Jobcentres do not refer claimants to food banks or issue food bank vouchers. The Department has long-standing guidance in place which allows staff to signpost customers in writing to a food bank where they have asked for details, and if all sources of statutory support have been exhausted. Jobcentre Plus staff are not required to keep records of the number of benefit claimants signposted to food banks in their local area, and we have no current plans to develop official national statistics on food bank use.

DWP collects labour market performance data based on the number of people entering employment. This provides information on the number of people in employment after 3 months claiming Universal Credit, the number of sustained jobs and the number who do not have any spell of employment.

Access to relevant assistive technology through jobcentres is provided in two ways:

- Availability through free Wi-Fi for customers to use their own device where they have user specific assistive technology; and

- Over 8,000 devices/computers available to customers which have standard assistive functionality available with the user being able to configure keyboard and mouse settings, use a magnifier function, sticky keys, high contrast and an on screen keyboard. The department is undertaking a programme of upgrading the current devices and is exploring opportunities to increase the availability of user specific or individually configured assistive technology.

Activities agreed within a Claimant Commitment will be tailored to the individual circumstances of the claimant. Where this includes looking and applying for jobs online, and the claimant does not have their own internet access, the Work Coach will agree a reasonable level of activity, taking into account the availability of alternative means of access, e.g. free public services.

When reviewing job search activity undertaken, the Work Coach will take into account circumstances within the period being assessed, e.g. the availability of online access to jobs and any alternative activity the claimant may have undertaken.

Where a case is referred for consideration of a sanction, the Decision Maker will take into account the reasonableness of what was required and information provided by the claimant, e.g. activity they have undertaken and any other relevant factors, which might include lack of assumed online access to jobs.

DWP offer a Rapid Response Service (RRS). This is a redundancy service designed to give support and advice to employers and their employees when under threat of redundancy. It is co-ordinated nationally by the National Employer and Partnership Team (NEPT) and is managed by Jobcentre Plus. Each Jobcentre Plus district deploy resources according to the situation and the requirements of the workforce. This service is available to be deployed in Birkenhead should a mandatory consultation period end, and a decision is made by House of Fraser about the support it requires from Jobcentre Plus. The RRS is delivered in partnership with a range of national and local partners, including National Careers Service and local service providers.

The range of support available from Jobcentre Plus and partners may include:

• Information advice and guidance.
• Connecting people to jobs in the labour market.
• Help with job search including CV writing, interview skills, where to find jobs and
  how to apply for them.
• Help to identify transferable skills and skills gaps (linked to the local labour
  market).
• Training to update skills, learn new ones and gain industry recognised
  certification that will improve employability.
• Help to overcome barriers to attending training or securing a job or
  self-employment such as child care costs, necessary tools, work clothes, travel
  costs etc.
• For large redundancies we may also provide on-site services to promote jobs or
  to take benefit claims.
• On-site presentations to those affected.
• Jobs Fairs and Job Clubs where appropriate.

The information requested is not available as no data is held on the number using the signposting to food bank service at Jobcentres. Jobcentre Plus does not make direct referrals to food banks but has offered a signposting service since 2011 to those who have expressed an interest in using a food bank.

The initiative at Birkenhead Jobcentre brought together information from energy suppliers to help the vulnerable and those facing difficulties in meeting their energy costs.

The initiative informed a DWP produced factsheet which covers saving money on household bills, advice for those struggling with debt and details about basic bank accounts. The factsheet also signposts to further sources of help and support through a range of websites including The Money Advice Service.

The DWP factsheet is available to all Work Coaches across the Jobcentre Plus network.

We are unable to confirm the numbers used or the number of claimants availing themselves of the support.

The initiative at Birkenhead Jobcentre brought together information from energy suppliers to help the vulnerable and those facing difficulties in meeting their energy costs.

The initiative informed a DWP produced factsheet which covers saving money on household bills, advice for those struggling with debt and details about basic bank accounts. The factsheet also signposts to further sources of help and support through a range of websites including The Money Advice Service.

The DWP factsheet is available to all Work Coaches across the Jobcentre Plus network.

We are unable to confirm the numbers used or the number of claimants availing themselves of the support.

The initiative at Birkenhead Jobcentre brought together information from energy suppliers to help the vulnerable and those facing difficulties in meeting their energy costs.

The initiative informed a DWP produced factsheet which covers saving money on household bills, advice for those struggling with debt and details about basic bank accounts. The factsheet also signposts to further sources of help and support through a range of websites including The Money Advice Service.

The DWP factsheet is available to all Work Coaches across the Jobcentre Plus network.

We are unable to confirm the numbers used or the number of claimants availing themselves of the support.

The customer opening times for the Universal Credit helpline and Jobcentre Plus offices over the Christmas parliamentary recess period are in the table below. For all days that offices are open normal customer opening times apply – this is 8am to 6pm for the Universal Credit helpline and 9am to 5pm for Jobcentre Plus offices (10am to 5pm on a Wednesday).

Notes

(i) Offices in England and Wales are closed on Wednesday 27 December 2017. However, our offices and phone lines in Scotland will be open on Wednesday 27 December 2017 for customers in Scotland and to help with any missing or urgent payment enquiries only from those customers in England and Wales.

(ii) Offices in Scotland are closed on Tuesday 2 January 2018. However, our offices and phone lines in England and Wales will be open on Tuesday 2 January 2018 for customers in England and Wales and to help with any missing or urgent payment enquiries only from those customers in Scotland.

Work Coaches working with their local managers are best placed to identify the support and guidance that is appropriate to each claimant to help them move in to work as quickly as possible.

