This article was updated at 9.16pm Tuesday 6 May. It originally stated that the DWP had sent the information on the changes to disability consultant Alice Hastie. Hastie contacted the Canary to ask us to correct this. It was actually an Access to Work employee who leaked the internal information to her.
Possible internal moves by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has only exposed once more the contempt that this Labour Party government has for chronically ill and disabled people. Crucially, more chaos from the DWP – this time over purported “operational changes” to its flagship Access to Work scheme – is showing how the government’s cuts to chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits has little to do with supporting them into work, and everything to do with eliminating government expenditures.
Significantly however, the DWP didn’t put forward these changes publicly. It’s only thanks to one disability consultant and Access to Work adviser whistleblowing the unexpected updates that we even know this might be happening. So, the DWP is seemingly attempting to sneak this through without public scrutiny. And of course, it’s doing so all as it claims its broader programme of welfare cuts is to support chronically ill and disabled people into work.
Now, the whole affair is also turning into another DWP shambles. This is because, without explanation, the department appears to have put a pin in these plans. But notably, this was only after the whistleblower raised the alarm on LinkedIn, and a poster shared them further on X.
Access to Work: DWP covert changes afoot
As the name suggests, the scheme provides financial support for disabled people in the workplace, or trying to enter it. In effect, it offers a grant for things like specialist equipment, assistive software, and support workers. It also provides financial help to cover the costs of travel, vehicle adaptations, and other access changes to the workplace environment.
Currently though, the scheme has major backlogs, and is enormously failing to support disabled people when they’re already in work. In April, a disabled campaigner obtained damning Access to Work figures. These revealed the continued failure of the new Labour government to address these soaring backlogs. Notably, an Freedom of Information (FOI) revealed that waiting times had actually shot up exponentially since Labour took power. Specifically, between July 2024, to the end of February, the average processing time for applications to Access to Work increased from 55.3 days, to 84.6 days.
On top of this, the onerous and bureaucratic assessment process is itself a barrier to applicants as well.
Now however, the DWP looks to be taking steps that will only exacerbate these problems. And it’s doing so largely behind closed doors.
Disability consultant and Access to Work adviser Alice Hastie posted about the “upcoming changes” to Access to Work’s “operational delivery” on her LinkedIn.
An Access to Work employee had leaked the information to her in a private email during the week commencing 28 April. According to the communication, the changes would go live Tuesday 6 May.
Specifically, Hastie highlighted that these included:
- Special Aides and Equipment – more pushback onto employers
- Hard limits on Support Worker hourly rates
- Stricter rules and criteria for awarding Job Aide Support Workers
- Removing flexibility to allow small increases in support without the need to raise a Change of Circumstance.
Notably, Hastie explained that:
These changes will affect all decisions made after this date, whether they are on new applications, reconsiderations, renewals or changes of circumstances.
Hastie raised the alarm on this because she had a number of “major concerns”.
Reasonable adjustments become ‘standard business items’
For a start, Hastie disclosed a “clarified” list of reasonable adjustments the DWP Access to Work scheme would categorically no longer fund. These included ergonomic items like chairs, desks, keyboards, and mice. Alongside these, it listed various software, reading support devices, and physical supports such as arm rests, back, and wrist supports.
In essence, the communication suggested it would consider these ‘standard business items’. That is, reasonable adjustments that employers should fund themselves for their employees. However, Hastie pointed out a number of issues with this.
To begin with, Hastie highlighted that there is “no scaling” between self-employed and corporations with large turnovers. In other words, while a multimillion pound company could afford to fund these items, small businesses and self-employed individuals won’t necessarily have the finances to do so.
What’s more, it makes the assumption that employees have recourse to hold employers to account for making these reasonable adjustments. Hastie explained that in here experience, in practice, this is rarely the case. She wrote that there was a lack of support:
for employees to get their employers to provide Reasonable Adjustments, buy ‘standard business items’ or employ Support Workers. This is already a problem – I have a client who has been trying to get a fully funded support worker access to their place of employment for over 6 months now with no success. When Access to Work rejects a request, the employee has very little power to hold their employer to account to do the things that Access to Work has assumed they will do. I’ve seen this over and over again with clients. I would like to see a dedicated set of liaison officers within Access to Work to provide backup to employees and level the power dynamic. So if AtW rejects a claim because all the items needed are ‘standard business items’ or Reasonable Adjustments – the employee knows that AtW will help them get that support out of their employer.
Reducing support in multiple areas
Hastie also raised problems with other Access to Work changes the DWP appears to be mooting. She explained how they are restricting what would constitute as ‘replacement’ versus ‘enablement’ for disabled employees. Ultimately, this would dictate whether the DWP funds support workers and job aides.
