Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of the processes for businesses to advertise vacancies through Jobcentre Plus.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions has recently reviewed and continues to enhance the processes through which businesses advertise vacancies via Jobcentre Plus. Employers currently benefit from a range of flexible engagement routes:
Feedback from employer summits and innovation workshops has directly informed ongoing improvements. Employers have highlighted the importance of making Jobcentre Plus environments more welcoming and accessible. In response, best practice sharing is underway to improve the employer experience. Additionally, policy teams are reviewing the use of Jobcentre Plus premises for interviewing candidates who are not DWP customers. A new system has also been introduced to monitor employer engagement and campaign outcomes more effectively.
As set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. As part of this, we will transform DWP’s employer offer and the way in which we engage with employers, using a test and learn approach to ensure the new service works hand in hand with them to help recruit the staff they need. The new service will support a broader range of employers, including those requiring skilled and specialist talent, to find the candidates they need. We will also work with employers to understand how to overcome the impact of recruitment practices which can act as a barrier for applicants, ensuring that a wide range of candidates can access employers’ vacancies regardless of these barriers.
DWP has not only assessed but is actively evolving its vacancy advertising processes through Jobcentre Plus. The combination of employer feedback, strategic planning, and digital innovation ensures that the service is becoming more responsive, inclusive, and effective for businesses of all sizes.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of allowing businesses to contact their local Jobcentre Plus directly to advertise vacancies.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department can confirm that such an assessment has been made and that direct engagement is not only permitted but actively encouraged.
Employers are already able to contact their local Jobcentre Plus directly through several well-established routes. The Employer Services Line (0800 169 0178) and an online enquiry form connect businesses with local Employer Advisers who provide tailored recruitment support. This includes help with writing job descriptions, promoting vacancies through local jobcentres and social media, arranging use of Jobcentre Plus premises for interviews, and facilitating participation in recruitment events such as job fairs.
For businesses with more complex or large-scale recruitment needs, the Strategic Relationship Team offers bespoke support at a national level. This includes tailored recruitment solutions, vacancy tracking, and coordination with local JobCentre Plus's to ensure effective delivery.
The Department continues to explore ways to improve employer engagement, including making JobCentre Plus premises more welcoming and accessible, and reviewing policies around the use of JobCentre Plus offices for interviews with non-DWP customers.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
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 ensure that Disability Assessors who conduct assessments on the telephone are trained to appropriately interact with people who find phone calls difficult or stressful due to their medical condition.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) understands that attending an assessment can be a stressful experience for some claimants. That is why we prioritise using existing paper-based evidence to determine benefit entitlement wherever possible. As part of the assessment process, every case is initially reviewed to assess whether a paper-based assessment can be made. Only when this is not feasible will a claimant be invited to attend an assessment.
Before issuing an assessment invitation, consideration is given to whether a claimant requires a specific assessment method due to their health condition or personal circumstances. If a claimant later informs us that a different assessment channel would be more suitable, or further evidence is received by the supplier, they will make any reasonable adjustments accordingly.
All health professionals are fully qualified in their health discipline and have passed strict recruitment and experience criteria. They are also required to be registered with the appropriate regulatory body. The department authorises health professionals to conduct assessments only after suppliers demonstrate that the health professionals has successfully completed a department approved training and appraisal programme. This process confirms that health professionals possess a sound understanding of the clinical aspects and likely functional effects of a broad range of health conditions and impairments, and that they have the necessary skills to engage with individuals in a supportive and sensitive manner. Guidance for health professionals is comprehensive and regularly updated, covering all aspects of the assessment process, including professional conduct during assessments.
Companions can also join telephone assessments, just as they would for face-to-face assessments. This is confirmed to the claimant in the initial assessment invitation letter. All suppliers have introduced the capacity for four-way calls during assessments. This means the claimant and the HP can be joined by a companion or advocate, as well as an interpreter if required. This enables claimants to receive the appropriate level of support during remote assessments.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of classifying income from pensions payments as unearned income for the purposes of Universal Credit assessments on people who are unable to work due to their partner's disability or health condition.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made.
