Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department spent on staffing costs for the preparation of Contract Notice 2021/S 000-028407 (Functional Assessment Services (FAS) 2023).

Activity to procure new Functional Assessment Services is underway as part of the Health Transformation Programme’s broader work to modernise health and disability benefit services. New contracts will bring together current Health and Disability Assessment Services and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments under single geographic contracts. These will form a building block for a new integrated Health Assessment Service, which is being developed by the programme. This work involves a broad range of staff from across the programme and from other parts of DWP and, as such, it is not possible to isolate the amount spent on staffing costs for the preparation of the contract notice alone.