Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of Access to Work in supporting people with disabilities and long-term health conditions to enter and stay in work.

To assess the role of Access to Work in supporting people with disabilities and long-term health conditions to enter and stay in work, the Department commissioned qualitative evaluations of Access to Work in 2018 and 2009.

The 2018 evaluation ‘Access to Work: Qualitative research with applicants, employers and delivery staff’ gathered evidence on the value of Access to Work to employers and employees.

The 2009 evaluation: ‘Evaluation of Access to Work: Core Evaluation’ explored customer, employer, assessor and other views relating to: marketing and awareness, application process, assessments, outcomes, impact and areas for improvement.

Also in 2018, the Department commissioned NatCen to explore the feasibility of evaluating the impacts of AtW: ‘Feasibility of evaluating the impact of the Access to Work programme' . The report uncovered several challenges, mainly around identifying an appropriate counterfactual and the difficulties in constructing a comparison group. We therefore face challenges with conducting an impact evaluation of AtW.

We are consulting on the future of the AtW scheme in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper - GOV.UK,