Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Part One of the National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, what progress her Department has made towards exploring offering earlier and more intensive back-to-work support in jobcentres for people before their work capability assessment.

The Government is committed to seeing one million more disabled people in work between 2017 and 2027 and reducing the disability employment gap. The disability employment gap

has closed by around 5 percentage points since 2013 (when the current way of measuring disability began) and in the last four years, the number of disabled people in employment has increased by 850,000. We are committed to doing more, building on this good progress, to support disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work, where it is right for them.

We know that to be truly effective in supporting disabled people, our jobcentres must offer a range of help. As outlined in both the recent Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper and the National Disability Strategy, this includes exploring offering earlier and more intensive back-to-work support in jobcentres for people before their work capability assessment.

This builds on support already available to people from a work coach before their work capability assessment. All new claimants are given Day 1 interventions by a dedicated work coach to support them back to work. DWP has also introduced the new approach to conditionality, called Tailoring Up. For disabled people and people with health conditions, this aims to enable an honest and open conversation between a person and their work coach about what they can do.

The aim is to build commitment to move towards work and into work where possible. Work coaches can start from a point of no mandatory requirements and agree with the person the voluntary steps the person will take, bringing in mandatory requirements as and when it is appropriate for the individual.

The Autumn Budget announced an additional £156 million over the Spending Review 2021 period to provide job finding support for disabled people, with a focus on additional support from work coaches In Jobcentres. We are developing plans for how to further support people with health conditions and disabled people towards and into work, including through increased work coach support, building on the Tailoring Up approach that is already available.