Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many civil servants employed by their Department work in roles primarily focused on (a) transgender policy, (b) diversity, (c) equity and (d) inclusion; and at what annual salary cost.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Dedicated EDI staff help DWP comply with equality legislation, making sure that vulnerable customers are supported. Proactive EDI initiatives can help prevent issues related to discrimination or exclusion, reducing grievances and costly disputes.
As of December 2025, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) employed 84,373.2 paid full-time equivalent (FTE) staff. There are no roles within the Department that are primarily focused on transgender policy.
Roles considered to be primarily focused on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) are as follows:
This constitutes a total of 14.16 FTE staff, which represents approximately 0.02% of the Department’s total Paid FTE workforce as being EDI focused.
The annual expenditure associated with the salaries for staff whose roles are primarily focused on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (based on People & Capability Annual Average Salary and including employer pension and NI contributions) amounts to approximately £1,121,565.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average response time is for correspondence from members of the public and from Members of Parliament acting on behalf of their constituents; what targets are in place for responding to correspondence; and what steps the Department is taking to ensure that enquiries submitted via MPs’ offices are acknowledged and replied to promptly.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
MP enquiries continue to be treated as a matter of high priority. There is clear guidance avail-able to all staff regarding the expected timeframe for responding to enquiries from MPs, which is accessible via the Department’s intranet.
The Department for Work and Pensions aims to respond to MP enquiries within 15 working days. Where this is not feasible, such as in complex cases, the Department remains committed to providing a response at the earliest opportunity.
Higher volumes of MP enquiries combined with a rise in more complex complaints, which take longer to investigate, has caused some delays with our responses. We are in the process of recruiting more complaint handlers to reduce our response times.
Data on responses to correspondence from MPs is regularly published and can be found here:
Data on responses to correspondence from MPs and peers - GOV.UK
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what career coaching, career transition, and redeployment support services are available to staff in his Department through centrally provided civil service programmes.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The table below shows the career and redeployment support options available to DWP employees.
The information is based on DWP’s use of the centrally provided Civil Service Learning Frameworks service. The data covers the period from January 2023 to December 2025.
Intervention Title |
APM Chartered Project Professional Coaching (excluding Accreditation Fees) |
Coaching Skills |
Coaching skills for managers |
Coaching skills for managers (for programmes only) |
ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching & Mentoring - Includes assessment |
Performance Coaching Skills for Managers in the Government Analytical Service |
Performance Development in Digital, Data and Technology Multi-Disciplinary Teams Using Coaching Models |
Crossing Thresholds - Module 1 - Career goal-setting and planning |
5 must-see TED talks for career professionals |
Analytical Community Career conversations |
Career Conversations |
How to build your career in the Civil Service |
How to build your career in the UK Civil Service |
Navigating Your Career |
The 3 questions every manager struggles with making career development plans |
The 4 questions every manager struggles with making career development plans |
Why you will fail to have a great career |
Coaching and Mentoring |
Coaching ethics reflection questions |
Coaching ethics reflection questions |
Coaching Skills (Blended) |
Coaching skills for managers (Blended) |
Coaching skills for Managers (for DEFRA only) |
Diploma in Coaching Supervision - Professional Accreditation (Including assessment) |
Executive Coach coaching - Bespoke |
Executive Coach coaching - Package 2 |
Executive Coach coaching - Package 3 |
Executive Coach coaching - Package 4 |
Executive Coach coaching - Package 5 |
ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching and Mentoring |
ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching and Mentoring (includes assignments) |
ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching and Mentoring (includes exam) |
Premier Executive Coach coaching - Bespoke |
Premier Executive Coach coaching - Package 2 |
Premier Executive Coach coaching - Package 3 |
Premier Executive Coach coaching - Package 4 |
Senior Executive Coach coaching - Bespoke |
Senior Executive Coach coaching - Package 2 |
Senior Executive Coach coaching - Package 3 |
Senior Executive Coach coaching - Package 4 |
Senior Executive Coach coaching - Package 5 |
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Child Maintenance Service's arrears department is (i) office based and (ii) staffed through home working; how many people work for that team; what their response time is; and whether that response time is in line with their service level agreement.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) arrears department operates using a combination of office‑based and hybrid working arrangements. CMS currently offers the opportunity to work a minimum of 60% of time in the office with 40% at home, although staff can choose to work more time in the office if they wish. Some choose to work in the office full time. The only exceptions to this are individual requirements as part of a reasonable adjustment. Hybrid working is not a contractual right and is therefore subject to change. There are currently 771 employees working in the arrears team.
