Kate Green – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Green on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he plans to take to ensure the effectiveness of the Sorting Out Separation Web app in providing constructive support to assist collaboration for longer-term separated parents in response to the evaluation commissioned by his Department which indicated that the Web app had little relevance or use for this group.

Steve Webb

DWP research report 863: Sorting Out Separation Web App: evaluation of effectiveness highlighted that the longer-term separated found the Sorting out Separation Web app less relevant because they were more likely to know most of the information provided.

The evaluation confirmed that we need better to understand the needs of this group. Several projects funded in the second round of the Innovation Fund are specifically focussing on what type of support works to help longer-term separated couples to collaborate. When these projects have been completed and evaluated, we will be able to consider how further to improve support for longer-term separated parents.