Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who applied to the Access to Work scheme in the last 12 months (a) classified themselves as disabled or with a long-term health condition, (b) were in full-time employment at the time of their application and (c) were asking to work from home as part of their Access to Work support; how many of those applicants received some or all of the support that they asked for; and what the average time frame was for the delivery of that support.

Statistical information about Access to Work is published annually. The most recent data were published in September 2019 and can be viewed here:

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

The next set of statistics are due to be published in September 2020, and will cover the twelve months to March 2020. 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 figures for the period you have requested.

(a) Access to Work does not ask applicants whether they are in full time work. The employment criterion for eligibility is that the applicant has a paid job or is about to start or return to one.

(b) Access to Work does not ask applicants to specify whether they would describe themselves as a disabled person. The eligibility criteria for the scheme include the requirement that the applicant is affected by a health condition or disability that makes it hard for them to do parts of their job or get to and from work. The annual published statistics report the number of people who have received at least one Access to Work payment in a given financial year, including a breakdown by primary medical condition. More detail about the eligibility criteria for Access to Work may be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/access-to-work/eligibility

(c) The data requested regarding how many Access to Work customers ask to work from home are not centrally held.