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Access to Work Programme: Standards

Asked by Rebecca SmithConservativeDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled Answered 20 May 2026UIN 1557

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) mean and (b) median average waiting time was between application for Access to Work and an initial assessment, in each of the past two years, broken down by region.

Answered by Sir Stephen Timms

Access to Work does not record the information requested in a way that allows data to be extracted by region. Providing this would require manual examination of individual case records and would therefore incur disproportionate cost.

Access to Work applications are managed through a national queue and processed in chronological order, meaning that a customer’s region does not determine waiting time.

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