Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps his Department is taking to (a) encourage disabled people to apply to become Community Partners for Jobcentre Plus under the Work and Health Programme and (b) ensure that the recruitment process will include panel members who have a lived experience of disability.

The Department has already in place recruitment processes to attract Community Partners as part of the Enhanced Support Offer, as announced in the Improving Lives: The Work, Health and Disability Green Paper (published October 2016). The Department has and continues to pursue direct secondments from representative organisations, covering the whole range of disabilities. The Department has also and continues to pursue open recruitment, and it is a standard requirement of the recruitment panels that they have knowledge of or lived experience of disability issues.