Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to trialling the introduction of personal budgets for employment support in order to support more disabled people into work.
Answered by Lord Freud
The Government recognises that people need support that is tailored to their needs. Personal Budgets are currently being trialled in Access to Work to offer customers greater flexibility to manage their Travel to Work or Support Worker costs. Initial findings from the trial are expected in early 2017.
The Work and Health Unit, in partnership with NHS England, are also exploring options for trialling the expansion of personal health budgets to include employment support through the work and health Innovation Fund. This is being considered as part of a small number of health-led employment support trials that we hope to set up with devolution areas and as part of the ongoing development of Integrated Personal Commissioning where employment could be considered as part of a wider conversation to support the roll out of personal health budgets.
A Personal Budgets model was previously tested in the Right to Control Trailblazers, which ran from 2010 to 2013. Disabled people taking part in the trailblazers were offered greater choice and control over the support they received, as well as the option to take a direct payment and arrange their own support. The final evaluation report did not find any evidence that the Right to Control Trailblazers had a significant positive impact on customers, both overall and by subgroup.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation in the recent report from the charity Sense, <i>Realising Aspirations for All</i>, to break the link between welfare benefits and access to employment by making support voluntary and available to all disabled people, regardless of the benefits they claim.
Answered by Lord Freud
We welcome the Sense report, Realising Aspirations for All and its findings. We want all disabled and people with a long term health condition to fulfil their potential and achieve their aspirations.
We will soon publish a Green Paper on work and health and conduct a consultation to understand how every individual can have the opportunity to work and share in the economic and health benefits that work brings, regardless of their health condition or disability. We will continue to engage with Sense and other key stakeholders as part of the Green Paper consultation.