Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department provides to specifically help people with autism into work.

The Government is strongly committed to increasing employment opportunities for disabled people, including those with autism. Taking a life course approach, we are working across Government and with local authorities, voluntary organisations and employers in the public and private sectors to achieve this. Specific help for people with autism includes:

• Access to Work has put in place a Hidden Impairment Specialist Team that gives advice to help employers support employees with conditions such as Autism, Learning Disability and/or Mental Health conditions. It also offers eligible people an assessment to find out their needs at work and help to develop a support plan.

• Through a contract with Autism Alliance, we have developed the Disability Confident Autism and Neurodiversity Toolkit, to help staff from all Government Departments understand how to support people with Autism and associated Neuro-Diverse conditions. We also Developed the Disability Passport ‘About Me’ which aims to encourage disabled claimants, including individuals with Autism, to disclose their disability/ health conditions at the earliest stage to their Adviser, to improve communication and ensure reasonable adjustments are put in place. Both the toolkit and passport are hosted on Autism Alliance’s website

• Also through a contract with Autism Alliance, we delivered Autism and Hidden Impairment training to over 1000 nominated staff across the Jobcentre Plus network. Feedback from delegates confirms that the training helped staff to understand how to support people with Autism or hidden impairments into employment

• The Civil Service has committed to support the Autism Exchange Programme, and my Department is working with Ambitious about Autism to provide work placement opportunities for young people. I recently attended an Autism Exchange event which was designed to promote the programme among employers from a range of sectors.

On Thursday 30 November 2017 we published ‘Improving Lives the Future of Work,

Health and Disability’, which sets out details of our life course approach to improving employment opportunities for disabled people and people with a health condition. Whilst the initiatives are not all aimed exclusively at autistic people, we expect that many will benefit from these initiatives.