Written questions by Whately.

What steps she is taking to ensure that funding for supported employment provision in integrated settlements for devolved authorities is spent in line with the delivery plans for that funding.

Government has committed to give areas the tools and powers they need to deliver growth, which includes offering integrated settlements. Integrated settlements will give Mayoral Combined Authorities who have shown exemplary management of public money the ability to plan long-term and make the strategic policy decisions necessary to deliver growth. The integrated settlement will be monitored and governed using a single accountability framework and a single outcomes framework to ensure funding included in the settlement can be accounted for. Delivery will be monitored via a programme board which will track outcomes negotiated between Authorities and the Government. Local outcome delivery will be the responsibility of the MCAs. The oversight of the approach to securing value for money and upholding governance structures is the responsibility of the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Department for Work and Pensions are responsible for signing off on the outcomes and targets for Connect to Work funding, as well as signing off mitigations where performance expectations are not met.

With reference to her Department’s press releases entitled (a) Good work is good for health, published on 6 November 2024 and (b) New £64 million plan to help people stay in work, published on 7 May 2024, for what reason there is a difference in the number of people supported through WorkWell pilots in each release.

The original WorkWell funding settlement supported up to 59k participants based on unit cost. As part of our grant competition, and as outlined in our Prospectus, local systems were required to bid for the volume of participants they expected to support, based on population need and what was deliverable within the pilot’s timeframe. The total volumes from our 15 successful bids was closer to 56k participants. We will continue to monitor the delivery of local areas throughout the pilot.

What new funding has been provided for the Get Britain Working Fund.

To help us deliver and build on labour market reforms to Get Britain Working, £240 million was announced in the recent budget. Measures will include:£45m for Youth Guarantee Trailblazers so that all young people in England, aged 18-21, can access quality training and education opportunities or help to find work.£55m for the development of the new public employment and careers service, which will be open to everyone, transforming our ability to support people into and on at work.£125m for Trailblazers to tackle economic inactivity through increased engagement and tailored approaches in England and Wales.And £15m to support local areas in England to go further, developing their own Get Britain Working Plans.

With reference to the Get Britain Working White Paper, published on 26 November 2024, what differences there are between DWP ASK and the A-cubed tool.

A-cubed was a proof-of-concept project built to test the feasibility of utilising generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist DWP Work Coaches in finding Universal Credit guidance. After the successful completion of the proof-of-concept project, the Department created a tool to test the capability further, and to roll it out following completion of successful testing. DWP Ask is the tool that has been developed, incorporating lessons from A-cubed. The A-cubed prototype has been discontinued, which is standard practice for proof-of-concepts.

Whether her Department intends to implement the recommendations of the Disability Action Plan, published on 5 February 2024.

The Disability Action Plan was an initiative of the previous administration. This government is committed to championing the rights of disabled people. We will build on the insights shared by disabled people and their representative organisations, working closely with them so that their views and voices are at the heart of everything we do.We will provide further updates on the Government’s priorities for disability policy in due course

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to the National Living Wage on the (a) number of people claiming Universal Credit and (b) amount of working age benefits claimed.

The independent Low Pay Commission has published the labour market evidence underlying its recommendations for the April 2025 National Living Wage Rates available at: Low Pay Commission summary of evidence 2024.The Department for Business and Trade, will also publish a regulatory Impact Assessment of the change in due course. The Department for Work and Pensions has not undertaken separate analysis.

What assessment she has made of the implications for her Department’s policies of the recommendations in the Buckland Review of Autism Employment.

We welcome the independent Buckland Review focused specifically on autism and employment. We intend to build on this to meet our commitment to promoting awareness of all forms of neurodiversity in the workplace. We are gathering expert evidence on how best to improve employment for all neurodivergent people, including considering the Buckland Review’s findings. Our assessment will also be informed by the independent employer review announced in the Get Britain Working White Paper. The review will consider what more can be done to enable employers to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces, recruit and retain disabled employees or employees with a health condition, and support people to stay in or return to work from periods of absence.

Whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade on the potential impact of the Employment Rights Bill on the labour market.

The Secretary of State, and ministers, regularly meet with Cabinet and ministerial colleagues, regarding a range of matters. Our ambitions are to reverse the trend of inactivity, and to raise both productivity and living standards whilst improving the quality of work. To help achieve this, we have set a long-term ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate, demonstrating our commitment to bringing those furthest away from the labour market into it, increasing local labour supply. Achieving our ambitions requires a cross-government approach, which is why the Employment Rights Bill will make work more secure, boost wages, and help people thrive by supporting them into and to get on in work.

Whether she plans to expand the WorkWell pilot.

WorkWell is a pilot that went live from October and will run in 15 areas across England, providing low intensity holistic support for health-related barriers to employment, and a single joined up gateway to existing local work and health service provision. Pilots will run until March 2026 and will generate evidence to support future policy making. 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.

Pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2024 to Question 4038 on Pension Credit: Expenditure, what estimate she has made of the additional cost to the public purse of the associated allowances for Pension Credit if all people eligible for claiming it did.

No estimate has been made by the department as the requested information is not available. We are unable to quantify the value of all passported benefits.

What the cost to the public purse was for Pension Credit in the latest year for which information is available.

The total government expenditure in nominal terms for Pension Credit awards was £4.9 billion in 2022/23. This figure does not include other operational and administrative costs, such as the government’s campaign to increase take-up of Pension Credit, as well as supporting customers and sending letters. Source: outturn-and-forecast-tables-spring-budget-2024.xlsx

If she will make an estimate of the number of households that will be affected by the proposed change to the eligibility criteria for Winter Fuel Payments in (a) Faversham and Mid Kent constituency and (b) Kent.

It is estimated that around 12,400 households in Faversham and Mid Kent Constituency (2024 boundaries) and around 218,500 households in Kent (comprised of the following constituencies, 2024 boundaries: Ashford, Canterbury, Chatham and Aylesford, Dartford, Dover and Deal, East Thanet, Faversham and Mid Kent, Folkestone and Hythe, Gillingham and Rainham, Gravesham, Herne Bay and Sandwich, Maidstone and Malling, Rochester and Strood, Sevenoaks, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Weald of Kent) will be affected by the decision to amend the eligibility criteria for the Winter Fuel Payment. This is based on February 2024 Pension Credit statistics which are available via DWP Stat-Xplore and the Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This estimation is calculated by subtracting the number of people claiming Pension Credit in each respective constituency from the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients in the same constituency. It is possible to use the Pension Credit statistics, to give a minimum estimate of the number who may be eligible for Winter Fuel Payments. Therefore, the above estimation is essentially the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients who are not claiming Pension Credit pre-policy change, as an estimate of those who will no longer receive the Winter Fuel Payment. Please note that the above estimation would not take into account any potential increase in Pension Credit take-up that we might see as a result of the Government’s Pension Credit Awareness Campaign. We do not have data on those additional Pension Credit claims by Parliamentary constituencies. The published Pension Credit figures refer to households, so the number of individuals in respect of whom Pension Credit is paid will be higher (i.e. taking account of households where a claimant has a partner and / or dependents). In addition, while Pension Credit claimants constitute the majority of those that will be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment, pensioners who claim other qualifying means-tested benefits will also be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment. It is not, however, possible to include those on other qualifying means-tested benefits in these figures.