‘I know first-hand how Access to Work can help disabled people – here’s why this government should back it’

In 2009, I was hit by a sudden onset neurological illness called POEMS Syndrome.

POEMS is a rare type of neurological disorder that can affect multiple systems in the body. Its symptoms are similar to MS meaning they affect my mobility, which caused me to spend a year using a wheelchair.

It was during a five month stay in hospital that I first learned about the Access to Work scheme.

Access to Work is a publicly funded employment scheme that helps disabled people start or stay in work by offering workplace equipment, money towards travel if public transport is inaccessible or an interpreter or support worker.

My physiotherapists at the National Hospital for Neurology told me about it and without them I wouldn’t have known it existed.

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Once I’d got in touch with the Access to Work team they worked closely with my employer to help access funding to pay for taxis to and from work, and to meetings outside the office, and adjustments to the office environment.

The process was fairly smooth for both me and my employer and was critical in allowing me to go back to work. Without it, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now, or if I would have been elected as a Member of Parliament at the last general election.

However, it appears I was among some of the luckier ones, as reports mount of the Scheme increasingly letting customers down.

This year, The National Audit Office recognises there are over 62,000 Access to Work applications that remain unprocessed and over 32,000 outstanding payments. These problems risk driving disabled people into debt and putting employers under financial distress.

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Meanwhile, new policy guidance and actions by the Department for Work and Pensions are seeing customers lose the support they need to stay in work.

This week, the UK’s only disability think-tank, The Disability Policy Centre, published new research showing that without the Access to Work scheme it is estimated that up to 50,000 disabled people could find themselves out of work.

At a time of rising unemployment, failing productivity and numerous challenges for disabled people both in and out of work – this would clearly be a catastrophe. And yet, it’s the emerging direction of travel.

The Disability Policy Centre’s new report, ‘Employment that Works’, highlights that the scheme is highly cost effective and is thought to save the taxpayer nearly £70 million. Without it, we could see an additional cost to the NHS of nearly £1,000 per person per year if someone with a health condition becomes economically inactive, and additional costs to Universal Credit costs of over £7,000 per person every year.

The researchers go on to explain the value for money Access to Work provides in comparison to the alternatives. It is estimated, for example, that the average annual Access to Work payment is £4,000 and the average grant is £7,200 to help keep a disabled person in a job.

In comparison, the government is spending over £25,000 per ‘job outcome’ created (or sustained employment) on new employment initiatives for disabled people. That’s £1.8 billion in total and between four and six more per job outcome.

Right now, the country faces a major challenge of how to support more people into work at a time when the labour market is tight and the number of people out of work due to long-term illness is at a record high.

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We should recognise that Access to Work is one of the most powerful tools we already have to do this. But it requires much improved investment, resources and attention for it to work best.

If we are serious about getting disabled people into work, instead of searching around for new tools, we should give Access to Work significantly more funding, faster processing and much greater visibility.

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