Access to Work is a demand-led discretionary grant which supports the recruitment and retention of eligible disabled people aged 16 and over in sustainable, paid employment. Access to Work plays an active role in supporting the transitions of young disabled people into employment, by providing funding for in work support including vocational programmes such as Supported Internships, Traineeships and Apprenticeships.

To help raise awareness of support available when young disabled people move into employment, identify adjustments and reduce the need for multiple assessments, a series of passports and planners have been developed, with the Adjustments Planner focusing on transitions from education to employment.

The Adjustments Planner provides students with a transferable record of their adjustments, support, and work requirements and can help the student settle into college/university life. It can also offer support beyond education by smoothing the transition into employment - reducing the burden when applying for Access to Work, enabling support to be put in place quickly and removing the need for the student to repeat personal details.

The Government has a wide range of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with complex disabilities, to start, stay and succeed in work. These include:

• The Work and Health Programme providing tailored and personalised support for disabled people;
• Access to Work grants helping towards extra costs of working beyond standard reasonable adjustments;
• Disability Confident encouraging employers to think differently about disability and health, and to take positive action to address the issues disabled employees face in the workplace;
• A digital information service for employers providing better integrated and tailored guidance on supporting health and disability in the workplace;
• Increasing access to occupational health, including the testing of financial incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed;
• Increased Work Coach support in Jobcentres for disabled people and people with health conditions to help them move towards and in to work;
• Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres offering advice and expertise on how to help disabled people and people with health conditions into work;
• Introducing Employment Advisors to Musculoskeletal Conditions (MSK) services in England, helping individuals with MSK conditions to return to or remain in employment.
• Work in partnership between the DWP and health systems, including Employment Advice in NHS Talking Therapies, and the Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) programme, a Supported Employment model (place, train and maintain) delivered in health settings, aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities to support them to access paid jobs in the open labour market.

Building on existing provision and the £2 billion investment announced at the Spring Budget 2023, we announced a new package of support in Autumn Statement 2023. This includes:

• Doubling the number of places on the Universal Support employment programme, to provide support for 100,000 people per year when fully rolled out;
• Formally launching WorkWell, which will bring together the NHS, local authorities and other partners, in collaboration with jobcentres, to provide light touch work and health support in approximately 15 pilot areas;
• Building on the extension of the certification of the fit notes to a wider range of healthcare professions, exploring new ways of providing individuals receiving a fit note with timely access to work and health support; and
• Establishing an expert group to support the development of the voluntary national baseline for Occupational Health provision.

There are no current plans to change subsidy rules in Supported Housing which are in place to help ensure quality and value for money for taxpayers. Under the Housing Benefit subsidy arrangements, DWP reimburses local authorities for the cost of Housing Benefit in their respective areas subject to the rules set out in legislation. For supported housing cases, 100% subsidy is usually paid to the local authority by DWP where the landlord or provider is registered with the Regulator for Social Housing in England. In cases where the landlord or provider is not registered, the subsidy will still be payable to local authorities, but will be restricted in line with the rules set out in legislation.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is not in a position to confirm the outcome of its review of retained EU law at this current time. HSE will communicate its decisions as soon as possible at the appropriate time.

As of 21 June, we estimate that at least 485,000 unemployed Universal Credit claimants and Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) claimants have moved into work during the Way to Work Campaign between 31 January and the end of 19 June 2022.

This total figure is composed of our into work measure to the end of May (over 386,000) and our internal management information up to 19 June (46,000). We are now also able to include JSA claimants who have moved into work between 31 January and 9 June 2022 (29,000) into our total. Furthermore, we have also included those claimants with a sanction in place that moved into work during the period of the campaign up to 19 June (24,000). Both these figures were not part of our previous reported totals as the data was not available. Figures are rounded to the nearest 100.

The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics but is provided in the interests of transparency and timeliness.