Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the (a) methodology and (b) benchmarks used to determine hourly rates for self-employed job coaches under the Access to Work scheme; and whether these are shared with the providers affected.

The hourly rates for payment were developed following research into wages paid to support workers, including job coaches, based on live job listings and a job listing aggregation website. The hourly rates are used as a guide and if a customer is unable to secure a job coach within the published hourly rates then case managers have discretion to award an appropriate rate.

The rates can be viewed in the Access to Work staff guide which is available here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/access-to-work-staff-guide/access-to-work-staff-guide