There are no plans to change the way that income from pensions is treated under Universal Credit.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
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 call waiting times on the PIP helpline.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Telephony is our customers’ primary channel to contact us. We continually assess the number of calls we are receiving and the associated waiting times. Where we have been seeing higher call volumes, we have been deploying more of our available resource onto telephony and at times this has been up to 100% of that resource, whilst also balancing the need to complete necessary processing work. As a result, over the last month we have seen improvements with call wait times dropping by c30%.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
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 raise awareness of the impact of migraines in the workplace.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Health and Social Care are committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with migraines, with their employment journey.
The Disability Confident Scheme encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. A digital information service for employers, (Support with Employee Health and Disability), has been developed to offer guidance on making reasonable adjustments, supporting employees to remain in work, and understanding legal requirements.
Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding.
In addition to this work, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have launched the Keep Britain Working Review. This review will consider how to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more disabled people and people with health conditions; promote healthy workplaces and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
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 support visually impaired people in the workplace.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Appropriate work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. The DWP & DHSC are committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including visually impaired people, with their employment journey.
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. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems. Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care and WorkWell.
Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched on 26 November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. As announced in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, we are investing £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in new employment, health and skills support – one of the biggest packages of new employment support for people with health conditions and disabled people ever - including new tailored support conversations for people on health and disability benefits, and more intensive programmes of support with health and work to break down barriers and unlock work. In addition, consulting on the future of the Access to Work scheme so that it better helps people to start and stay in work through reasonable adjustments, such as aids, appliances and making use of assistive technology
It is also recognised that employers play an important role in addressing health and disability. To build on this, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have launched the Keep Britain Working Review. This review will consider how to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more people with health conditions and disabilities; promote healthy workplaces and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence. After conducting an initial discovery into the underlying issues, Sir Charlie Mayfield has published his early findings on 20 March which sets out the key areas that he would like to explore in the next phase of the review. This publication is a call to all stakeholders to engage with the early review findings and input views, including via a survey also launched on GOV.UK. The review is expected to produce a report to Government in autumn 2025.
Additionally, the Joint Work and Health Directorate has developed a digital information service for employers, continues to oversee the Disability Confident Scheme, and continues to increase access to Occupational Health.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has plans to review the application of (a) National Insurance contributions and (b) home responsibilities protection in cases where an individual was contracted out of the Additional State Pension.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Before 6 April 2016, people were able to contract-out of the Additional State Pension. For the years they were contracted-out, they would be entitled to the basic State Pension only. When assessing State Pension eligibility under both the pre-2016 and new State Pension systems, the Department takes into account the impact of past contracting-out.
There are no such plans to review this approach which is in accordance with legislation.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of the potential implications of changes to disability benefits on health and social care services.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are investing almost £26 billion of extra funding for the Health and Social Care System so people can get the treatment they need to get back to work instead of being stuck on waiting lists, delivering over 2 million extra appointments 7 months ahead of schedule.
Baroness Louise Casey, a cross-bench peer, has been commissioned to develop options for immediate action to improve adult social care in England before charting a course for longer term reform as announced in January. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will support this review – and work closely with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) – as we take forward the proposals in this Green Paper.
In the short term, up to £3.7 billion of additional funding will be made available for social care authorities in 2025/2026, including an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant. To support unpaid carers to combine caring responsibilities with some paid work, from April 2025 the Carers’ Allowance earnings limit will be pegged to 16 hours work at National Living Wage (NLW) levels (rounded to the highest pound), and in future it will increase when the NLW increases. This is an increase from £151 to £196 a week. DHSC are also commissioning research on the link between the adult social care system and PIP.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of reducing disability benefit on the health of people with long term and fluctuating conditions.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course. An important consideration in the case for abolishing the Work Capability Assessment is the inappropriateness of its binary distinction between “capable of work” and “not capable of work” for people with fluctuating health conditions.
A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.