Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of whether Work Coach and Disability Employment Adviser support is effective for people with a visual impairment, and whether any evaluation has looked at differences in outcomes of such support between people with different types of disability.

The Department for Work and Pensions is committed to ensuring disabled people, including those who are blind or visually impaired, can access appropriate support from Jobcentre Plus.

All staff complete mandatory learning on the Public Sector Equality Duty, including the protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act and the Department’s responsibilities for providing reasonable adjustments. Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers receive further learning on disability, its potential impact on customers and the practical steps they can take to provide appropriate support. This includes specific content on blindness and visual impairment, helping colleagues understand the barriers customers may face and the support and reasonable adjustments available.

Disability Employment Advisers provide specialist support, helping Work Coaches and Pathways to Work Advisers tailor support to individual customer needs. They can also work directly with customers and engage with employers, local communities and third-sector organisations to help facilitate appropriate local support and promote initiatives including Disability Confident, WorkWell, Connect to Work and Access to Work.

The Department has also worked with Microsoft to develop Accessibility Fundamentals learning, delivered to over 25,000 frontline colleagues, to improve understanding of how Microsoft accessibility tools can support disabled jobseekers. Every Jobcentre also has access to a District Provision Toolkit, providing links to local specialist support for customers with a range of complex needs and circumstances.

We continue to engage disability organisations through the Reasonable Adjustment Forum, using their insight to identify, test and recommend improvements to the accessibility of our services. This has included working with organisations representing a range of disabled people to improve the accessibility and language of the alternative-format screen in Universal Credit.