Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will consider offering Access to Work applicants an extension to their grant where excessive delays to the renewal process is preventing them engaging a support worker.

Access to Work customers applying for a renewal of their award will, if eligible, have their funding award backdated to the end of their previous award where there have been delays in processing the application.

We want to provide assurance for customers where their needs have not changed, they will continue to receive that funding.

In response to the high volume of Access to Work applications, business processes have been reviewed, including the renewals process. As part of this, we will now treat applications that are classified as renewals for on-going support as a priority group.