Teresa Pearce – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Teresa Pearce on 2014-03-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons the Community Support Fund for former Remploy employees was only accessible through a third party and what estimate he has made of how many eligible former Remploy employees did not make a claim because they were unable to do so themselves.

Mike Penning

The Community Support Fund (CSF) was co-produced with disabled people and ex -Remploy employees to determine exactly what type of support or project they wanted to take part in. A key driver for the CSF was to ensure ex -employees could keep in touch with former work colleagues; to help negate feelings of isolation. This social activity can only be achieved by offering opportunities for ex-employees to take part in group activities.

Access to CSF was provided through Disabled People’s User Led and Voluntary Sector Organisations who have the necessary skills to support these projects, providing vital peer support, personalised local services and actively working to increase participation in local community activities.

The Community Support Fund (CSF) projects have provided opportunities for 1136 disabled ex-employees and 827 people have taken part in CSF activities at March 2014.

We are unable to provide an estimate of how many eligible former Remploy employees did not make a claim for CSF funding because they were unable to do so themselves.