Written questions by Whately.

With reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, what estimate her Department has made of the potential impact of the additional funding for employment, health and skills support on the number of people who will return to work.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information already published alongside the Spring Statement. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

With reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, which organisations will be responsible for spending the additional funding for employment, health and skills support.

We announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding. As the Green Paper notes, we are keen to engage widely on the design of this guarantee and the components needed to deliver it. To get this right, we will be seeking input from a wide range of stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, employers and potential users. We will confirm further details in due course after we have completed our consultation process.

With reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, with which organisations she has held discussions on the proposed changes in rate of Universal Credit components.

We urgently need reform to stop people from falling into inactivity, restore trust and fairness in the system and promote the interests of disabled people. Therefore, there are some measures announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper on the 18 March 2025 that we will not be consulting on. The Pathways to Work Green Paper sets out our wider plan to reform the system by rebalancing the levels of the UC standard allowance and the UC health element. Our objective is a social security system which is pro-work but provides adequate financial support for people when they are not working, regardless of the reason. The changes to UC payment rates will be introduced in primary legislation, and so will be fully debated in Parliament, and are not subject to consultation. No additional engagement on the changes to UC payment rates was sought before the publication of the Green Paper. We are, however, consulting on a number of other measures in the Paper. We would like to hear views from disabled people and representative organisations, and encourage responses to the consultation through the online form, email and post.

With reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, what measures her Department will use to assess the effectiveness of the additional funding for employment, health and skills support.

We anticipate that we will assess effectiveness of Pathways to Work measures in the usual way, including through evaluation of their implementation and the impacts that they have on employment, incomes, benefit receipt and other indicators. We will publish more information on our evaluation strategy in due course.

With reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, how much and what proportion of the additional funding for employment, health and skills support will be allocated to each region.

As the Pathways to Work Green Paper sets out, we are keen to engage widely on the design of our proposals for new employment support for disabled people and those with health conditions. We will be seeking input from a wide range of stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, employers and potential users. Therefore, at this stage no decisions have been taken or estimates made of how spending may vary across regions.

With reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, with which organisations she has held discussions on her proposed reforms to the Personal Independence Payment.

We have set out proposals to reform the health and disability benefits system in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published on 18 March 2025. A full 12-week consultation will begin from the point all accessible versions are published on GOV.UK. We are consulting on how best to support those who are affected by the new PIP eligibility requirement, and we will consider improvements to the PIP assessment. We would like to hear views from a wide group of people, in particular disabled people and people with health conditions and disability organisations, and encourage responses to the consultation through the online form, email and post. We also intend to run a number of accessible virtual and face-to-face events on the Green Paper to hear from stakeholders, including disabled people and their representative organisations, directly. More information on these events and registration will be advertised on the consultation pages on GOV.UK in due course. We also announced plans to launch a review of the PIP assessment which I will lead and we will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this and to start the process as part of preparing for a review. We will provide further details as plans progress.

Which organisations have presented to the Child Poverty Taskforce ministerial advisory sessions; and on what topics.

The Taskforce has consulted external experts seven times on the four pillars of the strategy: increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience, and better local support, especially in the early years. Experts have come from a range of organisations, including local and regional government, charities, think tanks, businesses, and the public sector. More details will be set out in the strategy publication.

Whether it is her Department’s policy to stop (a) Universal Credit, (b) New Style Jobseeker's Allowance and (c) income-based Jobseeker's Allowance claims of people who refuse to (i) engage with a Jobcentre and (ii) accept a job offer.

Apart from those with exceptions, all customers must accept a Claimant Commitment as a condition of entitlement. The requirements any customer is asked to meet will be clearly set out in their Claimant Commitment, including attending appointments and undertaking work-related activities.Where the Department has evidence that a customer has failed to undertake their agreed work-related requirements without good reason, we will look into whether a sanction – which is a reduction in the amount of benefit paid – is applicable.Where a customer in receipt of income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance fails to attend their Work Search Review and fails to make contact within 5 working days, their entitlement to benefit will also cease.

With reference to the press notice entitled Government bolsters employment support to unlock work for sick and disabled people, published on 6 March 2025, how this policy will relate to the Additional Work Coach Time programme.

DWP announced on the 6th March that we will deploy 1000 work coaches to help people with health conditions and disabled people towards and into work. This will build and expand on existing measures like additional work coach support that delivers personalised support for some customers on the health journey.

With reference to paragraph 3.26 of the Autumn Statement 2023, CP 977, what progress her Department has made on rolling out mandatory work placements for Universal Credit claimants who were unable to find employment at the end of the Restart programme.

Decisions about the future direction of the work, health and skills agenda will be set out at the multi-year spending review in 2025, building on the ambitions set out in the Get Britain Working white paper.

Whether it is her Department’s policy for claimants eligible only for basic Universal Credit who have not found employment after 18 months to undertake mandatory work experience placements.

Decisions about the future direction of the work, health and skills agenda will be set out at the multi-year spending review in 2025, building on the ambitions set out in the Get Britain Working white paper.

What the annual expenditure on Personal Independence Payments for mental health conditions was in the most recent financial year for which data is available.

Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be found on Stat Xplore. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required. An estimate for the annual PIP expenditure in 2024/25 for claimants with a mental health or behavioural condition as their primary condition is £9.94 billion. This is based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, published by the World Health Organisation, and is not solely confined to mental health conditions - for example it also includes neurodiverse conditions.

