Employment and Support Allowance Mr. Harper To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the average waiting time was for a work capability assessment to be conducted for claimants for employment and support allowance in the latest period for which information is available. Jonathan Shaw [holding answer 2 March 2010]: The average time from the date an employment and support allowance claim starts to the date that Atos advice is given is shown in the following table. Information is provided from October 2008 (when employment and support allowance was introduced) to June 2009 (the latest data that can be used to calculate a reliable average). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |Average calendar days from claim start to Atos assessment| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |October 2008 |148 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |November 2008 |145 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |December 2008 |145 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |January 2009 |135 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |February 2009 |129 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |March 2009 |121 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |April 2009 |112 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |May 2009 |104 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |June 2009 |100 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Note:The actual time that Jobcentre Plus and Atos take to complete a case may be different as we cannot exclude any backdating of a claim or include the time from Atos advice to the Jobcentre Plus decision on entitlement.| | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------