Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what work his Department is undertaking to estimate the likely return on investment in the Access to Work Programme.

Access to Work is a flexible scheme providing different sized awards tailored to individual circumstances which will therefore deliver different levels of return on investment for different cases.

Officials have undertaken research to explore the potential costs and benefits of Access to Work expenditure, including the impacts on social security expenditure and income tax returns. However, It is difficult to establish an overall value for money figure. The main reason is that there is no readily available comparison group against which to assess the difference the programme makes to someone’s likelihood of being in work.

Despite this the Government recognise the value users, employers and stakeholders place on the scheme and so the Government is committed to continue to build the evidence base with stakeholders’ input to understand the value Access to Work adds.