Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many additional people with (a) a disability, (b) long-term health conditions and (c) arthritis have been supported by the Access to Work Scheme since the covid-19 lockdown.

Access to Work continues to provide practical and financial support for people who have a disability or a health condition and require reasonable adjustments which are beyond standard adjustments an employer is required to provide.

Information about Access to Work can be found in the Official Access to Work Statistics which are published annually and can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/access-to-work-statistics-april-2007-to-march-2019.

The figures which relate to number of people who received an Access to Work payment this year will be available in the future Access to Work publication. Under the Code of Practice for Statistics the figures for 2020/21 cannot be released ahead of the official publication of the Access to Work Statistics. For this reason, it is not possible to provide the aggregated figures you have requested. This year’s statistics are due to be published in September 2021, and when published can be found using the link provided.

The Access to Work Statistics report the number of people who have received at least one Access to Work payment in a given financial year. Table 8 of the statistics in particular shows the number of people who have received an Access to Work payment broken down by primary medical condition (PMC). Disability, long-term health conditions and arthritis are not classed as individual PMC’s, and these conditions are recorded under the PMC categories.

To support disabled people to retain, adapt and move into employment during the pandemic, Access to Work has introduced a package of measures. These are:

• Accepting email claim forms from customers who request this as a reasonable adjustment;
• Accepting employer and support worker signatures via email;
• Extending Support Worker awards that are coming to an end by 6 months;
• Extending the timeframe customers have to submit payment claim forms to 9 months;
• Adapting the way our assessments are undertaken to support customers;
• Flexing support and supporting the moving of special aids and equipment from the workplace to home, and providing new equipment for employees working from home where necessary; and
• Prioritising new applications from key workers and those with jobs starting within the next 4 weeks.