Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether an Access to Work scheme has been implemented in their Department.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Access to Work is a demand-led, personalised discretionary grant, which contributes to the disability-related extra costs of working faced by disabled people, and those with a health condition in the workplace that are beyond standard reasonable adjustments. It does not replace an employer’s duty under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments.
In 2006, the DWP took over responsibility for providing adjustments that would previously have been funded through Access to Work, for civil servants working in their department. This removed the need for DWP staff to apply for Access to Work. In April 2022, all Government departments followed suit and assumed responsibility for providing such adjustments for their staff.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether i an Access to Work scheme has been implemented in their Department.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
An Access to Work scheme has not been implemented. The department, in common with other government departments, has its own arrangements to support employees with a disability or long-term health condition. In HM Treasury, the implementation of reasonable adjustments for its employees is via a central workplace adjustments service.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether an Access to Work scheme has been implemented in their Department.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Access to Work is a demand-led, personalised discretionary grant which contributes to the disability-related extra costs of working faced by disabled people and those with a health condition in the workplace that are beyond standard reasonable adjustments. It does not replace an employer’s duty under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments.
In 2006, DWP took over responsibility for providing adjustments that would previously have been funded through Access to Work, for civil servants working in their department. In April 2022, all government departments followed suit and assumed responsibility for providing such adjustments for their staff.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were employed by her Department to work on matters relating to equality, diversity and inclusivity in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The central Home Office Diversity and Inclusion team in March 2021 employed 23 paid Full Time Equivalents (FTE) and this equated to 23 headcount (HC). For March 2022, it was also 23 paid FTE equating to 23 HC. However, the figures for March 22 include 4 FTE and HC following the move of a team, in the 21/22 financial year, that was originally established outside of the central D&I team to progress the departments race focused priorities in response to the recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review.
To obtain information relating to all roles across the Home Office that were in some way linked directly or indirectly to equality, diversity and inclusion matters would require disproportionate effort. Therefore, only staff employed as part of the core departmental D&I team have been included in this response.
These roles are directly focused on the delivery of the departments strategic diversity and inclusion objectives through its policies, processes and practices and also wider government priorities and strategies. This includes Civil Service D&I strategy, Inclusive Britain and the National Disability Strategy. The roles also help the department to ensure it is meeting its statutory obligations in relation to equalities legislation whilst delivering value for money.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department will take to ensure disabled people will be able to access the consultation on the Disability Action Plan.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
As previously announced, the Disability Action Plan will set out the immediate action the Government will take in 2023 and 2024 to improve disabled people’s lives, as well as laying the foundations for longer term change.
There is already significant work being taken forward by individual Government departments in areas disabled people have told us are a priority. This includes reforms to employment and welfare via the DWP’s ‘Transforming Support: Health and Disability White Paper’, and strategies to address health and social care via DHSC’s ‘People at the Heart of Care White Paper’. These are long term reform efforts which are already underway and outside the scope of a new one to two year action plan.
The plan will go further in areas where we think joint action across Government departments can make a tangible difference to disabled people’s lives in the immediate term - or where we can make meaningful progress towards a longer term goal, for example improved disability data and evidence.
We are planning to consult on the Disability Action Plan this summer, publishing a full draft of the plan alongside a set of consultation questions.
This consultation will be an opportunity for everyone - disabled people, disabled people’s organisations, other interested parties - to have their say on the Disability Action Plan. It will be fully accessible to ensure that disabled people can take part, including being made available in various accessible formats.
We will consider all responses to the consultation carefully before publishing the final Disability Action Plan.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent discussions he has had with disability rights organisations on the Disabled Facilities Grant.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Disabled Facilities Grant is a shared responsibility with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) given that funding for the grant is provided through the Better Care Fund. Officials from both departments meet regularly with a range of stakeholders interested in this policy.
Local areas already have discretion to increase the cap on the grant on a case-by-case basis in line with a locally published housing assistance policy. As with all aspects of the grant, government will keep the upper limit under review.
We do not hold official statistics regarding the number of applications for the DFG submitted and approved in each year from 2010, or the numbers of applications since 2010 that have been submitted for either the maximum amount of £30,000 or for amounts between £25,000-£29,999. However, my Department funds a National Body for Home Improvement Agencies, Foundations who publish an annual report which analyses unaudited, voluntary data from Local Authorities which you may find useful. These reports can be found here.
Since 2010 government has invested £4.8 billion into the Disabled Facilities Grant (2010-11 to 2022-23), delivering an estimated 490,000 home adaptations.
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F/Year | 10-11 | 11-12 | 12-13 | 13-14 | 14-15 | 15-16 | 16-17 | 17-18 | 18-19 | 19-20 | 20-21 | 21-22 | 22-23 | Total |
Amount | £169m | £200m | £220m | £200m | £185m | £220m | £394m | £473m* | £523m** | £505m | £573m*** | £573m | £573m | £4.8bn |
No of DFGs | 45,383 | 43,986 | 36,874 | 42,586 | 40,645 | 40,800 | 46,000 | 47,850 | 53,500 | 58,181 | 38,566 | TBC | TBC | 494,371 |
I recognise that for some home adaptations the cost of the works can be higher. Where this is the case, and where an authority has a locally published Housing Assistance Policy, authorities can take a local decision to provide grants above the existing £30,000 limit on a case-by-case basis. However, I must be clear that these discretionary grants are a local decision, and I am unable to intervene in individual cases.
