Source · Select Committees · Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 14
14
Not Addressed
Paragraph: 67
It is unacceptable that some disabled people still face barriers when trying to access services...
Recommendation
It is unacceptable that some disabled people still face barriers when trying to access services through Jobcentre Plus. It is particularly shocking that services provided by the Department for Work and Pensions, whose ministerial team includes the Minister for Disabled People and which is responsible for a significant proportion of the Government’s work on disability, remain inaccessible to some disabled people. We welcome the fact that the Department is now consulting on what improvements it can make to its provision of reasonable adjustments and alternative formats, but it should act as a beacon of best practice on accessibility for the rest of government. To achieve this, it must ensure that both its premises and services are wholly accessible to disabled people. The Department should invest in and expand its provision of alternative formats for its communications with disabled people. It should ensure that BSL interpreters are provided at all meetings with Deaf clients who need one and that other accessible formats—such as large print, Braille and Easy Read—are readily available for people that need them.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government's response focuses on an early version of a service to support employers managing health and disability in the workplace, alongside existing schemes like Disability Confident and Acas resources. It does not address the specific recommendations regarding improving accessibility of Jobcentre Plus premises, services, or communication formats for disabled clients.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
67
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government · verbatim extract
Not Addressed
It is DWP policy to ensure disabled claimants with complex needs and those who need additional support are supported using different method of communication. We are committed to making our services more accessible for disabled people and have made a number of improvements over the past year. For example, we have implemented the Video Relay Service across all our benefit and service lines. Video Relay enables British Sign Language interpretation for telephone calls. Since January 2018, Thebigword has provided Foreign Language and British Sign Language (BSL) services for the DWP staff and customers. All Jobcentres can access the service provided by Thebigword. This includes face-to-face interpreting and for inbound calls the Video Relay Service. We are also hosting the BSL video guides and case studies on Job Help and they are available on our dedicated YouTube channel, as well as developing more BSL guides and case studies. We have begun work to make all the forms we publish on Gov.UK fully accessible, whilst making it easier for customers to find the information they need about alternative formats. We are improving how we collect and record alternative formats and reasonable adjustments on our IT systems so that people will not need to request a change to their communications more than once. This allows DWP to capture the customer’s communication whether the customer is claiming benefits, looking for employment or moving into pension age. We are amending our IT system generated letters so that they clearly highlight to customers how they can request communications from us in an alternative format. We have also enhanced Employment and Support Allowance scripts so that colleagues are prompted to ask customers at the start of the claim about any reasonable adjustments they require DWP to make. Disability employment gap: Government response 11 Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs)
Read the full response on Parliament ↗