Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) shortest, (b) average and (c) longest waiting time was for an assessment for employment and support allowance in the most recent 12 months for which data are available.

The information requested is not readily available. A programme of work is currently underway to look into what information on ESA waiting times is available to publish as official statistics on the ESA-WCA process. When a decision has been made DWP Statisticians will pre-announce the statistics in accordance with the UKSA release protocols.

The Labour Market statisticians are currently working on producing some published statistics based on the Median clearance times for the initial part of the customer journey.