The Department published an evaluation of Additional Work Coach Support: The impact of Additional Work Coach Support on the employment outcomes of LCWRA participants and Evaluation of Additional Work Coach Support. Additionally, we have published a study that assessed the feasibility of evaluating the impact of Access to Work: Feasibility of evaluating the impact of the Access to Work programme.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is working closely with the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to improve the support available through Jobcentre Plus for people interested in Armed Forces careers.

Local relationships already exist between Jobcentres, Armed Forces Careers Offices and Armed Forces Champions. Building on the agreement announced in February 2026, DWP and MOD are working to strengthen how these relationships support jobseekers to access clear information about Armed Forces roles, training routes and career opportunities, including in engineering, cyber, healthcare and logistics.

DWP and MOD are developing the practical implementation of this approach, including specialist training for work coaches and closer working between Jobcentres, Armed Forces Careers Offices and Armed Forces Champions with the approach being piloted in the West Midlands. This will help ensure jobseekers receive more informed and consistent advice about Armed Forces opportunities through the Jobcentre Plus network.

This supports the ambition set out in the Defence Investment Plan to strengthen routes into Armed Forces careers. DWP and MOD will use learning from pilot activity to inform wider delivery and support informed career conversations with jobseekers.

The Youth Guarantee aims to increase opportunities for 16-24-year-olds to make them work-ready and equipped to thrive. Success will be measured by improvement in employment outcomes, reduction in economic inactivity, and an increase in participation in education and training.

Evidence for the effectiveness of expanded Jobcentre support is primarily derived from the DWP Youth Offer Process Evaluation, which was published in October 2024. It found generally positive outcomes, with most participants reporting tailored and useful support; findings have since informed improvements to delivery, mental health referrals, and efforts to address local service gaps and barriers. We will monitor these outcomes nationally for all Youth Guarantee participants. This will build on already commissioned evaluation of eight Youth Guarantee Trailblazers and a planned full process evaluation of the Jobs Guarantee, the first phase of which is now underway. Evaluation plans for the Youth Jobs Grant and the Youth Hub expansion are also being developed.

The new Jobcentre support is based on these findings and offers young people on Universal Credit and looking for work tailored employment support and a structured path into a job, apprenticeship, work experience, SWAP, learning or training from their first appointment in the Jobcentre.

The Department is committed to ensuring Jobcentre Plus work coaches are equipped to support disabled customers, including people with learning disabilities. Through the Strategic Relationship Team Learning Disability Project, DWP has developed new learning products to improve understanding of learning disability and support effective service delivery. These have been co-designed with national learning disability organisations, including BASE and Mencap amongst others, and peer reviewed by people with a learning disability.

This specialist learning is currently being rolled out, and we are exploring ways to ensure it becomes embedded within relevant learning pathways. Due to this we do not currently hold uptake data at work coach level and are therefore unable to provide the number of work coaches who have completed this training, or the percentage of the total work coach workforce this represents.

Throughout the recent red weather extreme heat warning period (w/c 22^nd June), there were a number of Jobcentre closures per day due to heat.

• 24/06/26 – 236
• 25/06/26 – 219
• 26/06/26 – 111
• 27/06/26 – 7

In addition, over the 4 days we also saw 21 sites open but with reduced hours.

DWP follow Met Office alerts for all weather warnings, supplemented by UK Health Security Agency advice. The Met Office red warning advice was: ‘These warnings are reserved for very dangerous weather with a high level of certainty. You should take direct action to keep yourself and others safe from impacts of the weather. It’s likely there will be a risk to life, as well as substantial disruption to travel and infrastructure.’

For Met Office red weather warnings for extreme heat, DWP closes all public facing sites within those areas, to help protect the elderly, the vulnerable, and disabled people from having to travel in extreme heat. This in turn helps reduce pressure on the emergency services.

During a period of extreme heat, DWP are able to move most face-to-face appointments to digital methods or telephone calls. Where this is not possible, appointments would be rescheduled rather than cancelled.

DWP do not record the host location for each individual appointment, so unable to provide this detail.

The DWP’s Strategic Relationship Team (SRT) has made several attempts to contact and arrange an initial discussion with Evenbreak and remains keen to explore opportunities for closer collaboration. Whilst there has been no response DWP continues to actively promote Evenbreak and signposts colleagues and customers to the opportunities available.

There is significant potential to further strengthen engagement with Evenbreak and increase awareness of their offer across DWP networks. SRT would welcome the opportunity to develop this relationship further should engagement be established.

DWP is committed to supporting inclusive recruitment and improving employment opportunities for people with disabilities and health conditions. Through the Disability Confident scheme, DWP actively encourages employers to sign up and become Disability Confident members, helping to create more inclusive workplaces and broaden access to employment opportunities for disabled people and those with health conditions.

The latest data held (as of 31st May 2026) shows there are 15,429 work coaches currently employed in Jobcentre Plus offices across Great Britain.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

Information on departmental performance, including measures, can be found in the Annual Reports and Accounts DWP annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK

When considering moving colleagues and services to an alternative location the Department considers a wide range of factors and evidence. These include the impact on customers, business needs, local labour market conditions, and the ability to maintain a geographical presence and service continuity to customers. Decisions also take into account building quality, lease events, and value for money.

Number of Established Jobcentres

31^st March 2025 is 633

13^th March 2026 is 630

The Department continually reviews its estate to ensure it meets the needs of customers and represents value for money, making changes where appropriate. The Department’s Workplace Transformation Programme is working closely with the Jobs and Careers Service to ensure that our physical spaces evolve to support more personalised, modern employment and skills services for customers. This includes exploring new approaches to workspace location, design and partnership working that enhance accessibility, collaboration and customer outcomes. Any future decisions regarding the Jobcentre estate will be communicated to Parliament in the usual way.

A total of 85 customers were referred by DWP to DVSA Test Centres across the six priority locations. From this number, 37 passed the assessment and have been offered roles. DVSA provided feedback on a further 26 who were unsuccessful but showed clear potential and stated it would like to support these customers with a further test if DWP can provide refresher training. The remaining 22 customers were unsuccessful.

The Pre-referral Quality Check is completed by a Jobcentre Team Leader, deputy, or colleague with the relevant experience.

The Department has a variety of internal performance metrics in place to monitor the quality of our services. We regularly review referrals to ensure they are being delivered consistently and fairly.

Evaluation of the claimant commitment pathfinder will focus on how well the approach enables more tailored conditionality, clearer communication of expectations, and improved engagement between claimants and work coaches. It will also assess claimant understanding of their commitments and whether the approach leads to a better overall experience.

These objectives align with the reform testing outlined in response to Recommendation 4 and we are committed to publishing evaluation findings in line with Government Social Research processes.

The claimant commitment pathfinder is being developed using direct insight from Universal Credit claimants and work coaches. Through structured user research activity and ongoing feedback, we are assessing how the new approach operates in practice and whether it provides a clearer and improved experience from both a user and operational perspective.

This engagement forms part of wider improvements to conditionality and claimant communication set out in the Government’s response to Recommendation 4. We are committed to publishing evaluation findings in line with Government Social Research processes.

DVSA identified priority locations that had 5 or more live vacancies and provided the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) with a list. Following their external recruitment drive in January 2026, DVSA advised DWP that some of the locations initially identified were no longer considered high priority due to roles being filled. From the remaining sites on the list those chosen were where DVSA have managers with the flexibility to carry out assessments as part of the Driving Examiner recruitment pilot.