Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons funding for the Community Partner Programme will be withdrawn from March 2019; and what assessment she has made of the potential effect on the provision of disability employment support for people with mental health problems of the withdrawal of that programme.

The Community Partner roles were time limited and funded for a two-year period, which comes to an end in March 2019.

The Community Partners have made a valuable contribution including helping us understand good provision better, helping build disability awareness and working with local employers to inform them of advice available and good practice in employing disabled people.

A review of existing roles identified that there was some overlap in the support provided. In order to remove the overlap and focus on key areas, two new job roles will be introduced from April 2019:

• A revised Disability Employment Adviser role, bringing together the current role and incorporating elements of the Community Partner and Small Employer Adviser roles.

• A new Disability Employment Adviser Leader role, to manage a team of Disability Employment Advisers and incorporate the external facing elements of the Community Partner and Small Employer Adviser roles.

These new roles will be instrumental in driving the government’s commitment to providing high quality support to disabled people and those with health conditions. The new roles are initially funded for two years and will be fully embedded in the Jobcentre network. They will be fully evaluated to inform future discussions about how the support they deliver may be continued.

There will be no reduction in resources and we anticipate that these changes will improve the support offered to disabled people, including those with mental health conditions.