Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons his Department uses paper based application systems for (a) Work Capability Assessments, (b) Attendance Allowance and (c) Personal Independence Payments.

Paper based applications have traditionally been the way that the DWP has taken applications for benefit claims. The department is modernising Health and Disability benefit services, including by providing new digital options for claimants to apply.

a) The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) determines entitlement to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and the additional health-related amount of Universal Credit (UC). Claimants are invited to participate in a WCA as part of a claim to ESA or a declaration of restricted ability to work in UC. Claimants can apply for New Style ESA/UC through existing New Style ESA and UC online application portals via gov.uk. Additionally, we are testing a digital Work Capability Questionnaire (UC50) in UC.

b) Online claims are currently being tested, with a very limited group of people, within Attendance Allowance, with a view to this becoming more widely available in due course.

c) The Health Transformation Programme is transforming the entire PIP service, including introducing a digital PIP service with the option to apply online. We are currently operating a small-scale test of this new apply service, taking a small number of claims to begin with, before we gradually and carefully increase the number of people who can use it. We have already introduced a digital version of the PIP2 health questionnaire, which is now offered to the majority of those making a claim.