Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) suitability and (b) availability of remote working jobs for disabled benefit claimants.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In consulting on the Work Capability Assessment and setting out changes to the assessment from 2025, the department has considered the increase in the broad range of hybrid and home working opportunities over the last decade, alongside better employer understanding of the needs of disabled people and people with health conditions. Responses to the consultation, including from people with health conditions and disabilities and the organisations that support them, highlighted barriers in accessing employment and flexible jobs for disabled people. Our enhanced employment and support offer will help disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work.
Analysis published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that having a disability has little effect on levels of home working. Disabled workers reported similar levels of homeworking only (18%) compared with those without a disability (16%).
Sources: Characteristics of homeworkers, Great Britain - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) and Is hybrid working here to stay? - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of his Department's employees work on a fully remote basis.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP has 407 members of staff that are recorded as being permanent Homeworkers which equates to 0.46%. This is data as of 30th November 2023.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what their Departments policy is on Civil Servants in their Department working from home and receiving the London Weighting Allowance.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP does not have a London Weighting Allowance. DWP has four pay zones and correspondence pay scales: National, Inner London, Outer London and Special Location Pay Zones.
DWP has a hybrid working policy where employees are required to spend a minimum of 40% of their time in the office over a four-week period. In DWP, contractual home working is allowed only as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010 for a disabled colleague or following a successful application under the Flexible Working Regulations.
Flexible working is also a fundamental element of the Civil Service employment offer which is consistent with other sectors. Flexible working arrangements enable departments to make efficient use of resources, and the offer also ensures the Civil Service can attract and retain a diversity of talent.
For employees who are either contractual homeworkers or hybrid workers, their pay is determined by either their designated office or their contracted office, respectively. Contractual homeworkers still have a designated office for pay purposes. Hybrid workers are still contractually based in an office. They will receive pay according to where their particular office falls in the above zones.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Civil Service headquarters occupancy data, updated on 1 June 2022, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of occupancy rates on his Department's performance during May 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The data published by Cabinet Office is for DWP’s London Caxton House building only, and does not cover the Department’s other corporate, or service delivery locations and does not cover employees working in other government buildings or workplaces. The Department does not have data that can provide an assessment of the potential impact of occupancy rates in Caxton House on DWP’s performance specifically during May 2023. Broader research conducted across the Civil Service has considered the impact of hybrid working on productivity and found that overall productivity is being maintained. We continue to keep hybrid working under review.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of their Department’s employees work from home at least one day a week.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As a department we do not capture figures for employees working from home at least one day a week. We do however record figures for employees who attend the office. Our Hybrid working policy is minimum of 40% of their time in the office. As a department have headquarters utilisation data published here.
The Total DWP on a given day, the average figures for people who were working and were in an office are as follows: (Staff that are not working in the office, can either be working remotely or from home).
Q2 2022/23
DWP Total – 59.4%
Q3 2022/23
DWP Total – 60.3%
Asked by: Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the impact of increased homeworking during the covid-19 outbreak on her Department’s carbon footprint.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department monitors and reports on its greenhouse gas emissions - information on this is published in the Greening Government Commitments Annual Report.
Asked by: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of staff in her Department are currently working from home on a full-time or part-time basis whose residence is in (a) England, (b) Scotland and (c) Wales.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The information requested is only available at a Great Britain level.
The proportion of DWP staff who are contractual home workers is 0.03%.
35.55% of staff work in customer facing front line roles which predominantly require staff to work in the office.
The remaining 64.42% of roles in the department can be performed on a hybrid basis, meaning they split their time between working in a workplace and at home. Employees in these roles have been returning to the office in a safe and considered way over the last few months. As part of this, every staff member is having a one-to-one conversation with their manager to discuss their return to the workplace.
DWP maintained its services throughout the pandemic; Jobcentres have remained open throughout the pandemic for anyone who needed face-to-face support and could not be helped in any other way, with DWP employees available on site to support the most vulnerable claimants. On 12 April 2021, Jobcentres in England and Wales returned to normal opening hours from 9am to 5pm, with Jobcentres in Scotland restarting the same face to face service from 26 April 2021.
