Changes required to the passporting of individuals to Help with Health Costs as a result of the introduction ofUniversal Credit

July 2017

PASSPORTING TO HELP WITH HEALTH COSTS AS A RESULT OF THE INTRODUCTION OF UNIVERSAL CREDIT

Confidentiality and Access to information Legislation

The Department may publish a summary of responses following completion of the consultation process. Your response, and all other responses to the consultation, may be published or disclosed on request in accordance with information legislation; these chiefly being the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). The Department can only refuse to disclose information in exceptional circumstances. Before you submit your response, please read the paragraphs below on the confidentiality of consultations and they will give you guidance on the legal position about any information given by you in response to this consultation.

The FOIA gives the public a right of access to any information held by a public authority, namely, the Department in this case. This right of access to information includes information provided in response to a consultation. The Department cannot automatically consider as confidential information supplied to it in response to a consultation. However, it does have the responsibility to decide whether any information provided by you in response to this consultation, including information about your identity should be made public or be treated as confidential. If you do not wish information about your identity to be made public please include an explanation in your response.

This means that information provided by you in response to the consultation is unlikely to be treated as confidential, except in very particular circumstances. The statutory Code of Practice on the Freedom of Information Act provides that:

  • the Department should only accept information from third parties in confidence if it is necessary to obtain that information in connection with the exercise of any of the Department’s functions and it would not otherwise be provided;
  • the Department should not agree to hold information received from third parties “in confidence” which is not confidential in nature;
  • acceptance by the Department of confidentiality provisions must be for good reasons, capable of being justified to the Information Commissioner.

For further information about confidentiality of responses please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office on 028 9026 9380 (or see web site at

Section 1 – Consultee Details

Name:

Job Title:

Organisation:

Address:

Telephone:

Email:

Whilst not essential, it would assist the Department in analysing responses if responding on behalf of an organisation you could provide details of who your organisation represents and, where applicable, how the views of members were assembled.

The last date for responses to this consultation is xx xxxxx 2017.

Responses should be sent to:

Email:

By post:General Dental and Ophthalmic Services Branch

Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety

Room D3

Castle Buildings

Stormont

Belfast

BT4 3SQ

Section 2 – Questions relating to the Passporting of individuals in receipt of Universal Credit using income/earnings thresholds

We would welcome responses to the following questions set out in the consultation paper and you may use this form to complete your response.

Question 1: Do you feel that Option 1, which would introduce an overall household income threshold to passport to Help with Health Costs for UC recipients, is the most appropriate? (Please Tick) / Yes
No
Please give reasons for this.
Question 2: Do you feel that Option 2, which introduces a 2 tier earnings income threshold level to passport to Help with Health Costs for UC recipients, is the most appropriate? (Please Tick) / Yes
No
Please give reasons for this.

Historically, welfare benefits have been used to identify appropriate recipients of those that should automatically passported to the Departments Health Benefits as this was considered the best way of identifying those on a low income or with disabilities. The advantages of using the welfare system have been that information is verified centrally by Government processes, and so there has been no need to develop parallel processes to prove income or disability. Such parallel processes would be expensive to create and administer if they do not already exist, and would be likely to place an additional burden of proof on the individual.

Question 3: Do you therefore think the welfare system (ie receipt of Universal Credit) should form the basis for access to the Departments passported benefits? / Yes
No
If no, what alternative mechanism can you suggest to identify eligibility which could also be used to verify claims for entitlement to the Departments passported benefits

Section 3 – Equality Impact Assessment Questions

In this section of the questionnaire we are asking you to tell us if you think the consultation has promoted equality of opportunity in the Section 75 groups between persons of:

(1) Different religious belief,

(2) Different political opinion,

(3) Different racial group,

(4) Different age,

(5) Different marital status,

(6) Different sexual orientation;

(7) Different gender

(8) With a disability and persons without; and

(9) With dependants and persons without.

Question 4: Are the actions / proposals set out in the draft consultation likely to have an adverse impact on any of the nine equality groups identified under Section 75 of the NI Act 1998? / Yes
No
If yes, please state the group or groups and provide comment on how these adverse impacts could be reduced or alleviated in the proposals.
Question 5: Are you aware of any indication or evidence – qualitative or quantitative - that the actions / proposals set out in the consultation may have an adverse impact on equality of opportunity or on good relations? / Yes
No
If yes, please give details and comment on what you think should be added or removed to alleviate the adverse impact
Question 6: Is there an opportunity to better promote equality of opportunity or good relations? / Yes
No
If yes, please give details as to how.

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