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Written Question
Access to Work Scheme: Medical Examinations
Tuesday 23rd January 2024

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, how many people are waiting for an Access to Work assessment as of 16 January 2023.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Access to Work statistics are published annually and figures, including those for January 2023, can be found here

Written Question
Disability: Employment
Tuesday 23rd January 2024

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, what recent progress his Department has made on publication of the Disability Action Plan.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Since the consultation closed on 6 October 2023 we have been working carefully through the responses and we aim to publish the Disability Action Plan as soon as possible.

Written Question
Unemployment: Medical Treatments
Wednesday 20th December 2023

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 12 December 2023 to Question 5438, if he will make an estimate of the number of people that are waiting for (a) trauma and (b) orthopaedic treatment and are unable to work until they receive treatment as of 12 December 2023; and what steps he is taking to help these people re-enter the workforce.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department has not made such an assessment.

The Government is taking several steps to help support people with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. In the Spring Budget, the government set out a package of measures to tackle the leading health-related causes keeping people out of work, including people with MSK conditions:

  • Introducing employment advisors within MSK services, including to support people with MSK conditions to thrive in work;
  • Developing and scaling up MSK hubs in the Community, building on the example of delivering physical activity interventions in local leisure and community centre venues.
  • Making best use of digital health technologies to support people with MSK conditions to better manage symptoms and remain in the workforce. This will include providing access to digital therapeutics for MSK problems.

As announced in the Autumn Statement, to tackle rising economic inactivity, government is investing £2.5 billion over the next five years, building on the existing package of support that helps disabled people and individuals with health conditions, including MSK, to work. This includes:

  • a WorkWell service that will join up employment and health support at the local level to help keep people in work. WorkWell services will be in place from Autumn 2024 and will be delivered in approximately 15 pilot areas.
  • Doubling of Universal Support, a new, voluntary employment programme for inactive disabled people and those with health conditions and additional barriers to employment, from 50,000 people a year announced in Spring Budget to 100,000 people a year once fully rolled out.
  • Improving the quality of occupational health for employers through the development of new voluntary national baseline for employers to help them retain and recruit disabled workers.
  • An expansion of access to mental health services, increasing the number of people accessing NHS Talking Therapies to benefit an additional 384,000 people over the next five years and helping an additional 100,000 people with severe mental illness to find and keep jobs in that same period through Individual Placement and Support (IPS)

Written Question
Jobcentres: Staff
Wednesday 20th December 2023

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, what the average caseload of a Jobcentre Universal Credit case manager was in the most recent period for which data is available.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

There is no set minimum/maximum or optimum caseload size. The net claims per Case Manager is circa 1,500, this excludes: Claims with no Identity Verification – older than 30 days; Suspended claims; Claims with open ‘additional action close claims’ to-do; Claims with consecutive nil payments; Claims with a Case Manager not based in a Service Centre; Claims without a Case Manager.

The size of a Work Coach caseload will vary as it is dependent on several factors, including the level of customer support required, the needs of the local labour market and the experience and working pattern of each Work Coach. For November, our case loads of Intensive Work Search customers averaged 113 cases per Universal Credit Work Coach.

Written Question
Jobcentres: Staff
Wednesday 20th December 2023

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, what the average caseload of a Jobcentre work coach was in the most recent period for which data is available.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

There is no set minimum/maximum or optimum caseload size. The net claims per Case Manager is circa 1,500, this excludes: Claims with no Identity Verification – older than 30 days; Suspended claims; Claims with open ‘additional action close claims’ to-do; Claims with consecutive nil payments; Claims with a Case Manager not based in a Service Centre; Claims without a Case Manager.

The size of a Work Coach caseload will vary as it is dependent on several factors, including the level of customer support required, the needs of the local labour market and the experience and working pattern of each Work Coach. For November, our case loads of Intensive Work Search customers averaged 113 cases per Universal Credit Work Coach.

Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Staff
Tuesday 19th December 2023

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, what steps he is taking to help improve (a) the quality of recruitment and (b) staff retention levels within his Department.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP is committed to improving its recruitment processes and improving candidate experience. The Resourcing Centre of Expertise has an ongoing work programme to ensure policy, guidance and tools support the business to fill high volumes of vacancies across a wide range of professions, grades, functions and locations. DWP work closely with recruitment suppliers, candidates and vacancy holders to identify ways to improve our processes and the quality of our recruitment outcomes.

DWP actively takes steps to promote and raise awareness of careers opportunities to increase attraction of diverse talent from the widest possible range of geographical, social, diversity and career backgrounds by:

  • Developing and launching corporate branding materials to support external recruitment activity and promote career opportunities in DWP to appeal to a broad range of applicants from entry level through to career changers and returners to the labour market. The branding provides consistent corporate attraction materials for DWP recruitment and is used on a range of social media, digital platforms and in outreach activities.
  • Promoting the DWP Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to the external labour market and widen the reach of DWP recruitment campaigns by promoting opportunities and employee stories on LinkedIn and the Civil Service Careers website.
  • Piloting use of diverse jobs boards which targets applicants with protected characteristics.
  • Delivering national communications campaigns for volume recruitment of critical Work Coach and Universal Credit Review roles.

Within the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, DWP use high quality selection tools which are centrally evaluated such as Civil Service online tests and video interviewing. Processes have been developed to increase the diversity of panel members and tested different approaches to evaluate their impact on diverse outcomes, inclusive candidate experience, and quality of hire.

