Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
6th Report - The Access to Work scheme
Public Accounts Committee
HC 92
Published 12 June 2026
Recommendations
5
Deciding what workplace support the scheme should fund for each individual applicant is difficult and...
Recommendation
Deciding what workplace support the scheme should fund for each individual applicant is difficult and the Department’s case managers need more support to help them make consistent decisions. The Department intends that the support funded through the scheme is tailored …
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HM Treasury
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6
In some cases, taxpayers have been paying for workplace adjustments that employers should have been...
Recommendation
In some cases, taxpayers have been paying for workplace adjustments that employers should have been covering. The Department intends that the Access to Work scheme provides support over and above the reasonable adjustments that employers are legally required to make. …
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HM Treasury
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Conclusions (32)
2
Conclusion
The Department’s expectation that it will take at least 18 months to clear the applications backlog means hardship for individuals and businesses will continue for some time. The backlog of applications for Access to Work support has built up over a number of years, with the number of cases awaiting …
3
Conclusion
We are concerned about the large volume of written evidence we received that highlighted people’s experience of multiple failings in the Department’s administration of the scheme. As well as highlighting delays, the people who contacted us described poor communication from the Department and an inaccessible process that often requires the …
4
Conclusion
The Department does not know how many cases its case managers can feasibly process in a day, which hampers its workforce planning. Based on a 2021 work study, the Department expected its case managers to be able to process 2.8 cases per day. However, it no longer considers 4 this …
7
Conclusion
The Department has not done enough to generate evidence on the value for money of the scheme. The Department acknowledges that it does not know whether the scheme provides value for money. It undertook qualitative research some time ago—in 2009 and 2018—to gather the views of individuals and employers. This …
1
Conclusion
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Department for Work & Pensions (the Department) on the Access to Work scheme.1
8
Conclusion
Many of the people who provided written evidence described waiting periods of several months, and in some cases over a year, between applying for support and receiving a decision or having support put in place. Some reported being unable to start jobs and having job offers withdrawn while waiting for …
9
Conclusion
We asked the Department whether, to manage expectations, it would be possible at the outset of the process to provide people with an estimate of how long it was likely to take to process their claims.9 The Department acknowledged that people need to know what to expect when they apply.10 …
10
Conclusion
The Department stressed that the crucial thing at the point people applied was for them to make clear if there was a time-critical element to their application.12 It told us that it prioritised applications from people who had a job offer and were due to start work within four weeks, …
11
Conclusion
Once an application for support has been approved, customers can submit claims for reimbursement of costs incurred.15 There has been a backlog of requests for payment, with the number of outstanding requests more than quadrupling from 6,900 at 31 March 2022 to 31,700 at 31 March 2025.16 The Department told …
12
Conclusion
The number of applications waiting for the Department to make a decision almost trebled, from 21,700 at 31 March 2022 to 62,100 at 31 March 2025.18 The Department told us that it currently had around 66,000 applications awaiting a decision.19 It explained that the backlog had emerged because the number …
13
Conclusion
The processing delays and backlogs have had a negative impact on individuals and employers.21 The written evidence we received highlighted the hardship, both human and economic, caused by the delays in processing applications as a result of the backlogs. For example, Citizens Advice shared case studies that showed workers were …
14
Conclusion
The Department told us that its plan was to arrest the growth in the applications backlog over the next few months, as it increased the number of staff working on the scheme, and then for the backlog to be back down to where it should be within 18 months to …
15
Conclusion
We asked the Department when it expected to meet its target of processing applications in 25 working days. The Department told us that it considered the target was achievable and that it would be able to meet it once the backlog of applications had been cleared. However, it said it …
16
Conclusion
Following the evidence session, in May 2026, the Department announced a plan of action to clear the backlog of applications by September 2027. It said that it would recruit an additional 480 case staff to process the higher volume of applications – the recruitment process had begun, and new case …
17
Conclusion
Based on a work study it carried out in 2021, the Department expected its case managers to be able to process an average of 2.8 cases per day, but does not now consider this standard to be achievable.29 The Department told us that this was due to the increased complexity …
