Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he takes to ensure that disabled applicants who receive a confirmed job offer can apply for support from Access to Work in advance of their starting employment; and how many disabled people have benefited from assistance under the Access to Work scheme to date.

The Access to Work scheme will take applications from those who have an offer of employment up to 6 weeks before their given start date. Access to Work offers a fast track application process when an urgent decision is required.

Volumes of disabled people who have been helped by AtW support each year are only available back to 2007/08. These are published in table 1 on page 11 of the publication at the link below. This shows that in total, between 1st April 2007 and 30th June 2014, 114,520 disabled people have benefitted from assistance under the Access to Work scheme:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/365329/access-to-work-statistics-april-june-2014.pdf