Access to Work is plagued by multiple failings, concerned MPs hear from disabled workers

The government’s Access to Work scheme is plagued by multiple failings, including lengthy delays – which risk disabled people losing their jobs – poor communication, and an inaccessible process, a committee of MPs has concluded.

The Commons public accounts committee found evidence of delays at every stage of the Access to Work (AtW) process, including application, assessment, decision, renewal, reconsideration and payment.

The committee said it was “unacceptable” that people do not know how long it will take the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to process their applications for support through the disability employment scheme.

It heard from disabled people and their organisations who described unanswered emails, unreturned calls, unclear letters and inconsistent advice from AtW, a process that people found to be “confusing, inaccessible and, at times, distressing”.

They also reported complex forms, long email chains, repeated requests for evidence and unclear deadlines.

The committee said it was “concerned about the large volume of written evidence” it had received from disabled people with experience of “multiple failings” in how the scheme was run.

It said in its new report that evidence suggested Access to Work had “not kept pace with modern ways of working, such as home-working”, and did not work well for self-employed people, or those working part-time or with fluctuating earnings.

And it heard that support could be reduced or removed by AtW without a clear reason or a change in support needs, and sometimes without warning.

The committee’s evidence-gathering followed a report on AtW by the National Audit Office (NAO), which was published in February.

One disabled people’s organisation, Darlington Association on Disability (DAD), told the committee in written evidence that its staff were becoming “increasingly anxious” when their AtW reviews were due as they were “fearing reduced support and an impact on their ability to work”.

DAD concluded: “The inconsistencies in decision-making, the inflexibility of administrative processes, and the failure to engage effectively with representatives acting on behalf of claimants collectively demonstrate systemic shortcomings that warrant urgent attention.

“These issues place disproportionate strain on both disabled employees and the organisations supporting them, undermining stability in the workplace and jeopardising ongoing employment.”

Another disabled people’s organisation, Autistic Nottingham, pointed in its written evidence to assessment waiting-times of more than 12 months, as well as “inconsistent and contradictory decision-making between assessors and caseworkers”, refusal of essential equipment “despite clear functional need”, and a lack of “disability competence”, particularly regarding neurodivergence and acquired impairments.

Autistic Nottingham said the AtW system “places the burden of delay on disabled employees and their employers”, which “undermines the purpose of Access to Work and risks excluding disabled people from sustained employment”.

The committee also heard from Emma Louise Kirby, who said she had been forced to leave her job with a small charity because of the “systemic failures” of the AtW scheme, including inconsistency and administrative failure, such as confusion over invoices, overpayments, and lost emails.

She warned that AtW’s failure to support small charities “threatens to reverse” progress made in disability employment.

The committee found in its report that DWP had not responded quickly enough to increased demand for AtW support, which had allowed “substantial backlogs” to develop.

There were 66,000 applications waiting for a decision in March 2026, up from 21,700 in March 2022.

Although the department has taken steps to manage the backlogs, including more than doubling the number of staff from 247 in 2021-22 to 648 by the end of 2025-26, with plans to recruit a few hundred more, this has been “hampered” by a lack of up-to-date evidence on how many cases its AtW case managers should be able to process per day, and by inadequate IT systems.

The report says: “While increased staffing may aid the work to lessen the backlog, it is not clear that delays are entirely the result of low staff numbers rather than inappropriate IT, poor administrative process and a lack of grip.”

The committee also found that DWP had little evidence on whether AtW provides value for money, and that – in some cases, according to DWP – Access to Work had been paying for support that employers should have been funding themselves.

It called on DWP to publish data on the performance of AtW every month.

Labour’s Clive Betts, deputy chair of the committee, said: “It is hard to overstate what value a well-run Access to Work could ideally provide.

“Many people made clear to our inquiry how highly they value the support that they receive through the scheme.

“But too often getting that support is taking far too long, and at worst the delays and mismanagement in Access to Work by the DWP seem to be having the reverse impact the scheme is designed to address – actively causing employers to hire fewer disabled people, and causing distress and frustration for those attempting to access the scheme to provide them with the proper support they need.”

In a written answer to a question about the scheme from a Labour MP on Friday, Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, said DWP was “carefully considering” the NAO report.

He said the department had “consulted and collaborated widely with disabled people along with employers and representative bodies to gather evidence”, which would “help inform our work and shape any changes to Access to Work”.

He said DWP was committed “to deliver an AtW that is timely, efficient, and can meet new levels of demand”.