Access to Work cuts risk ‘decimating’ disability arts movement, disabled artists and consultants warn

Cuts and reforms to the Access to Work system pose an “existential threat” and risk “decimating” the disability arts movement in Britain, disabled artists, companies and consultants are warning this week.

As pressure grows on the Labour government over its Pathways to Work green paper, a series of leading disabled figures have spoken out to urge ministers to pay attention to the threat to more than 40 years of progress within the disability arts sector.

Their concerns have won support from Arts Council England (ACE), which told Disability News Service yesterday (Wednesday) that it was “deeply concerned” about what it was hearing from disabled artists of their struggles with Access to Work (AtW).

Evidence continues to mount that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has already begun to implement significant cuts to AtW support, even though it insists it is still consulting on the future of the disability employment programme.

Labour ministers say their Pathways to Work green paper – and its billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits – is focused on helping disabled people find work and stay in employment.

The consultation on the green paper, including possible Access to Work reforms, does not close until 30 June.

But this week, Jess Thom, founder of the award-winning, disabled-led arts company Touretteshero, announced that she had been forced to stop working by the “devastating” and “destructive” cuts to AtW (see separate story).

Thom has had to halt her job as co-artistic director of Touretteshero after her support package was cut by 61 per cent, a decision she received while recovering from major heart surgery to replace a pacemaker.

DNS reported earlier this month that DWP insiders fear an AtW cost-cutting drive could destroy the scheme and lead to disabled people being forced to quit their jobs.

This week has seen Decode – a partnership between Disability Arts Online and Cathy Waller Company that supports disabled people in the arts and creative sector with AtW – release the results of research showing how the 117 disabled people it has supported with AtW applications over the last 15 months have been severely impacted by cuts to support.

Decode said DWP was making “significant policy changes” to who it supports and what assistance it provides, and that a new wave of cuts in September will “pose a serious threat to the livelihoods and independence of disabled people” and will “risk cutting off access entirely for hundreds of thousands of disabled people who are either in work or trying to enter the workforce”.

The Decode report found that, even after reconsiderations [internal appeals], only 16 per cent of the applicants it supported had their grants renewed in full as requested.

Of the 74 per cent of claimants who complained about their award, half of them (49 per cent) received an apology and an admission from AtW that it was at fault.

The average wait for a self-employed worker’s application to be referred to a case manager was more than a year (55 weeks), and the average wait for a final decision after being referred to an AtW case manager was another 26 weeks.

One disabled creative said the cut to their grant had led to them being admitted to hospital with acute stress; another, who had built a career over two decades, had been forced to lay off employees, and had lost their independence and “a huge chunk of my income”.

A third disabled creative lost £10,000 of work, with five months of stress caused by AtW leaving them “more disabled and needing more support than I did before”.

The disabled-led arts and culture consultancy BAP! has been investigating the impact of AtW problems on disabled people in the creative industries for the last year.

Tom Ryalls, founder and director of BAP!, said: “Changes in Access to Work are now causing the removal of artistic directors, and disability arts organisations are having to do impact assessments to understand whether they can survive these changes.

“These changes really are an existential threat to disability arts practice, and to the wider employment of disabled people across the whole cultural sector.

“It has taken decades of progress to get to the point where only nine per cent of ACE’s National Portfolio Organisation workforce are disabled; these changes risk wiping all of that progress.”

Jess Thom said it was “100 per cent” a dangerous moment for disabled people’s involvement in the cultural sector, which is already “massively in turmoil”.

She said: “If Access to Work make the changes that have been leaked, it would decimate disability arts and culture.

“It would take us back decades in my view. It would prevent new disabled artists and new disabled talent developing or emerging.”

She added: “The impact on disabled-led organisations is going to be huge because if you have a number of disabled people working who require support, and all of that support goes, well of course those organisations are going to go.”

She said that any move towards AtW no longer funding any support workers other than interpreters and job coaches – as suggested by the leaked information earlier this month – would discriminate against disabled people with higher support needs.

Thom said the government’s apparent AtW strategy “fundamentally doesn’t make sense”, which was why it was so important to speak out publicly.

She said: “I need Keir Starmer to make it make sense to me. I need politicians at a senior level to engage with this, because it’s not making sense.

“My worry is, based on 14 years of experience, that disabled people are rarely listened to and so our knowledge and expertise and the leadership we can offer with that will be ignored.

“If what they say they want to do is really what they want to do, then they need to listen to disabled people because we have the skills and expertise to achieve that.”

She added: “There’s no doubt in my mind that if we lose Access to Work, we are immediately losing disability arts and culture as we understand it in this country.”

Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, told Disability News Service (DNS) yesterday: “We’re deeply concerned to hear artists describe their struggle with the benefits system.

“Thanks to the pioneering work of disabled leaders, the proportion of disabled people working in Arts Council-funded organisations has risen from five to nine per cent of the workforce.

“But we need more progress for our sector to properly reflect society.

“Putting new barriers in place risks taking representation backwards, risks injustice for individuals and ultimately means we all miss out on ambitious, enriching, exciting work.”

Graeae Theatre Company also spoke out this week about the “broken” Access to Work system – as well as raising other concerns about the Pathways to Work green paper – with delays with processing claims of its disabled employees of up to 10 months, “misinformation and confusion” from AtW on a daily basis, and a refusal by AtW to pay support workers more than minimum wage, or to pay for equipment costs.

Graeae said in a statement: “Our community cannot and should not take this further assault on civil liberties.

“We are seriously concerned that these changes will decimate the disability arts movement [which] started in 1980 and is respected around the world.”

Asked about the cuts to disabled people’s support, a DWP spokesperson said: “We are consulting on Access to Work as we want to find the right balance between helping people access employment and helping them stay in work while also supporting employers to provide reasonable adjustments as part of their legal duties.

“We encourage people to have their views and voices heard on how they think the programme and the welfare system could be improved as part of our Plan for Change.”

But Cathy Waller, co-founder of Decode, told DNS yesterday: “The ongoing systemic failures of AtW, persisting for over a year, have already created a deeply damaging environment for disabled workers in the creative industries.

“Yet, if that weren’t dire enough, the changes proposed for phase two of ATW’s reform, scheduled for September 2025, pose an even more serious threat to the livelihoods and independence of disabled people.

“These proposed reforms don’t just build on existing failures; they risk completely severing access for hundreds of thousands of disabled individuals who are either working or striving to enter the workforce.

“If implemented, these changes will cause irreversible harm, stripping away vital support and devastating the ability of disabled people to work, contribute, and thrive.

“In the arts, where funding structures are already incredibly fragile, the consequences will be particularly acute.

“The aggressive reduction in AtW support will lead to fewer disabled people in the workforce, undermine the sustainability of disabled-led organisations, and heavily reduce the presence of disabled artists, leaders, and accessible work for disabled audiences.

“This is not just a funding issue, it’s an existential threat to inclusion, representation, and equity in the creative sector.”

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