Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what (a) guidelines and (b) recommended timescales exist for processing last-minute Access to Work extra support requests.

The Access to Work guidance and policy for fast track application requests is that applications are identified and marked as urgent then allocated to an advisory team on the same day. This includes the Access to Work adviser making contact with the customer on the same day to ensure that their request is progressed as far as possible to the point of decision on the level of support if possible.