Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken to increase the number of people with mental health problems who are supported by the Access to Work scheme.

The number of people who have been helped by Access to Work whose primary medical condition is a Mental Health Condition, have increased year on year from 200 (0.7% of all people helped by Access to Work) in 2007/08, to 1,410 (4.0% of all people helped by Access to Work) in 2013/14

The scheme is now supporting over 35,000 disabled people including people with mental health conditions, either through the bespoke Mental Health Support Service (MHSS) or the main Access to Work scheme.

On June 10 2014, the then Minister of State for Disabled People committed to look at Access to Work, focusing on how we can support more disabled people and further improve the service. The MHSS will be considered within this review.