Jobcentres: Liverpool

Department for Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 23 February 2017.

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Photo of Luciana Berger Luciana Berger Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Wavertree

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's paper entitled Proposal for the future of Liverpool Edge Hill and Liverpool Wavertree jobcentres, of January 2017, what the evidential basis is for the statement that it is a reasonable expectation that claimants travel to an office within three miles or 20 minutes by public transport of their existing jobcentre and whether this applies to claimants who have already had to move to visiting one of those two jobcentres as a result.

Photo of Damian Hinds Damian Hinds The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions

Within the context of claimant journeys, we believe that it is a reasonable expectation that a claimant travels an additional distance of up to 3 miles, or 20 minutes by public transport, to the new Jobcentre. This may mean slightly longer and slightly shorter journeys for some individual claimants and we have taken this into account when setting the criteria.

There are large areas of the country where claimants have always travelled further than this. A proportion of claimants may also live closer to the proposed new Jobcentre location, so this will remain a convenient location for those people. We therefore view these criteria to be within reasonable expectations.

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