Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of claimants who will be required to travel further than a distance considered reasonable by his Department to attend appointments and research job vacancies, after the closure of Mountain Ash Jobcentre.

The new site at Aderdare is 4.5 miles and 27 minutes by public transport from Mountain Ash Jobcentre. This proposed closure was subject to consultation and we have carefully considered the points raised by respondents. Whilst we accept that this might mean a longer journey for some claimants we have to balance the need to provide services along with our responsibility to ensure this is achieved in the most cost effective way.

We do not consider the journey to Aberdare Jobcentre to be excessive however claimants will be able to access services at other jobcentres in the area should that be more convenient.

The caseload at Mountain Ash for June 2017 was around 330 claimants (Jobseeker’s Allowance and Universal Credit claimants who are required to seek employment as a condition of entitlement to benefit). It is our intention to transfer this caseload to Aberdare Jobcentre.

Source: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/