Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to mandate individual risk assessments for all employees in her Department before they return to the workplace following the easing of covid-19 restrictions; and how many individual risk assessments for people returning to work have been conducted by her Department as of 21 February 2022.

DWP has maintained its services throughout the pandemic with Jobcentres remaining open for anyone who needed face-to-face support and whom we could not help in any other way. When DWP returned to its standard opening hours within our jobcentres in April 2021, we launched a template to support one-to-one discussions between managers and colleagues about returning to the workplace. This template is a document for managers and colleagues to capture key information from these discussions, providing support for conversations about the barriers and concerns that may arise for colleagues in returning to the workplace.

The template covers a number of important considerations and topics relating to the health and safety of our colleagues, and includes reasonable and workplace adjustments, risk assessments for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic colleagues, mental health support, caring requirements, and wellbeing issues such as referrals to occupational health. The one-to-one template links to a suite of products and supporting mechanisms available to all colleagues across DWP, and has been widely publicised in various communications and channels since its launch. The one-to-one process is focussed on the individual, and was not centrally monitored.