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19 Oct 2004 : Column 634W—continued
WORK AND PENSIONS
Benefit Appointees
Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his answer of 16 September 2004, Official Report, column 1749W, on benefits, how many appointees for the receipt of benefits in each of the last five years (a) had their appointment revoked and (b) were subjected to further action by the Secretary of State. [190611]
Mr. Pond: The information is not collated centrally and can be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Benefits
Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the linking rules are for the return on unchanged terms to each category of benefit; and on what date those linking rules were introduced. [188721]
Mr. Pond: There are currently two main linking periods of eight weeks or twelve weeks allowing a customer to return to Income Support on unchanged terms after a break in claim. These periods are defined in regulation 3A of the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 which came into force on 11 April 1988. (Specific linking periods exist for housing costs on Income Support. Housing Cost linking periods are defined in Schedule 3 of the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 which was revised in October 1995 when major changes were introduced to the rules for the payment of housing costs by Income Support.)
The main linking periods are referred to in legislation as the "Permitted Period". A customer whose entitlement to Income Support ceases because he or his partner becomes engaged in remunerative work has a maximum "permitted period" of 12 weeks in which he can reclaim with no impact on certain elements of his Income Support. A customer whose entitlement to Income Support ceases because of any other reason has a maximum "permitted period" of eight weeks in which he can reclaim with no impact on certain elements of his Income Support.
It must be stressed that reclaiming within the eight week or 12 week period does not guarantee the customer will receive exactly the same amount of Income Support he was receiving previously. The "permitted period" is linked to specific elements of the Income Support and the overall total of Income Support will be affected by changes in the customer's circumstances that have occurred within the eight or 12 week period.
The elements of Income Support that are affected by the permitted periods are Applicable amounts, Mortgage interest, Protected sums and Earnings to be disregarded. There are no rules which allow Pension Credit to be reinstated on unchanged terms following a break in the claim. Currently, for example, where a Pension Credit customer's entitlement ends for any reason they will need to make another claim. There is no
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guarantee that the benefit will be reinstated at the same rate as before, as there could have been a change in circumstances since the previous award. This would happen if there was a break in entitlement for any reason. There would be no linking provision for a short break in the claim.
There is one linking rule in Pension Credit which allows the retention of an element of benefit. Pension Credit customers may be awarded a transitional extra amount if, on a previous Income Support or JSA (IB) award, they received a transitional addition. Where an award of Pension Credit, which included a transitional extra amount ends, and a repeat Pension Credit application is made within eight weeks of the earlier award, the applications "link", and the transitional extra amount from the previous application is retained. It must be stressed that reclaiming within eight weeks does not guarantee the customer exactly the same Pension Credit as previously, as changes in circumstances may have occurred within the eight week period.
There are no linking rules when a new claim is made that prescribe that the claim be treated in the same manner as a previous application. The general rule is that a claim is assessed with reference to the legislation that is in force at the time.
There is a "rapid reclaim" procedure which is a streamlined reclaiming process for those who reclaim IS/JSA and HB/CTB within 12 weeks of their previous entitlement ending. This is only an administrative easement.
Where a claimant is benefiting from transitional protection under the rent officer referral arrangements which existed prior to January 1996, there can be a break in entitlement of up to four weeks.
Linking rules may apply in the following circumstances:
Claimants discharged and readmitted to hospital within 28 days. When a patient is discharged from hospital, and subsequently readmitted within 28 days, the total time spent in hospital is counted when calculating the day when benefit is to be downrated. If the break is 29 days or longer, a new period starts. This linking rule does not apply when working out whether the claimant has been absent from home for more than 52 weeks.
Linking periods of incapacity: To qualify for the Disability Premium (DP) under the 364 day rule, the claimant must be sick and submitting evidence of incapacity for work. Periods of sickness link together if separated by 56 days or less, or 52 weeks for Welfare to Work beneficiaries (see point 3 below). Any period spent in hospital counts towards the 364 day qualifying period. If, after a claimant has qualified for DP, there is a break in incapacity of eight benefit weeks or less, the claimant does not have to meet the 364 day qualifying period again.
Fifty two week benefit protection: This benefit protection period is a period of 52 weeks following return to work (or training for work) in which periods of incapacity can be linked, or during which the right to certain transitional protections may be preserved. A Jobseeker's Allowance customer may return to benefit at their pre-existing rate if they re-claim within a certain number of weeks of leaving. The standard period for JSA is 12 weeks.
The effect of this "linking rule" is that the two claims for JSA with a gap of less than 12 weeks between them are counted as one. This means that when the customer
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makes a further claim for JSA, for example after a spell of temporary work, they do not have to serve a further set of waiting days before JSA starts to be paid.
In addition, if they were previously receiving help with mortgage interest, they will not have to serve a further qualifying period before this help resumes. Their benefit position will be the same as when they moved off JSA. These rules have been in place since JSA was introduced in October 1996.
Anne Picking: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the average length of time is before gaining employment for which claimants were in receipt of jobseeker's allowance in (a) East Lothian constituency and (b) the rest of the UK in the latest period for which figures are available. [190150]
Jane Kennedy: The available information is in the tables.
Reason JSA claim terminates | Number of claims terminating (thousand) | Average (median) duration of terminated claims (days) |
|---|---|---|
| All reasons | 2.2 | 67 |
| Found work | 1.3 | 64 |
| Other reasons | 0.9 | 85 |
Reason JSA claim terminates | Number of claims terminating (thousand) | Average (median) duration of terminated claims (days) |
|---|---|---|
| All reasons | 2,205.8 | 72 |
| Found work | 1,099.2 | 61 |
| Other reasons | 1,106.6 | 88 |
Notes:
1. 'Other reasons' categories include customers who have: deceased; gone abroad; claimed another benefit; entered full-time education; ceased to claim; failed to attend; reached retirement age; claimed incapacity benefit or income support; started training; started on an Employment Zone; had an unfavourable decision on their claim; gone to prison; attended court; started an Employment Zone work placement.
2. Figures are given for those who were previously receiving JSA, and therefore exclude claimants who were signing for national insurance credits only.
3. Figures are claim-based. If an individual claims then terminates a claim on more than one occasion in the period, then they will be counted more than once.
4. Parliamentary constituencies are assigned by matching postcodes against the relevant ONS postcode directory, and are based on constituency boundaries at May 1997.
5. The "found work" category includes claims terminating on finding work, working on average 16 hours or more a week, and New Deal Employers option.
6. Figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample and will be subject to a degree of sampling variation.
7. Numbers of claims are rounded to the nearest hundred and are expressed in thousands.
8. Average provided is the median claim length of claims that have terminated in the period. It is not possible to produce a mean duration for JSA claims, as reliable start dates are not available for all claims starting before 1992. A mean would therefore be biased upwards by a small number of long durations.
9. Data for part (b) of the question are given for the rest of Great Britain rather than the United Kingdom, as our sample only includes Great Britain cases.
Source:
IAD Information Centre, 5 per cent. samples.
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