Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications to the Access to Work Scheme were outstanding as of 5 September 2023; and what steps he is taking to reduce the number of those applications.

At close of business on 5^th September, 21,780 applications were outstanding.

Access to Work has received a significant increase in applications over the last year. During the period February 2023 and up to the middle of October 2023 we have/and continue to redeploy staff from other areas of service delivery, together with recruiting additional new staff externally in order to meet the increased demand and reduce the time it takes to make decisions.

Customers were notified of a 20 week wait to be assigned when applying in late 2022. Customers are now being notified of a 12 week wait.

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

We are working to develop a fully digital service and are redesigning the online application and renewal journeys to improve usability.

The new digital payments portal was introduced in June 2023 and is available for all customers that choose to claim online.