18
Conclusion
The Department told us that, to improve productivity and the consistency of decision-making, it had introduced a new standard operating process in late 2025. It was rolling out the new process office by office and hoped to have completed this by summer 2026. The Department said that it would be …
19
Conclusion
The productivity of the Department’s case managers is hampered by the fact that the scheme relies on three IT systems, which require case managers to transfer information manually from one system to another.33 The Department explained that it had more modern systems at the start of the process to allow …
20
Conclusion
We asked the Department when it would be sensible for us to assess the work going on to improve productivity and whether it had been successful. The Department suggested that coming back to this issue in a year’s time would be reasonable as it would take six months for it …
21
Conclusion
The Department intends that the support provided by the Access to Work scheme is tailored to a worker’s individual needs and its case managers engage with the specifics of each case, meaning the process is resource-intensive.36 The Department told us that case managers had to make difficult decisions – they …
22
Conclusion
In the written evidence we received, people described opaque and inconsistent decision-making, painting a picture of an arbitrary and unreliable system. They stated that support was reduced or removed without a clear rationale, change in need, and sometimes without warning. Employers and organisations that support disabled people’s employment also raised …
23
Conclusion
The Department acknowledged that it had not immediately recognised that the nature of the scheme’s caseload had changed. More applicants with health conditions relating to mental health and neurodiversity meant that some of the standard types of support that the scheme was used to providing were not applicable any more.39 …
24
Conclusion
The Department acknowledged that it had prioritised throughput— processing cases quickly—at the expense of consistent decision-making. With hindsight, that had been the wrong thing to do. It had been done for the right reasons—because the Department wanted to get the backlog 36 C&AG’s Report, paras 2, 1.5 and Figure 1 …
25
Conclusion
We asked about the design of the scheme and why the Department had not defined the rules more tightly.43 The Department explained that the scheme has an element of prescription – the eligibility criteria and the five principles.44 At the same time, the scheme’s guidance needed to be fairly loose …
26
Conclusion
The Department told us that the changing nature and complexity of its caseload had meant its staff required different training.46 In 2024, it introduced new training for staff, which included reinforcing the principles of Access to Work and the questions to ask customers such as whether they already have support …
27
Conclusion
The Department intends that the scheme provides support for individual needs within the workplace over and above an employer’s legal duty to make reasonable adjustments. Under the Equality Act 2010, employers are required to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that workers 41 Q 26 42 Qq 2 and 26-27; C&AG’s …
28
Conclusion
In 2025, the Department found, from a review of 200 cases, that some 40% of support funded by the scheme should have been provided by the employer, the employee or the NHS, and that employers had failed to make reasonable adjustments in 18% of cases reviewed.52 The Department told us …
29
Conclusion
In its 2024 employer survey, the Department found that 80% of employers were taking action to support disabled staff and staff with long-term health conditions, most commonly by offering workplace adjustments.54 However, the Department told us that there was much more employers needed to do in many cases to reach …
30
Conclusion
One of the Department’s principles for awarding Access to Work grants is that any approved support must be value for money.57 However, the Department acknowledges that it does not know whether the scheme provides value for money – it has little evidence on the difference that the funding has made …
31
Conclusion
We asked the Department about the value for money of Access to Work, including how the cost compares with other government employment schemes and how it compares with other nations. The Department told us that, while it had not undertaken any quantitative assessment of the scheme’s effectiveness, it did have …
32
Conclusion
The Department told us that it had looked at the impact of the scheme from a qualitative point of view, in 2009 and 2018. This research had highlighted the value of the scheme for both individuals and employers.61 The Department told us that individuals had talked about how the scheme …
33
Conclusion
We asked the Department about cost-benefit analysis of the Access to Work scheme relative to other schemes including, if a robust case-controlled study was not possible, whether it had done any sort of modelling.63 We suggested, for example, that, if someone had been refused Access to Work support and was …
34
Conclusion
The Department told us that it was “quite unlikely” that the scheme paid for itself fiscally, but it did not know that for certain. It explained that, from an Accounting Officer’s point of view, the value of the scheme was over and above the fiscal and economic considerations – it …