Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what was the average length of time each year between 2015-2026 that a person would wait on hold for when calling the Access to Work helpline.

The table below shows the Average Time to Answer for all calls to Access To Work services in an hours, minutes and seconds format (hh:mm:ss), itemised by Reporting Year. Please be aware that we DO NOT hold data for the 2015-2016 reporting year.

*Please note, that the current 2026 – 2027* reporting year, shows data up to and including 13/09/2026 only.

Disclaimer

The above answer contains unpublished figures.

The data provided is derived from the Department’s management information, designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.

Since the start of the 2026/27 operational year, Access to Work has made positive progress in reducing outstanding work. As of 1 October 2026, using the full reporting period from April to August 2026, we have achieved a net backlog reduction of almost 3,000 cases, specifically 2,980. With recruits now arriving and needing to be coached and trained for the next six months, we expect the backlog to stabilise before falling in the spring of 2027.

Overall, the programme remains on track, and our assessment is that Access to Work continues to be on course to clear the backlog by September 2027.