AQW 3717/16-21
Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly
Democratic Unionist Party
South Belfast
Tabled Date: 22/09/2016
Answered On Date: 07/10/2016
Priority Written: No
Question:
To ask the Minister for Communities for an update on the implementation of the Welfare Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 2015.
Answer:
The Welfare Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 2015 was made on 9 December 2015 by Westminster and to date there have been 5 commencement orders to introduce various provisions within the Order. There have also been a series of regulations passed to implement future welfare changes in this Order. These have been made at Westminster with commencement dates in the future to align with IT and operational requirements. The welfare changes which have been made during 2016 have included the Benefit Cap which was introduced on 31 May and Personal Independence Payment which commenced on 20 June 2016. There have also been changes to how claimants can appeal social security decisions with the introduction of a mandatory reconsideration process and new fraud and error powers have also been introduced. Moving forward the new Discretionary Support service will replace discretionary aspects of Social Fund from the end of October and the time-limiting of contributory Employment and Support Allowance will begin on 28th November 2016. The next phase of Personal Independence Payment, which starts the managed migration of existing DLA claimants to the new benefit, commences in December and it is currently planned that housing benefit changes relating to under occupancy in the social rented sector will commence on 23rd January 2017. My Department has also recently agreed with the Department for Welfare and Pensions (DWP) that the roll out of Universal Credit will commence in September 2017. In addition, there have also been four sets of Welfare Supplementary Payments Regulations made through the Assembly. These provide the level of mitigation outlined in the Evason Report for the welfare changes which have already been implemented. All Regulations are available at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/.
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