The DWP People Strategy specifically sets out to ensure we offer fulfilling, rewarding careers that attract and retain motivated people. Most recently DWP have been implementing measures to increase retention by:

  • Using our people performance one to ones to increase awareness of partial retirement options, promoting options for part time employees to change their working pattern and using survey data to understand what is driving attrition trends and continue to create an environment where colleagues are highly motivated and retained.
  • By directly targeting all colleagues noted as leaving we have successfully increased the response rate to our leavers survey. We have revised the questions to provide more relevant insight and spoken to other Government Departments to learn from best practice.
  • Currently running a 3 month exit interview pilot in part of our operations to further build understanding of the reasons people are leaving the Department. As this will only be a proportion of the leavers that notify us during this period we will triangulate this data with other sources and additional business insight to ensure that we have a holistic picture upon which further action can be taken.
Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Pay
Tuesday 19th December 2023

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, what proportion of his Department's employees are paid (a) at and (b) above the Real Living Wage.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

This following is based on the Real Living Wage rates of UK £12.00 per hour and £13.15 per hour for London as of 13 December 2023.

In response to the question raised the proportion of DWP colleagues in relation to the Real Living Wage is as follows:

a) No DWP employees are paid at the Real Living Wage.

b) 99.93% of employees are paid above the Real Living Wage.

This Government is committed to paying people a decent living wage, which is being addressed through the statutory National Living Wage. The Real Living Wage is not a statutory requirement unlike the National Living Wage, which applies to those aged 23 and over. From 1 April 2023, the National Living Wage increased to £10.42 an hour. All DWP employees are paid above this rate.

Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Pay
Tuesday 19th December 2023

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, how many and what proportion of his Department's staff have (a) applied for and (b) been given reasonable adjustments in the most recent period for which data is available.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are unable to answer this question within costs as currently it is not compulsory to enter this information onto the HR System. Each request is decided on its own merits locally and records are held by individual Line Managers.

DWP is running pilots to see whether this information can be recorded for the future however currently only start dates are visible.

Written Question
Jobcentres: Staff
Tuesday 19th December 2023

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, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure the wellbeing of Jobcentre staff.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP continues to review and refine its wellbeing offer to ensure it remains up-to-date, relevant, and accessible to all. We have a DWP Colleague ‘My Wellbeing button’. The button enables quick, easy access to our DWP Wellbeing support offer from everyone’s desktop and takes colleagues to a newly designed wellbeing triage page where colleagues can quickly access the right information and support based on their needs. For example, ‘I need support today’ through to ‘I am looking for guidance as a line manager’. The purpose of this button is to raise the visibility of our wellbeing offer and provide a quick and streamlined journey to the service required, strengthening our culture of putting colleague wellbeing at the heart of everything we do.

Within the Wellbeing button, the below support can be found:

‣ Employee Assistance Provision which includes:

  • Telephone counselling via PAM Assist is available to all colleagues at any time of the day or night, 365 days a year for anyone needing immediate support.
  • The PAM Assist service enables colleagues, where clinically appropriate, to access counselling by telephone or face-to-face.
  • A free app with access to online coaches, offering Food Coach/Fitness Coach/Mind Coach/Lifestyle Coach/Health Coach.
  • Managers can also contact PAM for advice on sensitive conversations, bereavement support and much more.
  • Physiotherapy provision.
  • PAM wellbeing workshops which colleagues can book onto and cover things such as SAD and winter wellness, mindfulness, mental health, stress.

‣ Flu vaccinations: Information for all DWP colleagues who are not able to access, or are not eligible for, the NHS flu vaccine can claim a refund if they choose to have a flu vaccination in 2023/24.

‣ Details of key wellbeing dates across the year which includes events/webinars to promote the day along with helpful tips for staff.

‣ A network of over 1,000 wellbeing advocates. Colleagues who have been given permission to give 5% of their time to support employee wellbeing. Colleagues can call them to discuss the wellbeing support offer and they actively promote the offer through giving presentations locally. We also have a Buddy Network who are volunteers that colleagues can call if they ever feel lonely and simply want a chat and have a wellbeing check-in.

‣ Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) who are specially trained colleagues who offer immediate support to others experiencing mental ill health or emotional distress. They also look out for early signs of developing issues and promote mental health awareness across the Department.

‣ Community Networks, these range from networks offering support with the Menopause, Cancer, alcohol, religion and more. They offer peer to peer support and regularly run events.

‣ Eye test – colleagues can access a free eye test once every two years or more frequently if advised by an optician or medical advisor, or if they are having visual problems whilst working at a workstation.

‣ Sanitary provision - DWP provide free sanitary products across the DWP Estate for anyone with an immediate need, to support colleague health and wellbeing.

‣ Charity for Civil Servants who offer Independent, impartial financial and emotional support to all Civil Servants. Assistance includes help for carers, financial support and advice, wellbeing support, mindfulness, anxiety support, nutrition, sleep, menopause, bereavement and Podcasts and Webinars

‣ Wellbeing and Resilience Toolbox which can be accessed by Line managers to lead their own team training on resilience, slide packs and facilitator packs are available to talk their team through sessions.

‣ 5 step Wellbeing Conversation Tools - a tool to help colleagues discuss how they are feeling, identify early warning signs of emotional distress, and explore a way forward.

‣ Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) – This document is to aid employee and line manager discussions (related to mental health/wellbeing). The WRAP is designed to help employees to reflect on the causes and symptoms of their own workplace mental health and wellbeing challenges, and to take practical steps to manage these.

‣ Stress evaluation tool – this tool is designed to assist staff to concentrate on pro-active and preventative measures to good stress management.

Annually we update the DWP voluntary reporting on disability, mental health and wellbeing - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) voluntary report on Gov UK.

Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Disqualification
Tuesday 19th December 2023

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 11 December 2023 to Question 5084 on Social Security Benefits: Disqualification, if his Department will start capturing this data.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

There are no current plans to make this information available as it would incur disproportionate costs to link the necessary data