Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress he has made in implementing the Fuller Working Lives strategy since February; and whether statistics on the employment status of people over 50 years old will in future show the number of hours worked.

There are more older people in work than ever before, 10 million; an increase of 1.4 million over the last five years.

DWP continues to work with business, stakeholders and other Departments to ensure everyone, Government, employers and individuals can adapt to the changing face of the workforce.

DWP has expanded the Older Claimant Champion network in all 34 Jobcentre Plus districts. The Older Claimant Champions work collaboratively with over 11,000 work coaches and employer facing staff to raise the profile of older workers, highlight the benefits of employing older jobseekers and share best practice.

DWP research into Jobcentre Plus provision for older claimants, published in February 2017, provided new evidence that older claimants found Jobcentre Plus support useful. Further analysis of Jobcentre Plus provision for older claimants is ongoing. DWP will publish an impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis of sector-based work academy provision and Work Experience for older claimants, in Spring 2018.

In May 2017, The Business In The Community: Age at Work leadership team, as Business Champion for Older Workers, published its first year’s report which detailed their ‘commit and publish’ campaign, encouraging employers to monitor the age profile of their workforce, and publish workforce age data, as well as commit to increasing the number of older workers that they employ.

In September 2017, DWP published ‘Economic labour market status of individuals aged 50 and over, trends over time’. These experimental Official Statistics provide analysis on the headline measures that the Government uses to monitor progress on Fuller Working Lives.

We have no plans to include the number of hours worked in our Annual Official Statistics at present. The data on estimates of paid hours worked, weekly, hourly and annual earnings for UK employees by gender and full-time/part-time working by age group, are already publically available. They are published as part of the Office for National Statistics’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings statistical bulletin, which can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2017provisionaland2016revisedresults