PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Employment and Support Allowance (26 September 2014)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average age is of people in receipt of employment and support allowance entering (a) the Work Programme and (b) employment through the Work Programme.

Asked by:
Sir Stephen Timms (Labour)

The information requested is shown in the table below.

Number of Work Programme Referrals, Job Outcomes and Sustained Job Outcomes for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants by median age, Great Britain: 1 June 2011 - 30 June 2014

	Referrals	Job Outcome	Sustained Job Outcomes
Median Age (years)	44	40	40

Source: DWP Statistical Services

Notes:

1. The latest Official Statistics on the Work Programme cover the period 1 June 2011 – 30 June 2014

2. Median age is the age of the claimant at the time of referral.

3. Referrals: Referrals shown are 'net' referrals which do not include rejections, cancellations or referrals to ESA information sessions.
4. Job Outcomes: The Work Programme IT payment system update went live in April 2012. All outcomes prior to this were recorded clerically and uploaded to the system during April and May 2012. The outcome date for these is based on the date the information was uploaded to the system. For job outcomes recorded after this, outcome dates are based on the date that payments were made to providers following pre-payment validation processes to confirm job outcomes. The manual pre-payment validation checks may take time to conduct resulting in a delay between the job outcome being claimed and the date the payment is made to providers, and hence recorded in the statistics. Validation procedures continue to improve to streamline the process as issues are identified. For further details around issues and delays to job outcome payments please see the information note available on the WP landing page: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/work-programme-statistics--2
5. Sustained Job Outcomes: These are claimants who have received a Job Outcome payment and have had at least 1 Sustainment payment.
6. Sustainment payments: Providers can only claim a Sustainment payment where:
1. A Job Outcome has been reported;
2. Four continuous weeks in employment have elapsed between the Job Outcome payment date and the Sustainment payment date, or between the previous Sustainment payment date and the current Sustainment payment date.
3. A participant has been in employment and off benefit each week (a week is defined as a 7 day period) in the four week period; and
4. 15 working days have passed since the last date of the period being claimed.
5. Following a break in employment after the 104 weeks Allotted Time providers will no longer be eligible to receive a Sustainment payment (a break is defined as when a participant leaves employment for 2 days or more, even if they remain off benefit).

Answered by:
Esther McVey (Conservative)
15 October 2014