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 support people with arthritis to remain in part time work in line with their condition in the context of Universal Credit threshold changes.

The Administrative Earnings Threshold (AET) determines the level of Work Coach support that Universal Credit claimants receive. The purpose of raising the AET was to ensure that more UC claimants on low incomes are provided with regular Work Coach support to help them grow their earnings.

Any work-related requirements are agreed in discussion between the Work Coach and the claimant. These should always be tailored and personalised to reflect the claimant’s health condition, disability, caring responsibilities, and circumstances (including whether they are currently working), ensuring that any requirements are realistic and achievable.

Where someone is currently working, work-related activities are expected to focus on helping that person to increase their earnings and move into better paid quality jobs.

In order to provide support to disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with arthritis, to start, stay, and succeed in work, the Government delivers an extensive programme of specialist initiatives. Support to remain in work includes:

• Access to Work grants helping towards extra costs of working beyond standard reasonable adjustments;
• Disability Confident, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and health, and to take positive action to address the issues disabled employees face in the workplace;
• An online Information Service called “Support with Employee Health and Disability”, providing better integrated and tailored guidance on supporting health and disability in the workplace;
• Increasing access to occupational health, including the testing of financial incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed;
• Work in partnership between the DWP and the health system, including:

o Employment Advice in NHS Talking Therapies, which combines psychological treatment and employment support for people with mental health conditions; and

o The Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) programme, a Supported Employment model (place, train and maintain) delivered in health settings, aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities to support them to access paid jobs in the open labour market.

Building on our existing programme, we announced a wide-reaching package at the Spring Budget to support disabled people and people with health conditions to work.

New investment broadens access to additional Work Coach support for disabled people and people with health conditions, introduces a new supported employment programme (Universal Support) and focuses on providing faster access to joined-up work and health support, including for mental health and musculoskeletal conditions, the two leading causes of economic inactivity due to long term sickness.