Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of assessments for (a) personal independence payment, (b) universal credit and (c) employment support allowance were carried out by video call in each of the last three months.

We are currently exploring alternative ways of conducting health assessments as part of the Covid-19 response, and this includes a trial of video assessments.

Stage one of the video trial for Work Capability Assessment (WCA), which includes assessments for Universal Credit (UC) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), was completed in March 2021 and the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) trial is still ongoing. The experience and feedback from the trials will inform wider roll out and initially participation in video assessments will be limited and by invitation only.

Video assessments, where appropriate, have taken place alongside telephone and paper based assessments, which have been carried out successfully throughout the pandemic. In addition, face to face assessments resumed in May.

All volumes have been rounded to the nearest 10.

All of the above data is derived from management information produced by the assessment providers.

Please note: the above data is derived from unpublished management information which is collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics Publication standards.