Asked by: Danielle Rowley (Labour - Midlothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March to Question 234216 on Universal Credit: Disability, what plans the Department has for improving data collection to capture accurate, aggregate data on claimants, including claimants with vulnerabilities.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department has already introduced a function on the Universal Credit system to ‘pin’ key profile notes so they are instantly visible to all staff helping a claimant. The Department continues to develop its approach to capturing accurate, aggregate data on claimants, including those with complex needs.
Further work on understanding any vulnerabilities our claimants may have, and apply this learning to the design of Universal Credit is ongoing. This has been prioritised for the current Universal Credit development phase. The Department will report back to the Work and Pensions Select Committee with an update on its progress in late Spring 2019.
Asked by: Danielle Rowley (Labour - Midlothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons funding for the Community Partner Programme will be withdrawn from March 2019; and what assessment she has made of the potential effect on the provision of disability employment support for people with mental health problems of the withdrawal of that programme.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Community Partner roles were time limited and funded for a two-year period, which comes to an end in March 2019.
The Community Partners have made a valuable contribution including helping us understand good provision better, helping build disability awareness and working with local employers to inform them of advice available and good practice in employing disabled people.
A review of existing roles identified that there was some overlap in the support provided. In order to remove the overlap and focus on key areas, two new job roles will be introduced from April 2019:
These new roles will be instrumental in driving the government’s commitment to providing high quality support to disabled people and those with health conditions. The new roles are initially funded for two years and will be fully embedded in the Jobcentre network. They will be fully evaluated to inform future discussions about how the support they deliver may be continued.
There will be no reduction in resources and we anticipate that these changes will improve the support offered to disabled people, including those with mental health conditions.
Asked by: Danielle Rowley (Labour - Midlothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans she has to undertake an evaluation of (a) the Community Partner Programme and (b) that programme’s effect on claimants with mental health problems.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
We currently have no plans to conduct an external evaluation of the work of the Community Partners and the contribution that they have made, but an internal review of the Community Partner role and other disability employment enabling roles identified that there was some overlap in the support provided to claimants. In order to remove the overlap and focus on key areas we are introducing new disability employment roles from April 2019.
We are committed to continually improving the employment support we offer disabled people, including those with mental health conditions, and will ensure valuable learning from the Community Partners is built into the ongoing support we provide through our Jobcentres. We will not be reducing the amount of resource devoted to supporting disabled people into work.
We are investing up to £115 million of programme funding to support the work and health agenda to enable investment in new models and to build the evidence of what works. This includes mental health trials - more than doubling the number of Employment Advisers in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services - and the £3.9 million Challenge Fund, which was launched in November 2018.
Asked by: Danielle Rowley (Labour - Midlothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether data collected by her Department on universal credit claimants is disaggregated to take account of disabilities.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The self-reported health condition or disability of individual Universal Credit claimants are recorded on our system and can be viewed by work coaches. However, it is not centrally collated in a way that allows aggregated analysis to be undertaken.
Universal Credit provides enhanced personalised support for all claimants, including those with a disability. All claimants receive continuous tailored support managed through personal work coaches, who know each person. Our work coaches receive extensive training to ensure they can offer effective support to different claimant groups.
We continue to develop our approach to capturing accurate, aggregate data on claimants, including care leavers and claimants with vulnerabilities. This work is ongoing and has been prioritised for the current Universal Credit development phase.
Asked by: Danielle Rowley (Labour - Midlothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what mental health training is provided to work coaches supporting claimants of universal credit; and what assessment has been made of the adequacy of that training.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
DWP is committed to providing the best possible support for all our claimants, including the most vulnerable in society. We are continuously reviewing and improving the service for vulnerable people to ensure that it is accessible and responsive to their needs.
Work Coaches undergo a comprehensive learning journey designed to equip them with the tools, skills and behaviours required to provide a high quality service to all claimants. Specific training and guidance is provided for working with different vulnerable groups and those with complex needs including claimants with mental health conditions.
We are providing all Work Coaches with an additional two day workshop, designed by experts in mental health and psychologists, and delivered where possible alongside external mental health partners. The training began in November 2017 and will be completed by end of March 2019. Next month we will start delivering this training to staff across the entire organisation who are employed in a claimant facing role, whether this is engaging with claimants by telephone, face to face or digitally.
In June and July 2018, activity was undertaken in a number of operational sites where the Mental Health training had been delivered in order to evaluate the learning provided to work coaches and ensure it was delivering the requisite skills and behaviours originally envisaged.
The outputs of that activity were used to refine the training products, where required, and supported decisions on the delivery approach for the training that will commence in April 2019.