Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 26 April 2022 to Question 155573 on Access to Work Programme, how many applications to her Department's Access to Work Scheme are outstanding as of 29 June 2022; and what steps her Department taking to tackle those outstanding applications.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Department's Access to Work Scheme had 23,805 applications outstanding as of 29 June 2022.
Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. They should therefore be treated with caution.
Access to Work (AtW) are currently receiving an increased level of applications for support and are working through all applications to ensure that they are progressed as soon as possible, as well as recruiting new team members to increase capacity.
For applications where a customer is due to begin a job in the next 4 weeks (whether employed or self-employed), their case will be prioritised, and contact made as soon as possible. For renewal applications for on-going support, these are also being prioritised and in the majority of cases, support approved using a new streamlined process.
All other Case Managers are deployed to work on the oldest outstanding cases and overtime working for AtW staff is also being used.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 17 December 2021 to Question 91950, on Access to Work Programme, what interim steps her Department is taking to tackle the delays to Access to Work applications until additional staff are able to help respond to the increased demand.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Access to Work (AtW) are currently receiving an increased level of applications for support and are working through all applications to ensure that they are progressed as soon as possible.
For applications where a customer is due to begin a job in the next 4 weeks, their case will be prioritised and contact made as soon as possible.
All other Case Managers are deployed to work on the oldest outstanding cases and overtime working for AtW staff is also being used.
Business processes have been reviewed, including the Renewals process, resulting in improved clearance times.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of people who have been affected by the underpayment of benefits following their transition from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance in (a) Broxtowe, (b) Gedling and (c) Rushcliffe constituencies.
Answered by Chloe Smith
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19th January to question number 104377.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of people who have been affected by the underpayment of benefits after transitioning from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance in Nottingham South constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19th January to question number 104377.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
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 time taken for responses to Access to Work applications.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Access to Work (AtW) is currently receiving an increased level of applications for support and we are working through all applications to ensure they are progressed as quickly as possible.
Improvements are already underway to improve clearance times whilst maintaining the same high standard of customer service we aim to provide to all our customers.
We have recruited additional staff who will be joining us in the new year to respond to the increased demand.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what target timescale her Department sets for the payment of invoices submitted through Access to Work.
Answered by Chloe Smith
As part of DWP’s response to the covid-19 pandemic, we have extended the time period for customers to submit claims for payment following costs being incurred, from six months to nine months.
Access to Work aim for customers to be paid within 10 working days of receipt of claims and all supporting evidence.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time to process payments to support workers was in each of the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Access to Work customers have 9 months within which to submit their request for payment, once costs have been incurred. Access to Work aim for customers to be paid within 10 days of receipt of claims and all supporting evidence.
Unfortunately, we are not able to provide details of average processing times for payments to support workers as we do not hold this data.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of Access to Work claim forms have to be re-sent by the customer as a result of the form having (a) not reached Access to Work and (b) been lost by Access to Work, in each of the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Chloe Smith
We are not able to provide information regarding the proportion of claim forms that were re-sent by our customers as we do not hold this data. We handle customer claim forms carefully and while we are not aware that any Access to Work claim forms have been lost by DWP we would be happy to look into any issues individuals raise with ATW.
We are aware that there were postal delays during July and August 2021, however we are now seeing payment clearance times returning to normal levels.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans she has to move the Access to Work claims and payments processes to a digital system.
Answered by Chloe Smith
We are currently building a digital service which will enable people/customers to:
We have extensively tested and iterated designs for this service with a range of users to ensure it is inclusive, usable and meets the needs of Access to Work recipients.
We will begin testing this new service with a small number of users soon before scaling up next year.
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department complies with the Prompt Payment Code in respect of support workers who invoice the Department through the Access to Work scheme.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Access to Work is a discretionary grant scheme which provides funding for in work adjustments and support for people with disabilities and health conditions. The Prompt Payment Code refers to the Government and Private Sector commercial contract payments. As Access to Work is a grant scheme and does not procure the support for customers, the Code does not apply.
DWP and Access to Work recognise the importance of reimbursing grant funding at the earliest opportunity and aims to make payments within 10 working days of a fully completed claim for reimbursement.