Access to Work Programme

(asked on 19th April 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications to her Department's Access to Work Scheme are delayed as at 19 April 2022.


Answered by
Chloe Smith Portrait
Chloe Smith
This question was answered on 26th April 2022

Access to Work 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. During the year April 2021-March 2022, c79,800 applications for support were processed.

For applications where a customer is due to begin a new job with a start date within 4 weeks, 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. In March 2022, 59% of applications to AtW were treated as a priority and allocated to a case manager for immediate action.

In addition to cases in progress and those which are prioritised, there are currently c14,700 Access to Work applications outstanding where we have not yet made contact with the customer and which are outside of our usual timescale for initial contact. These cases are considered in the date order we received them.

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