Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress his Department has made on awarding new contracts to carry out work capability assessments and Personal Independence Payment assessments from August 2023.

Procurement of the new Functional Assessment Service contracts is well underway, with the expectation that contracts will be signed shortly. Following a transition period, the new service will begin from March 2024. This is part of the Health Transformation Programme’s broader work to modernise health and disability benefit services. The new contracts will bring together current Health and Disability Assessment Services and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments under single geographic contracts. These will form a building block for a new integrated Health Assessment Service, which is being developed through the programme.