In addition to providing expert support and advice to local authorities, Foundations also regularly provide information and advice to individual disabled people on applying for a DFG, including advice around other sources of financial support. More information can be found here.
* £431m annual grant plus an additional £42m announced in Autumn Budget 2017
**£468m annual grant plus an additional £55m announced in Budget 2018
***£505m annual grant plus an additional £68m paid to LAs in December 2020
**** Source: Foundations, the national body for home improvement agencies
Footnote: Local authorities in England provide annual data on their DFG delivery, however the data is not audited, and local authorities provide this information on a voluntary basis. The headline totals above are based on estimates provided by Foundations which have been extrapolated from the available data.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2023 to Question 153888 on Disability, which Ministerial Disability Champions attended the meeting on 14 March 2023; if he will publish the minutes of that meeting; and when the next meeting of Ministerial Disability Champions is due to take place.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Ministerial Disability Champions (MDC) roundtable took place on 14 March 2023. It was an opportunity for me to welcome the new cohort of MDCs who have been appointed across Government, to thank them for their commitment to improve disabled people’s lives and to emphasise how they and their departments are key to the development and delivery of the upcoming Disability Action Plan.
MDCs who attended:
Tom Pursglove MP - Dept for Work and Pensions (DWP) (Chair)
Trudy Harrison MP - Dept for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
Mike Freer MP - Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
Claire Coutinho MP - Dept for Education (DfE)
Kevin Hollinrake MP - Dept for Business and Trade (DBT)
Sarah Dines MP - The Home Office (HO)
The Rt Hon Stuart Andrew MP - Dept for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
The Rt Hon Johnny Mercer MP - Cabinet Office (CO)
The Rt Hon Dr Andrew Murrison MP - Ministry of Defence (MOD)
Richard Holden MP - Dept for Transport (DfT)
David Rutley MP - Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
Dr James Davies MP - Office of the Secretary of State for Wales
John Lamont MP - Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland
Steve Baker MP - Office of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Rt Hon Victoria Prentis KC MP - Attorney General (Attorney General’s Office)
We intend to hold a further roundtable meeting for those MDCs who could not attend the meeting on 14 March, ahead of the next full roundtable meeting.
The Government does not plan to publish the minutes from MDC roundtables.
The next full MDC roundtable is currently scheduled to take place on Monday 15 May 2023.
Asked by: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when his Departments will commence the series of regular disability surveys as set out in the National Disability Strategy published in July 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The 2021 National Disability Strategy set out an ambition to improve the lives of millions of disabled people in the UK. In January 2022, the High Court declared the strategy to be unlawful because the UK Disability Survey, which informed it, was held to be a voluntary consultation that failed to comply with the legal requirements on public consultations. The DWP Secretary of State has been granted permission to appeal from the Court of Appeal.
In order to ensure compliance with the Court’s declaration, we are obliged to pause a limited number of policies which are referred to in the strategy, or are directly connected with it. This policy is not one of the policies we have been obliged to pause.
ONS started work on developing a survey into disabled people’s experiences and barriers in 2022 and to date the following have been completed:
ONS
The Disability Unit:
Further work is being undertaken by ONS on question development and testing, which will then lead to a pilot survey to develop future analytical products.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to the policy paper entitled Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, published on 15 March 2023, what steps his Department has taken to consult with disabled people and disabled people's organisations on flexible working since the 2019 general election.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Since December 2019, the Government has run a 12-week consultation on flexible working. As part of this exercise, we held individual and roundtable discussions with disabled people’s organisations, before publishing our response in December 2022. The response committed to legislative changes, several of which are being taken forward through the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill.
Furthermore, in April 2021, to ensure the effective representation of the views of disabled people, Scope became a member of the Flexible Working Taskforce, a partnership between Government Departments, business groups and third sector organisations set up to consider barriers to flexible working.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what proportion of their Department's employees are recorded as having a disability.
Answered by Steve Baker - Minister of State (Northern Ireland Office)
As of January 2023, of the 74.2% of staff working in the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) who have completed their disability declaration information, 9.2% shared they had a disability. 4.9% of those who have declared their information have reported they ‘prefer not to say’. This data is completed anonymously by employees via our online HR system (SOP).
The Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022 maintains our focus on mainstreaming the delivery of inclusion and achieving our key priorities as outlined in the Declaration on Government Reform. We will continue to build a more inclusive Civil Service going further than the current Equality Act provisions by building on and expanding a previous focus on Protected Characteristics to deliver for all of our people. Incorporating a broader definition of diversity (such as socioeconomic, work experience and geographic backgrounds) and embedding activity in our strategic priorities will enable the successful delivery of our corporate objectives. Disability remains a focus of this work and we continue to identify and remove barriers affecting disabled colleagues.
Representation of disabled staff is increasing at all grades, whilst this trend is positive, we remain committed to improving the representation of disabled colleagues across our workforce and in particular at our most senior grades.
All main Government departments have Disability Confident Leader (level 3) status on the Government’s Disability Confident Scheme, the highest level of accreditation. The scheme gives employers the tools to recruit, retain and develop disabled people, and acts as a catalyst for continuous improvement.
The Civil Service Workplace Adjustment Service is well established, offering specialist advice and access to a review route for disabled employees experiencing difficulties in securing the adjustments they need. The service includes a Workplace Adjustment Passport to facilitate the seamless retention of adjustments on a change of line manager, job role or move between business areas or departments.
We will continue to target action where gaps persist.