Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the waiting time for applications to the Access to Work scheme to be responded to.

I refer my hon. Friend to the Written Statement on the Access to Work Backlog (HCWS34) made on 19 May 2026.

This Government inherited a substantial backlog of around 57,000 Access to Work cases awaiting a decision beyond the expected timescales.

In our manifesto, we committed to clearing this backlog and we have made significant progress towards that commitment. We have increased the number of staff working on Access to Work by around 30% (from 500 in March 2024 to 657 in March 2026) and continued to prioritise applications where a customer is due to start work within four weeks. As a result, we have eliminated delays in making payments and cleared around 96% of cases where a customer was due to start work within four weeks in 28 days.

Building on this progress, earlier this year we announced a clear plan of action to clear the backlog in applications by September 2027. As part of that plan, in September we have started recruiting an additional 480 case staff to process the higher volume of applications. When recruitment is complete, we will have more than twice as many staff working on Access to Work as there were in March 2024. The first cohorts of new case managers and case workers have begun comprehensive training and will shortly enter a supported consolidation period, helping to build the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to deliver high-quality decision making.