Asked by: Katie White (Labour - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to (a) support young people with mental health conditions into work and (b) help reduce the number of young people signed off work due to mental health conditions.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Get Britain Working White Paper set out the government’s plans to drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity, create an inclusive labour market in which everybody can participate and progress in work, and meet the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. The White Paper set out three major reforms: to create a new Jobs and Careers Service, address the growing and unsustainable problem of people being out of work due to poor health, and establish a new Youth Guarantee.
The Youth Guarantee will be for all 18-21 year olds in England and will ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship or help to find work, starting in eight Youth Guarantee Trailblazer areas this Spring.
Department for Work and Pensions already provides young people aged 16-24, who are claiming Universal Credit, with labour market support through an extensive range of interventions at a national and local level. This support includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Hubs across Great Britain, and Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work. Youth Employability Coaches specifically work closely with Disability Employment Advisors to support those with disabilities and health conditions.
The Government also recognises that many people find health conditions and disabilities, including mental ill health, a barrier to employment. Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key.
There are a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals with health conditions to stay in work and get back into work, which involve joint working between Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Health and Social Care. Support includes Employment Advisers in NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support programme for people with severe mental illnesses, and Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme aimed at disabled people with complex barriers to employment. In addition, Department for Health and Social Care’s Early Support Hubs also provide employment advice and broader mental health and wellbeing support to young people aged 11-25.
Policy relating to waiting lists for people referred for mental health support sits with my Ministerial colleagues at the Department for Health and Social Care, and you may wish to raise the matter with them.
Asked by: Katie White (Labour - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the length of time to undertake a PIP review.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We continue to prioritise new claims to PIP to ensure claims are put into payment as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this means many customers are waiting longer than expected for their review to be undertaken.
We have been actively recruiting additional Case Managers to meet increased demand for PIP, which means we are now in a position to begin to deploy additional resource onto award reviews. This will increase the number of review cases we can complete ‘in house’.
We have just moved to a new contract for the delivery of health assessments and our new suppliers will be taking steps to ensure they have sufficient capacity to deliver the required volume of assessments. However, this may take time and there is an extensive training period for new Healthcare Professionals to ensure quality standards are maintained.
We have introduced processes to increase efficiency and move cases through the system more quickly:
For customers waiting for a review, we keep them regularly updated using SMS text messages. We also ensure all PIP customers awaiting a review remain in payment, extending awards for up to 12 months where necessary, notifying customers in writing to allay concerns.