Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent (a) assessment she has made of the adequacy of and (b) estimate of the staffing levels for each of the benefits administered at Hordan House in Birkenhead.

There is a team of staff within Hordan House who are currently deployed on Work and Health Decision Making. This work is managed nationally and outstanding decisions can be moved around virtually to different locations if necessary. Currently in Hordan House, there is capacity to clear the allocated Work Capability Assessment decisions each week and also import decision work from the network on a regular basis. If support is needed work can be moved out, across the network, but this is not usually necessary in Birkenhead.

Other staff within Hordan House are currently deployed on Maternity Allowance (MA). Staffing levels are reviewed regularly to meet the demand of our customers and, following a recent review, a decision was made to increase the staffing deployed to MA, supporting Birkenhead with the clearance of MA applications.