Baroness Thomas of Winchester – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Thomas of Winchester on 2014-05-07.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what training is provided on disability awareness to staff in Jobcentre Plus offices as part of the public sector equality duty; and what steps are being taken to ensure that awareness by staff of obligations under the duty is improving.
Lord Freud
DWP, in partnership with Civil Service Learning, provides a wide range of diversity and disability learning opportunities for staff.
The ‘Equality and Diversity Essentials’ package provides an overview of the Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Equality Duty and covers disability for customers and employees. The learning is targeted at all new employees as part of induction and as a refresher for other staff.
DWP offers a follow up ‘Disability Awareness’ course. This aims to build the confidence of managers to give effective support to disabled employees.
DWP customer facing staff are trained in the skills required to support a range of claimants and to respect their individual needs. This approach ensures they are skilled to deal with a diverse set of circumstances, whilst treating everyone as individuals. Jobcentre Advisers, in particular, have access to a comprehensive training programme which focuses on raising awareness of the individual’s personal circumstances, including disabilities, and also recognises that those circumstances can affect individuals in different ways.
The Department regularly participates in external benchmarking activity to measure and improve performance for disabled staff, customers and service users. 2013 results showed a significant improvement in performance from 2012.
