All DWP learning for Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers is designed in partnership with Work Psychologists, external organisations such as MIND, (a national charity providing mental health information and support), RNIB, (Royal National Institute of Blind People), SENSE, (a national charity set-up to support people who are deafblind or have other complex disabilities), and National Autistic Society alongside DWP staff who have a variety of disabilities to ensure that learning is not only accessible to all but is sensitive to everyone’s requirements regardless of abilities/disabilities.

DWP are also working with Microsoft to provide Accessibility Fundamentals learning which helps work coaches / DEAs understand the various features in Microsoft that can be used to make opportunities more accessible for all our customers.

There were no fraudulent payments charged during (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21, and (c) 2021-22. Pre- and post- payment checks, along with additional compliance checks by budget holders are done on a monthly basis and have not identified any fraudulent payments.

All Disability Employment Advisers (DEA) undertake full Work Coach learning prior to receiving DEA specific learning to ensure they understand the health and complex needs of our customers.

The DEA learning consists of number of workshops to allow a learn-consolidate-learn approach:

Workshop One

Knowledge to Support Others

Tools, resources, and support

The Equality Act (2010)

Disabilities and health conditions

Disability models and perceptions

Discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping

Types of discrimination

Challenging inequalities

Consolidation and Presenting with Impact

Workshop Two

Review of consolidation

Support and provision

Disability Hub

Advocacy

Review and close

Workshop Three

Coaching peers

Case conferencing

3-way interviewing

Review and next steps

Workshop Four

Working with Partners

Employer Engagement

Retention

Skills Exercise

All staff must also undertake specific ‘Mental Health’ learning for Coaching.

Although there have been no recent discussions with the Welsh Government concerning Jobcentre attendance for people with health conditions, there is a well-established working relationship between the Department and the Welsh Government, ensuring that we work together on devolved and reserved areas effectively.

Our Work Coaches personalise the support provided for each individual claimant and vary the frequency and method of contact in line with the claimant’s needs, circumstances, and capability, including the use of digital and telephone channels where appropriate.

In 2022/23, we will spend over £134bn on benefits for pensioners in GB. This includes spending on the State Pension which is forecast to be over £110bn. The full yearly basic State Pension is now over £2,300 higher, in cash terms, than in 2010 which is around £720 more than if it had been up-rated in line with prices.

The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living. This is why we are providing £37bn of support this year which includes a one-off payment of £300 to pensioner households as an addition to the Winter Fuel Payment. All households with a domestic electricity bill will also benefit from the £400 support being provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.

We are also providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion.

Turnover is defined as the rate at which employees leave the department for reasons outside of DWP’s control (i.e. resignations, retirements, transfers, dismissals) and excludes managed exits (all types) and fixed term appointment (FTA) staff who leave at contract end. The DWP turnover rate for the last twelve months (July 2021 to June 2022) is 12.1% for all staff.

The turnover rate has been impacted by numbers of fixed-term and temporary colleagues in the underlying workforce as we have found turnover rates for these colleagues are significantly higher than permanent staff. However, that impact is expected to reduce due to activity to stabilise our workforce.

We have agreed, and continually review, comprehensive workforce plans across the business for the year that take into account a number of factors impacting headcount, including turnover. These plans ensure that future recruitment will maintain our headcount at the required level to meet our Strategic Objectives and continue to deliver our services to a high standard.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes details about headcount and payroll costs for permanent staff and contractors on GOV.UK, monthly.

DWP workforce management information - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The DWP consultancy spend for the financial years ending 2018 through to 2022 is shown below.

2017/18 £7,200,259

2018/19 £4,446,169

2019/20 £4,570,665

2020/21 £1,284,861

2021/22 £1,041,058

DWP publishes individual contract data on all contracts valued at £10,000 and over on

Contracts Finder - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We are unable to provide the number of movements into work during the Way to Work campaign for the Hitchin and Harpenden constituency as to produce this would incur disproportionate cost.

Whilst we cannot provide data at a constituency level, we can provide this data at a Jobcentre Plus (JCP) district geographical area. Hitchin and Harpenden constituency falls within Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire JCP District, we have therefore provided the movements into work that took place within that area during the campaign period. These will include movements that took place in other constituencies that fall within the same JCP district.

We estimate that 12,030 unemployed Universal Credit claimants in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire JCP District, moved into work during the Way to Work Campaign between 31 January and 30 June 2022.

This does not include movements into work from JSA claimants as they cannot be broken down to Jobcentre Plus District level. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.

The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics but is provided in the interests of transparency and timeliness

The information for the financial years covered by the request are detailed in the tables below:

Cost figures are rounded to the nearest £0.1m

Data Source: ABM

The cost figures quoted are estimated DWP level 1 operating costs, including both direct delivery staff and non-staff costs. Non-staff costs are only those costs incurred in local cost centres, relating to direct delivery staff.

Please note that the data supplied is from the Departmental Activity Based Models. This data is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standards. It should therefore be treated with caution. The Departmental Activity Based staffing models are a snapshot of how many people were identified as undertaking specified activities as assigned by line managers.

Figures quoted exclude ESA Non-WCA costs.

Appeals costs relate to the costs of processing the Appeals and include expenditure related to DWP Presenting Officer who attend some Tribunals.

2013/14 costs for ESA Reconsiderations are only part-year due to the introduction of the Reconsideration process (hence the reduction in Appeals costs from 2014/15).

Available information on the cost of DWP staff managing the contracts for a) Personal Independence Payments and b) Work Capability Assessments is as follows:

Information for earlier years is not available due to changes in the Finance systems used and how they are structured, limiting our ability to specify the cost of similar, comparable cohorts of DWP staff.