The length of the appointment and the number of times that a Work Coach sees a claimant is dependent upon which conditionality group they are placed in. As an example those claimants undertaking Intensive Work Search are required to attend mandatory face to face weekly interventions for the first 13 weeks of their claim

Work Coaches have the flexibility to apply easements for attendance, for example:

• temporary absence to receive medical treatment,
• bereavement of partner or child,
• domestic Violence,
• child in distress,
• drug/alcohol dependent,
• carrying out public duty,
• periods of sickness,
• claimant in prison,
• witness protection

The information is in the tables.

Notes

Legacy Work Coaches

1. Source of information for the number of Work Coaches: The Department’s Activity Based Management Models. The numbers of Work Coaches are expressed as Full Time Equivalents. Full Time Equivalent is the way the Department presents a total count of employees based on contracted hours worked in proportion to those hours of full time staff. Full Time Equivalent is the way staffing figures are presented in Departmental reports and workforce plans.
2. Legacy Work Coaches support Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseekers Allowance and Income Support claimants.
3. Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.
4. Source of information for the number Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseekers Allowance and Income Support claimants to enable the calculation of the ratio of Work coaches to claimants: nomis (Office for National Statistics), a service providing detailed and up-to-date UK labour market statistics from official sources. The information on the numbers of people claiming these benefits is refreshed on a quarterly basis and the most recent quarter available is for February 2017.

Universal Credit Work Coaches

5. The actual levels of deployment to roles including work coach is measured by manual inputs to the ABM system, indicating a % distribution of an individual’s time across a number of activity labels.

6. This is measured month on month but in order to provide an indication of the relationship between work coach numbers and claimant caseload, a base month for each of the last 3 years has been selected for this response.

7. For April 2017, the activity recorded in ABM against the various activity names associated with “work coach” not including “assistant work coach” translated to 3695.91 full time equivalent (FTE) staff across the month.

8. The official statistical release for April 2017 reported a combined claimant caseload of 519.6k as of 13^th April, including some 190k people in employment. That produces a work coach to claimant ratio of 140.6.

9. Similar information is presented in the attached table for April 2016 and April 2015 but this would need to be viewed with caution and against a number of caveats. A like for like comparison with April 2017 should not be attempted for example, given that the work coach role and the ABM definitions which defined work coach activity and processes at any given time will have changed quite significantly over time. Work activity would also have been distributed variably across legacy and UC activity names to reflect the mix of work undertaken by work coaches at the time.

The timing and frequency of attendance at jobseeker’s interviews is at the discretion of the Work Coach, working with their line manager, and also determined by the individual circumstances of the claimant.

In order that interviews are monitored and the claimant journey tracked in the most effective way, managers follow a Quality Assurance framework with their work coaches.

The information requested is in the table.

Notes

1. Legacy Benefits include Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseekers Allowance and Income Support.
2. Source of information for Legacy Benefits: Department for Work and Pensions Labour Market System (LMS).
3. Source of information for UC Live Service: Department for Work and Pensions Work Services Platform (WSP).
4. Activity associated with claimant interventions in UC Live Service areas is captured by Work Coaches to the Work Services Platform (WSP). Management information relating to the duration of interventions is not routinely collected. However, a data download on 09 October for the 12 months from October 2016 to Sep 2017 has produced both volumes and proportions of interviews that were recorded as “completed” within the parameters stated in the question.
5. The calculations for the proportions of Jobseekers interventions to Work Coaches are as follows:

5.1. Legacy Benefits

5.1.1. Interventions lasting 10 minutes or less (1,208,087) divided by total number of interventions (3,612,360) is 33%.

5.1.2. Interventions lasting 20 minutes or less (2,313,915) divided by total number of interventions (3,612,360) is 64%.

5.1.3. Interventions lasting more than 20 minutes (1,298,445) divided by total number of interventions (3,612,360) is 36%.

5.2. Universal Credit

5.2.1. Interventions lasting 10 minutes or less (2,262,870) divided by total number of interventions (5,762,954) is 39%.

5.2.2. Interventions lasting 20 minutes or less (3,578,995) divided by total number of interventions (5,762,954) is 62%.

5.2.3. Interventions lasting more than 20 minutes (2,183,959) divided by total number of interventions (5,762,954) is 38%.

6. The volume and proportion of interventions lasting 20 minutes or less will include those interventions lasting 10 minutes or less that form the response to part (a) of the question.
7. Information on the actual duration of interventions is not currently collated centrally for UC Full Service and to extract this information would incur disproportionate costs.
8. Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.

The information requested can be found in in the attached table – PQ 105567 Intervention List.

The Department for Work and Pensions has identified the average length of time that every intervention type is expected to take. This can be between 5 minutes and 120 minutes depending on the circumstances of the individual and which benefit(s) they are claiming. The Work Coach will undertake a variety of interventions throughout the course of the working day, but please note that some of their time is spent on activities that are not directly related to their role, such as staff meetings, computer activity and other administrative tasks.

DWP has processes in place which enable organisations to provide skills to claimants within Jobcentre Plus. This includes IT/computer skills training which is funded through the Flexible Support Fund. The Universal Credit Programme has made available Universal Support funding to Local Authorities for Assisted Digital Support (ADS).

Both terms are applicable. May I just say that we should not get bogged down in the terminology? The important thing is to make sure that people actually have support to get them back to work. As we just heard in the quote from my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), our long-term plan is working. We want to make sure that as many people as possible are in work so that they do not have to resort to food banks.

The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.