Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to his Written Statement of 10 December 2015, HCWS377, on universal credit and local authorities, how he will define reasonable efforts to redeploy staff.

We will work with Local Authorities to manage the impact of these changes in a way which minimises the need for any redundancies. Where this does not prove possible, after the exercise of all reasonable efforts to redeploy people, the Department has given Local Authorities a commitment that we will meet their costs of any residual redundancies. Reasonable efforts will vary according to the circumstance of the Local Authority.