trial in the Burnley and Aberdeen areas. These are included in the table.