The UK State Pension is payable worldwide and is up-rated annually in countries where there is a legal requirement to do so. This is a longstanding policy, which has been supported by successive governments for over 70 years. The Government has no plans to change the policy.

The current average time between claim submission and first contact is 47.3 days. This is the average of total claims and as we do not hold the information broken down by (a) Wales, (b) England, and (c) Scotland.

Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. They should therefore be treated with caution.

The call for evidence was undertaken by the Independent Reviewer. The Independent Review has not yet concluded and will be published in due course.

We do not have an estimate of the total number of people who would be eligible to receive BSP each year if people who had been cohabiting before one partner died but who were not married or in a civil partnership were entitled to receive such payments.

We have published estimates of the number of bereaved cohabiting partners who would receive BSP, if eligibility were extended to cohabitees – that is, those surviving cohabiting partners who we estimate would claim BSP if they were to become eligible. This is given below and was published in January 2020 as part of an ad hoc statistical release.

Table 1: Estimated number of bereaved cohabiting partners who would receive BSP, if eligibility were extended to cohabitees

The numbers in Table 1 are rounded to the nearest 5,000.

Source: Figures taken from DWP ad hoc statistical release and can be found at found at:

Bereavement Support Payment:forecast on the effect ofextending eligibility to cohabitees, April 2020 to March 2025 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

(a) Agency workers (more commonly referred to as “Contingent Labour” or “Temporary Workers”) are subject to a Cabinet Office controls framework to ensure robust governance of spending in this area. Contingent Labour Spend Control - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Commentary on Contingent Labour usage, if applicable, is available in departmental annual reports. Annual Reports and Accounts for Central Government Departments - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The Crown Commercial Service provides two frameworks specifically for the supply of Contingent Labour which are used by central government departments. These are:

RM3749 - Public Sector Resourcing.

Public Sector Resourcing - CCS (crowncommercial.gov.uk) - This provides a managed service for departmental use including low supplier margins, regular pay rate benchmarking, comprehensive tracking and reporting of contingent labour assignments, full time sheeting and approvals technology and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.

RM6160 - Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff.

Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff - CCS (crowncommercial.gov.uk) - This provides access to a range of generalist, specialist and niche contingent labour agencies offering a wide range of suppliers, maximum margins, free transfer to permanent after 12 weeks and onboarding, contracting and payroll services.

Use of these frameworks provides robust governance, visibility, value for money and flexibility in meeting departmental contingent labour needs.

(b) We have interpreted your reference to agency retainer fees as the fees charged at the commencement of the provision of a search recruitment service, this is only applicable when recruiting for a permanent or fixed term post.

Most claims made under the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL) are supported by a short medical evidence form, called either the SR1 or DS1500, completed by a clinician who is involved in their care. People nearing the end of their life are not required to pay for these forms or for their clinician to fill them out on their behalf. Patients can request one free of charge from a registered clinician such as a GP, hospital consultant, hospice doctor or a senior nurse involved in their care.

The latest published estimates for the number of people eligible for Pension Credit relate to the financial year 2019 to 2020 and show that up to 850,000 pensioner households were eligible for but not claiming Pension Credit. These are available in the Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up publication which can be found on the statistics section of gov.uk. Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2019 to 2020 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Previous DWP research found that the main reason pensioners don’t claim Pension Credit is because they believe that they are not eligible – they may think they have too much income, have savings or own their own home. There does also appear to be a secondary barrier around perceived stigma. Further details are available in the 2012 Research report Pension Credit eligible non-recipients: Barriers to claiming. Pension Credit eligible non-recipients: Barriers to claiming (publishing.service.gov.uk)

That is why one of the main objectives of our Pension Credit awareness campaign has been to dispel the myths around perceived ineligibility. Our messaging has also emphasised that even a small award of Pension Credit can open the door to a range of other financial support, including help with rent, Council Tax and heating costs, a free TV licence for those 75 or over and help with NHS dental treatment, glasses and transport costs for hospital appointments.

It is also now more important than ever before to ensure that eligible pensioners claim Pension Credit, because a successful claim also qualifies them for the Cost of Living payments. That’s why the work to raise awareness of Pension Credit and increase take-up is ongoing.

The Department does not routinely collect data on the sectors in which Universal Credit claimants work, including self-employed work. However, we are currently exploring what additional information we could collect to help Work Coaches support claimants in their search for work.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) processing times are available as part of the PIP Official Statistics quarterly release. The latest release, with data available to April 2022, is available here: tables-pip-statistics-to-april-2022.xlsx (live.com)

Table 2A provides processing time for New Claims made under for Special Rules for End of Life.

The new ‘end of life’ process was introduced from April 2022, analysts are currently developing and quality assuring the methodology for identifying UC end of life claims. We are therefore not yet in a position to provide average processing times for Universal Credit applications under the end-of-life criteria.

The Child Maintenance Service seeks to constantly review and improve its processes and services including the approach it takes to supporting customers who are experiencing or have experienced domestic abuse, including financial coercion. Through mandatory domestic abuse awareness training, the service undertakes to train all its caseworkers to be aware of and if possible identify any instances of abuse and signpost these customers to specialist domestic abuse organisations and to a range of information and advice about staying safe. This is supported through additional guidance related to domestic abuse.

There are no specific powers related to financial coercion. However, where ‘receiving parents’ are not receiving the full maintenance they are entitled to, a case can be moved from the Direct Pay part of the scheme onto the Collect and Pay service, whereby we can then use our administrative and legal powers up to and including enforcement activity to secure payment.

It is important to note new powers under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 extends the offences of controlling coercive behaviour to post separation. We will be reviewing how we change and align our processes to the requirements of the Act.

It may also be useful to mention that CMG has recently been subject to an independent review of its approach to domestic abuse.