Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of implementing the recommendations in the report by the Royal National Institute of Blind People entitled Access to Work: People with sight loss cannot wait any longer for action, published on 26 January 2023.

Access to Work has received a significant increase in applications over the last year, and we have recruited new staff to meet the increased demand and reduce the time it takes to make decisions.

Customers making new applications where they are starting work within the next 4 weeks, or have a grant coming to an end that requires renewal, are prioritised to ensure customers are able to enter and remain in the labour market. The department is working hard to reduce the wait times for all disabled people, with all processes being kept under review, including in the context of the recommendations from the Royal National Institute of Blind People report.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People report included recommendations such as whether the DWP could reintroduce some of the easements that were in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has already been considered and, alongside prioritising people with a job start within the next 4 weeks, easements like a revised ‘light touch’ renewals process have been put in place.

Longer term, we are also transforming the Access to Work service through increased digitalisation, that will make the service more efficient, make the application process easier, and improve the time taken from application through to decision.