Claimants ‘set up to fail’ after grant cut

Josh Wintersgill offers a successful business selling products to help wheelchair users travel for six years, but stands in balance.

He uses access to the business plan to help some additional costs of the government’s company, and he is afraid that one -on -one support may lose after 80%decrease.

The Business Disability Forum (BDF) says that despite the government’s targets to put 80% of disabled people into labor, businesses and disabled employees have been “failed”.

Ministry of Labor and Pension (DWP), the plan has reviewed all aspects, he said.

Due to Josh’s injury, he needs physical support with most things throughout the day. Travel, overnight stays and packaging and reference to customer orders. He says he can’t manage his company without this support.

Access to work offered him a support worker for five days a week, but was reduced to one day in re -evaluation.

He said: “Basically, they always help me to do my job, and without them, I can’t do any of them.”

The JOSH appealed the decision and despite any change in personal conditions, he had no support since July, when his grant ended.

Under Access to business planCompanies and employees can apply for grants to help support disabled people in the workplace.

The program can pay for extra costs for being a disabled worker to employees and businesses – things that go beyond the legally necessary of employers. Taxis include a number of things like paying for ancillary technology and British sign language interpreters.

Disabled people told BBC that their awards were significantly reduced, completely taken, and in some cases it was forced to close their jobs and reject job offers.

Josh is currently running using his own money to keep the job alive, but he says things are “too tight” and he says he can only do it for the next few months.

Orum I don’t do everything I do, or he says. “There is a lot to do, it’s hard to stay on it … This is really annoying.”

Josh said he helped access to work and start his own business, but he was afraid he was afraid of what would happen if he was taken.

He continued: “To think I’m a disabled entrepreneur, to help people with disabilities and to potentially be deprived of doing so scary.”

“Here we have a system that makes it very difficult to stay.”

The campaign group access collective was established in response to the problems faced by people applying or re -applying for grants. Founder Dr. Shani Dhanda said that they have collected about 4,000 members since July.

The group recently sent an open letter to the prime minister who asked him to take “emergency” action to correct the “broken” plan.

The sea change in Cafe in Sunderland rushes lunch. Social enterprise employs the adult in 25 neurodivers and uses access to work to support most of them.

Lexie O’Connor has been in the cafe since it was opened in 2019. He explains how to work in the café among customers gives a sense of trust and pride and now educates others about how to work with neurodivers and disabled personnel.

It took 10 months for Lexie’s re -application, and it was reduced for hours for one -to -one support worker, which left the job to create a gap.

“At that time, many employers can not manage people like me physically,” he said.

Lexie says she sees that she is worried about business expectations because of the problems of access to many of her colleagues. Cafe said that two personnel should allow them to go because support was cut.

“We are very worried about this, it affects the quality of work we work hard to reach in the first place.

“I feel like the best of places like sea change, they are fighting for people like me.”

Ministers have largely accepted access to work as a key driving force in taking people with disabilities at work, but Interview with BBCSocial Security and Disabled Minister Sir Sir Stephen Timms said the problem was “many people who want this” and “struggling to keep up with the demand.”

Expenditures in the program increased by 41% at 2023-24.

According to DWP, about 62,000 applications were expected to be processed in February 2025 and 33,000 people were waiting for payment.

At the end of June, a government consultancy is currently examining how a new plan can look.

BDF Public Policy and Research Director Angela Matthews called on the government to access the “more efficient and more welded” work.

“Disabled people will fail, and employers will not get what they need to work with, and employers will not have vehicles or support for disabled people to provide an inclusive workplace for disabled people.”

BDF member Allianz UK, despite the size of the insurance business, said it was not immune to the struggles with access to work.

Diana Salmon, President of Occupational Health and Security in the company, said the biggest problem is long waiting for the rewards. In some cases, people are waiting for more than 10 months to start work.

Diana says: ” [the delays] People can stop resorting to us … So we do our best, but we can’t really afford to get high support costs. “

Shortly after starting the role, he referred to a new example of recruitment that left the company, because it took about a year to buy expert equipment to fully fulfill the job.

“We want to provide an inclusive environment, but for their complex disabled colleagues, they are potentially excluded without time access to business funds.” He said.

Diana used access to work in a previous job. The money paid for travel costs, otherwise he said he saw the value in the program to visit his team in different places he could not.

“It would be much more difficult for us to attract, hire and hold disabled employees. [without the scheme]”he said.

In a statement, DWP said: “We have inherited access to a study plan that failed both employees and employers, so – as part of our welfare reform – we consulted how it could be developed.

“We are reviewing all aspects of the program and we will develop future policies with disabled people and organizations representing them.”

“There is no change in access to business policy,” he added.