Another notable change was that the guidance seemed to downgrade support for certain groups. In particular, Hastie noted the impact on neurodivergent individuals, people with mental health conditions, and executive functioning issues. Specifically, she described how instead of giving job aides this support role, it would now instead be funded as a job coach support or as “Coping Strategies Coaching”. Notably, the job coach would be a temporary support. In other words, it seems to mean entirely withdrawing long-term funding for job aides for these disabled demographics.
There were other changes around payments too. Support workers hourly rates would have a hard cap. Job aide funding would be tied to local job portal rates. If costs increase for certain supports the AtW scheme would no longer increase to match this during an award period. For instance, this might include more expensive travel fares.
Hastie underscored that the DWP changes seemed to lack consideration for the impact on self-employed people in particular. And, as she noted:
The disabled self-employed people I work with are mainly self-employed as their last attempt at staying in employment. They weren’t able to stay in traditional employment, due to high needs and unsupportive employers and they don’t want to give up and claim benefits. They don’t usually have much in the way of capital to buy items to support their disabilities and their turnover is often too small to do it that way either.
And, in the context of the pitiable number of ‘disability confident’ jobs on offer as it is, this should be only too evident:
Semi-regular update on how many jobs there actually are for disabled people in the UK, according to DWP Find a Job
All Jobs: 102,887
Fully Remote: 807
Of which are disability confident: 127
Of which are part time: 10TEN JOBS IN THE WHOLE OF THE UK
— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey) May 5, 2025
Access to Work changes: ready to roll-out..? Not quite
So, instead of addressing the Access to Work scheme’s multiple issues, the DWP appears to be attempting to make sudden changes that will only entrench them further for chronically ill and disabled people attempting to utilise the scheme.
But, to make matters worse, it’s now unclear when the department is going to roll these changes out anyway. This is because the DWP has purportedly paused this. It will not be implementing these changes on 6 May after all.
The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey established this in conversation with Hastie over Linkedin. In particular, she replied that:
I’ve just had an update to say staff have been told not to go ahead as planned. I do not know what that means!
It appears the DWP may have halted the plans in response to the social media pushback. Overall though, it speaks to more of the DWP’s glaring incompetency and a clear culture of contempt for chronically ill and disabled communities.
While it’s not proceeding with this – for now – it’s evident that it’s attempting to covertly shift the goal-posts to make it harder for chronically ill and disabled people to access support. Once again, it’s trying to make unilateral changes without public input, consultation, or impact assessment.
Labour doing what it does best: punching down on disabled people
Of course, it would hardly be surprising if this is the Labour-led DWP’s response to the Access to Work spiralling backlogs and the perceived soaring costs of the scheme. In short, restricting what chronically ill and disabled people can get support for on the scheme would be one way to drive down both. However, it will naturally invariably mean denying them grants for aids, equipment, and support vital to reducing and removing barriers into, and within workplaces.
In this sense, the changes seem to suggest that the DWP is less concerned with making the scheme more accessible and effective, than it is with quick fixes to its headline backlog figures.
Arguably, it fits right in with Labour’s manoeuvres to scapegoat neurodivergent people and those living with mental health conditions. As the Canary has consistently documented, the right-wing corporate media has been actively laying the groundwork for this.
In January, a number of articles in right-wing outlets like the Telegraph, and the Daily Mail, seized on the ‘sickfluencers’ purportedly abusing the scheme. As we previously highlighted, these:
homed in on the fact it “can hand claimants nearly £70,000 a year”. It juxtaposed this beside the “spiralling costs” of an increasing claim rate to the Treasury. In other words, the ‘economic burden’ narrative is pretty palpable in this.
The DWP’s moves to reduce the scheme would therefore track in this fiscal savings framing.
Another fudge and more underhandedness from the DWP
Yet, none of this should be surprising. The department itself is hardly the champion of access and disability rights in the workplace. On 2 May, the Big Issue revealed that the DWP has lost more tribunals for disability discrimination than any other UK employer. It clearly points to a deeply entrenched and pervasive culture of ableism within the department. So, it’s perhaps little wonder the DWP is pushing more plans that will punch down on chronically ill and disabled people.
Ultimately, it’s all more fumbling and underhandedness from the DWP. At present, it’s unclear when it will make these Access to Work changes. But, at the bare minimum, the whistleblower revelations show these are plans it is considering. In fact, it even appeared ready to roll-out these as recently as last week.
It’s clear this Labour government has no intention of genuinely supporting chronically ill and disabled people. All evidence so far shows it isn’t remotely committed to removing the work barriers for them. Scaling down Access to Work in tandem with its benefit cuts shows it’s ‘back-to-work’ promises of support are nothing but hollow words.
The Canary contacted the DWP for comment, but had received no response by the time of publication.
Featured image via the Canary
