Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what additional support and training her Department offers to unemployed people to help them to fill long-term vacancies in (a) the UK, (b) Scotland and (c) Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency.

DWP offers significant support to unemployed people across Great Britain, through our network of Jobcentres. Since the start of June, our work coaches have made over a quarter of a million outbound customer support calls, each week. They are providing support on finding a job, help with retraining or skills advice, CV, job applications and access to the new vacancies we record every day, as well as signposting to our new Jobhelp website.

DWP are also using technology to host virtual jobfairs, working with employers to deliver online mentoring circles and facilitating sector based work academies.

We also work with partners to help customers access key provision. In Scotland this includes close working with Scottish Government to ensure customers can access the employability programme Fair Start Scotland. And in Falkirk Jobcentre customers are now able to access Fair Start Scotland from the first day of their qualifying benefit claim as part of a pilot with Scottish Government.