Press release

Thousands of disabled people supported by Access to Work

The number of disabled people being supported into jobs through Access to Work is increasing, new figures show.

From:
Department for Work and Pensions
Published
20 January 2015
This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Access to Work provides financial support towards the extra costs faced by disabled people who are looking for work or need support to stay in their job.

Last year more than 35,000 people benefited from the programme. And the numbers are continuing to grow with new statistics showing that the number of people who received Access to Work support between 1 April and 30 September 2014 increased to 28,580 – 1,560 more than in the same period the previous year.

Minister for Disabled People, Mark Harper, said:

Disabled people should have the same choices and opportunities as everyone else – it is simply not acceptable in this day and age for people to be prevented from doing a job or taking part in everyday life because of a disability.

I am proud to be part of a government which is supporting disabled people into mainstream employment. We have continued to grow Access to Work, we are supporting disabled people through Jobcentre Plus, and we continue to work hard with employers and businesses to improve disabled access through the Disability Confident campaign.

Access to Work can help with:

  • travel-to-work costs if someone cannot travel on public transport
  • providing support workers, for example British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters
  • specialist adaptations, equipment or technological solutions in the workplace

Access to Work also provides support for disabled people to attend job interviews or take part in work experience.

Find out more at – www.gov.uk/access-to-work

Read the full statistics – Access to Work: individuals helped up to 30 Sept 2014

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Published 20 January 2015

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