Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the procedure is in his Department for assessing grade boundaries and job roles; and how often such assessments take place.

DWP uses two job evaluation schemes, which are widely utilised across the Civil Service.

1. Job Evaluation and Grading Support (JEGS), an analytical points-based system which is used by trained evaluators to rank roles from AA to Grade 6. This also incorporates Grading Guidance which provides an analytical matching of posts based on JEGS, a good level of assurance and is less resource intensive than a full evaluation.

2. Job Evaluation for Senior Posts (JESP) which is similar to JEGS but used to evaluate posts in the Senior Civil Service.

DWP evaluates all new roles and roles where there has been a fundamental or material change in job content using one of these schemes.

Information on JEGS, including use of grading guidance, is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/job-evaluation-and-grading-support-jegs-for-civil-servants

Information on JESP is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/job-evaluation-for-senior-posts-good-practice-guide