CMS monitors the performance of the arrears function. Caseworker response times remain consistent across both office‑based and home‑working arrangements and continue to operate fully within the Service Level Agreement for the arrears function.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department is taking steps with local authorities to help ensure that when vulnerable claimants move into temporary accommodation they are supported to make the necessary changes to their claims.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department works closely with local authorities, who are responsible for administering Housing Benefit for people living in temporary accommodation. Housing Benefit covers housing costs in temporary accommodation, while Universal Credit supports daily living costs.
When a claimant moves into temporary accommodation, they or their appointee must report any change of circumstances through their Universal Credit account. Local authorities cannot do this on a claimant’s behalf.
Jobcentre staff in England support customers at risk of homelessness through the statutory Duty to Refer, offering a referral to a local authority for housing support.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department is notified that a claimant has been moved in to out of area temporary accommodation.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department works closely with local authorities, who are responsible for administering Housing Benefit for people living in temporary accommodation. Housing Benefit covers housing costs in temporary accommodation, while Universal Credit supports daily living costs.
When a claimant moves into temporary accommodation, they or their appointee must report any change of circumstances through their Universal Credit account. Local authorities cannot do this on a claimant’s behalf.
Jobcentre staff in England support customers at risk of homelessness through the statutory Duty to Refer, offering a referral to a local authority for housing support.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the operation of the household benefit cap relies on manual administration; and how many people in his Department work on its administration.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The benefit cap is calculated automatically as part of the UC calculation on the UC administrative system and no manual processing is involved. A small number of households (340, as of August 2025) are capped via Housing Benefit (HB). The calculations relating to these capping decisions are completed by 1.6 FTE staff in post (SIP) within the department.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which delays in confirming funding allocations following the 2025 Spending Review have contributed to a reduction in local authority staff working in Reducing Parental Conflict coordination posts.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This government wants to ensure that every child has the best start in life. We know that healthy parental relationships are an important part of this ambition, and the Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) programme continues to deliver effective relationship support for parents, working closely with local authorities (LAs).
Our 2022-25 evaluation has recognised the value that Local Authority staffing, particularly the role of coordinators as drivers of change, bring to the integration and delivery of RPC within their local areas. That is why we have continued to fund and support the coordinator posts. LAs can vary their staffing levels depending on local priorities and decisions on how to use their individual Local Grant funding, however knowledge and expertise remain due to wider workforce training funded by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The government is keenly aware of the importance of communicating decisions on future funding to LAs, and the impact this has on workforce and delivery of parental support. We appreciate the importance of timely information for the organisations and individuals involved, and we will share updates at the earliest opportunity.
Relationship status is not an outcome measured by the RPC programme. DWP therefore does not routinely collect this information. The programme focuses on reducing the frequency, intensity and impact of parental conflict on children, rather than whether parents remain together or separate.
Wider evaluations of the RPC programme, such as our 2018-2022 evaluation, demonstrated the clear impact of improved parental relationships – whether together or apart – on children’s mental health and wellbeing. The evaluation of the RPC Local Grant (2022–25) showed the importance of embedding relationship support alongside family help services, and within the places and spaces where families access support. This is at the heart of the Government’s approach to supporting families, as creating a more integrated system of support is a central ambition of the Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies Programme, and the roll out of Best Start Family Hubs to every Local Authority in England.
Ensuring families have access to the effective support that they need remains an important shared endeavour across government. DWP are committed to working closely with the Department for Education, and across government, to ensure that families continue to benefit from approaches that improve relationships and support better outcomes for children.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many LinkedIn Learning licences were provided to Department for Work and Pensions staff; and what the total cost of those licences was, in each calendar quarter from Q1 2023 to the most recent quarter for which data is available.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The table below shows the number of licenses purchased and costs associated since Q1 2023.
These are annual subscriptions and have not been renewed since 2024.
| Q1 2023 | Q1 2024 |
Learning Licenses | 10 | 10 |
Costs | £3,264 | £3,600 |
Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what action is being taken to reduce the waiting times for a decision on Access to Work claims.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is committed to reducing the Access to Work waiting times. We have increased the number of staff working in this area by 27% and we have continued to streamline delivery practices. To protect employment opportunities, case managers prioritise Access to Work applications where the customer is due to start a job within four weeks, or cases that are up for renewal.
In the Pathways to Work Green Paper, we consulted on the future of Access to Work and how to improve the scheme so that it helps more disabled people in work. We will be reviewing all aspects of the Scheme now that the consultation has closed. We are continuing to work closely with stakeholders, and in particular disabled people and their representatives, on all aspects of our proposals.