What estimate her Department has made of the number of Personal Independence Payment claims for mental health conditions over the next three years.

The Department does not forecast benefit claims by health condition, though it is implicitly assumed that the mix of conditions follows recent trends.

What proportion of young people claiming Personal Independence Payments for mental health conditions receive enhanced support for (a) daily living and (b) mobility.

Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be found on Stat Xplore. The requested data can be found in the ‘PIP Cases with Entitlement from 2019’ dataset, by filtering for age using the ‘Age (bands and single year)’ category and ICD Summary Code’ filter to select ‘Mental and Behavioural Disorders (F00-F99)’ for mental health conditions, including neurodiverse and some learning disability conditions. To filter for claimants receiving enhanced support for daily living and mobility, you can use the ‘Daily Living Award Status’ and ‘Mobility Award Status’ to select the ‘Enhanced’ filter. You can also filter for “DWP policy ownership” under the ‘Geography’ category if you wish to do so. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

What proportion of Personal Independence Payment claims for mental health conditions are required to undergo reassessment.

Once someone has been awarded Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which can be paid at one of eight rates, that award will be either be reviewed or the claimant will be required to submit a new claim. Award rates and their durations are set on an individual basis, based on the claimant’s needs and the likelihood of those needs changing. Data on PIP award types and their durations can be found on Stat-Xplore. In particular, the requested data can be found by applying the following filters to the ‘PIP Clearances’ dataset: The variable ‘Award Type’ can be used to break down the clearances by award type, including ‘Awarded under Special Rules for End of Life’ and ‘Short Term Award (no review date) - NR’ which are the two award types that do not have a review date set. To filter for mental health conditions, the category ‘Mental and Behavioural Disorders (F00 - F99) under the ‘ICD Summary Code’ variable can be used, which also includes conditions such as neurodiverse conditions and some learning disabilities. You may also wish to filter for “DWP policy ownership” under Geography due to the devolution of some disability benefits to Scotland. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

What proportion of Personal Independence Payment (a) claims are and (b) spending is for mental health-related conditions.

Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be found on Stat Xplore. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required. a) In September 2024, 38% of the PIP caseload was in receipt of the benefit with a primary medical condition classified as mental or behavioural disorders. b) This subset of the caseload accounts for an estimated 38% of the PIP expenditure in 2024/25. This is based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, published by the World Health Organisation, and is not solely confined to mental health conditions - for example it also includes neurodiverse conditions.

How many people aged between 18 and 24 were in receipt of Personal Independence Payments for mental health conditions (a) this year and (b) in each of the last five years.

Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be found on Stat Xplore. The requested data can be found in ‘PIP Cases with Entitlement from 2019’, by filtering for age using the ‘Age (bands and single year)’ filter, and the ‘ICD Summary Code’ filter to select ‘Mental and Behavioural Disorders (F00-F99)’ for mental health conditions, including neurodiverse and some learning disability conditions. The ‘Month’ filter can be used to select March of each of the last five years and October 2024 for the latest year needed for your request. If you choose to, you can also filter for “DWP policy ownership” under the ‘Geography’ category. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

What her Department's policy is on the use of articificial intelligence.

DWP is collaborating with other Government Departments to maximise AI’s potential to drive growth and deliver real benefits to people across the UK, as set out in the recent AI Opportunities Action Plan. DWP has a clear vision to safely leverage AI to support its staff and improve service delivery to customers. The Department is working with a range of artificial intelligence technologies, such as machine learning, generative AI, and Large Language Models, which will help DWP improve its ability to respond to customers’ needs in a more personalised and seamless way. Some of the details of these are already in the public domain, as set out in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK. DWP is also committed to publishing more details about work in this area as part of the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standards (ATRS) requirements from the Government Digital Service and has published its first summary through the DWP: Employment and Support Allowance Online Medical Matching ATRS record The Personal information charter - Department for Work and Pensions - GOV.UK sets out individuals’ rights when we process their data. It is important to note that DWP does not utilise AI to replace human judgement in determining or denying payments to claimants.

Pursuant to the Answer of 27 January 2025 50 Question 22715 on Medical Certificates: Public Consultation, whether she plans to launch the fit note trailblazers.

In 2024, the previous government announced that fit note trailblazers would be included in some of the 15 WorkWell pilot areas across Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England. Due to the timings of the General Election, they were not launched. As part of £240m investment to support our employment reforms in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are providing three ICBs with a share of £45m to become 'Health and Growth Accelerators'. These 3 ICBs are North East and North Cumbria, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire. We are working with the accelerator ICBs to deliver an intervention aimed at improving the quality of work and health advice and support following a request for a fit note. This will ensure the fit note process is part of our wider system designed to get support to people who are already economically inactive or at risk of falling out of work due to ill health.

What artificial intelligence technologies are used by her Department; and for what purpose each technology is used.

DWP is working with a range of artificial intelligence technologies, such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI (gen AI) which will help DWP improve its ability to respond to customers’ needs in a more personalised and seamless way. Some of the details of these are already in the public domain as set out in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK. DWP has already committed to publishing more details about work in this area as part of the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standards (ATRS) requirements from the Government Digital Service. The Personal information charter - Department for Work and Pensions - GOV.UK sets out individuals rights when we process their data. DWP does not use AI to replace human judgement to determine or deny a payment to a claimant.