Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 20 November 2018 to Question 193360 on Access to Work Programme, what proportion of individuals who report their main health condition as problems with their (a) hands or arms, (b) back or neck and (c) legs or feet did not receive a payment for the Access to Work element approved in 2016-17 within 12 months of approval.

The table below shows the proportion of individuals who had any Access to Work element approved in 2016/17 but to whom no payment was made within 12 months, for the requested primary medical conditions.

We do not routinely collect data on the reasons why payments may not have been made, however we did recently publish independent qualitative research, conducted with a small sample of Access to Work recipients, which provides some insight into why some recipients whose applications are approved do not take up payment; reasons included employers accepting the full costs and recipients leaving their jobs between applying and being granted Access to Work. In a minority of cases, the Access to Work application process or recommendations received were cited as the reason for deciding not to take up the provision.

This research can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/access-to-work-research-review

As soon as an application for support is received, Access to Work actively engages with both the applicant and their employer. Many organisations welcome the support offered by the scheme but, if necessary, Access to Work advisers will work with employers to obtain their buy in to the need for support, ‘sell’ the benefits of the requested support and facilitate timely implementation.

We’re also using Disability Confident to raise employers’ awareness of how best to support their disabled employees, as well as integrating Access to Work into Disability Confident communications.