Across all DWP offices, safety measures remain in place as per the relevant Government and devolved administration health and safety guidance, and whilst these measures are in place it is not possible to return to full office capacity.
Asked by: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance is provided on home working to staff in her Department resident in (a) England, (b) Scotland and (c) Wales.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has a long-standing policy on the circumstances in which an employee might request and be allowed to work from home.
This policy was supplemented in July 2021 with publication of new guidance for those employees that are designated ‘hybrid workers’. This new guide covers a wider range of topics, such as effective performance management and caring whilst working from home.
Both the long-standing home working policy and new hybrid working guidance apply consistently across England, Scotland and Wales.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential employment opportunities of remote working for (a) vulnerable, (b) disabled and (c) elderly people who might struggle to physically attend a workplace.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is aware of the employment opportunities which flexible working can help create for vulnerable, disabled, older workers and more generally for those who might struggle to attend a workplace.
The Government has committed to consult on making flexible working the default unless employers have good reasons not to. The consultation will consider flexible working in all its forms – it is not just about where people work, but also about when they work and the associated number of hours. The consultation will be launched in due course.
In March 2018, the Flexible Working Taskforce – a partnership across business groups, trade unions, charities, and government departments – was set up and ran for a period of 18 months to advise the Government on policies and proposals around flexible working. Earlier this year the Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets wrote to the co-chair of the Taskforce, Peter Cheese, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), to commission a further 18 months’ work from the Taskforce to help inform the Government’s thinking as we develop the detail of new policies and navigate the impact of Covid-19 on future ways of working.
In recognition of the changes brought by the pandemic, Access to Work introduced a more flexible offer to support disabled people move into and remain in employment. The new flexible offer complements support provided by employers and contains a combination of support that can be tailored to meet the needs of new Covid-19 working arrangements, including for remote working.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the number of (a) graduate job vacancies and (b) apprenticeship starts in (i) Coventry North East constituency, (ii) Coventry, (iii) the West Midlands and (iv) England.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
We recognise that a number of education leavers will face challenges gaining employment due to the ongoing adverse impact on the UK labour market and economy of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Recent data from the Office for National Statistics shows that unemployment amongst graduates in the UK has been consistently lower than the total unemployed. The unemployment rate for recent graduates remains below the youth (16-24 years of age) unemployment rate. This data can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/graduateslabourmarketoutcomesduringthecoronaviruscovid19pandemicoccupationalswitchesandskillmismatch/2021-03-08. We do not hold data about graduate-specific job vacancies and how these vary by region.
The government is doing all it can to help people who are at the start of their career journey. The Department for Work and Pensions is aiming to have a nationwide network of 27,000 Work Coaches in place by the end of March 2021 to support jobseekers and match them with employers who are recruiting.
As part of the government’s skills recovery package Plan for Jobs announced on 8 July 2020, we are investing an additional £32 million in the National Careers Service up to March 2022. This investment will provide individual careers advice for 269,000 more people whose jobs or learning have been affected by COVID-19. On 29 September 2020 we added additional courses to The Skills Toolkit covering digital, numeracy and employability skills. The new content includes a range of courses to develop ‘work readiness’ skills that employers report they value in their new recruits.
The Department for Education is working with Universities UK, the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, the Institute of Student Employers, the Office for Students, and the sector to understand what more we can do to support graduates who are looking to enter the labour market or continue their studies at this challenging time.
Apprenticeships are more important than ever in helping businesses to recruit the right people and develop the skills they need. In recognition of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak we introduced a number of flexibilities to ensure that apprenticeships can continue where possible. This includes flexibilities to off-the-job training to support remote learning and making it possible for furloughed apprentices to continue their apprenticeships and undertake end-point assessments.
To help employers across the country offer new apprenticeships we have increased the duration and level of incentive payments. Employers will be able to claim £3,000 for each apprentice they take on as a new employee between 1 April 2021 and 30 September 2021 under the government’s Plan for Jobs. Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/incentive-payments-for-hiring-a-new-apprentice.
Apprenticeships starts in the first quarter of 2020/21 academic year (reported to date) in the requested geographies, and the equivalent 2019/20 academic year figures are shown in the attached table.
The latest data on apprenticeships and traineeships is published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships.