Job Losses Due to Access to Work Cuts

The DWP has confirmed it does not know how many people have lost their jobs, or are at risk of losing their jobs, because their Access to Work awards were reduced or removed. Yet the government says it wants to get more disabled people into work. The explanation given in response to the Parliamentary Question is that Access to Work only supports people who are already in employment, so outcomes such as job loss are not recorded. That is a choice, not an inevitability. What makes this harder to accept is that the wider evidence already exists: - We know approvals and award values have tightened. - We know delays and reductions remove essential workplace adjustments. - We know from years of research by disabled people’s organisations, unions and academics that removing adjustments pushes people out of work. - We know employers, especially smaller ones, often cannot fill the gap when Access to Work support is cut. The dots are there. They are just not being joined by the department responsible. If Access to Work is meant to help disabled people stay in work, then measuring whether people are falling out of work when support is reduced or removed should not be optional. This is exactly why lived experience, independent research and transparency matter. Without them, people disappear from the data long before they disappear from employment. If this data is not being collected, the question is simple: who is responsible for the consequences that go unmeasured? Image description: The DWP doesn’t know how many people lose jobs after Access to Work cuts #AccessToWorkCollective #AccessToWork | 39 comments on LinkedIn