Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the accessibility to his Department and its agencies to deaf people and people who use British Sign Language.

Under the Equality Act 2010, DWP provide suitable services to enable claimants and customers to access benefits and use our services fully, including individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired. To support DWP customers who have a specific communication barrier and need a reasonable adjustment we assess their needs and provide tailored support. We have a variety of communication methods: face to face contact on our premises; home visits; telephony; online services; and written communications.

The Department can also provide British sign language (BSL) or non-spoken language interpreters; induction loops; E-mail; Lip reading; use of representatives and we do provide textphones. We are committed to supporting deaf customers to access our services and have recently provided guidance to staff on the use of email communication to disabled customers as a reasonable adjustment. In addition, DWP is currently investigating the benefits of a video relay service.

DWP is also committed to providing a high level of support to our own employees. Access is provided to specialist software and equipment and our dedicated internal reasonable adjustment support team offer help with arranging specialist services such as BSL interpreters.