Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the private sector Midlife MOT pilot scheme delivered in the North East of England, Cornwall and Devon, and East Anglia.

The Department for Work and Pensions has published management information on the number of claimants referred to and who attended the Jobcentre Plus Midlife MoT group sessions since the launch of the policy in January 2023 to June 2025. See “Jobcentre Plus Midlife MOT Group Sessions, January 2023 to June 2025”. Table 1 below provides a yearly breakdown of these figures. Providing data beyond June 2025 would exceed the cost limits in answering Parliamentary Questions.

Table 1 – Number of referrals and attendees to JCP Midlife MoT group sessions

Table 2 below shows an age breakdown of the volumes of individuals referred to and who attended a JCP Midlife MOT group session during January 2023 to June 2025. Providing data beyond June 2025 and by individual year would exceed the cost limits in answering Parliamentary Questions.

Table 2 Age group breakdown of referrals and starts to JCP Midlife MoT group sessions, January 2023 to June 25

The DWP Midlife MOT website and the JCP Midlife MOT group sessions cover similar topics but are not directly comparable in terms of content. Figures for the two policies are as follows. From January 2024 to June 2025 there have been 85,142 individuals referred to and 64,105 individuals who have attended a Jobcentre Plus Midlife MoT group session.

Figures for the number of visitors to the DWP Midlife MoT website have been published as part of the evaluation of the DWP Midlife MoT website, see “Evaluation evidence from policies aimed at claimants aged 50 plus”. This report provides figures from Nov 2023 to March 2026. During this period the website was accessed by users 59,968 times by a total of 38,554 individuals. The evaluation did not collect any data on whether visits to the DWP Midlife MOT website influenced users’ behaviour. Providing further data on the JCP Midlife MoT group sessions and the DWP Midlife MoT website would exceed the costs limits for answering Parliamentary Questions.

DWP has published an evaluation of the Private Sector Midlife MOT scheme. See “Private Sector Midlife MOT Pilots qualitative research interim findings”. Low employer and participant uptake resulted in the pilots concluding early.