Research and analysis

Access to Work grant expenditure forecasts

Published 18 March 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Main points

Access to Work grant expenditure was £249 million in 2023/24, this is forecast to rise to £712 million by 2029/30.

There were 37,000 people in receipt of an Access to Work grant expenditure payment in 2023/24, this is forecast to rise to 84,000 people by 2029/30.

The average award amount across all Access to Work grant expenditure elements in 2023/24 was £6,600. This is forecast to rise to £8,500 by 2029/30.

The forecasts contain a high level of uncertainty and can therefore be subject to significant change.

What is Access to Work?

The Access to Work scheme is a personalised, discretionary grant that aims to help more disabled people start or stay in work. There are two main types of Access to Work provision:

• ‘Assessments’
• ‘Elements’

Assessments involve exploring workplace-related barriers to employment and making recommendations on how these can be overcome. In some but not all cases the outcome of an assessment may be to recommend the provision of one or more elements, or an assessment may be required to find out whether a customer is eligible to receive an element.

Elements are intended to supplement the reasonable adjustments that employers are required to make under the Equality Act 2010. The types of elements that can be provided are categorised as follows:

• Communication Support for Interviews
• Special Aids and Equipment
• Adaptations to Premises
• Adaptations to Vehicles
• Travel to Work (help with the costs of travelling to work)
• Travel in Work (help with the costs of work-related travel)
• Support Worker
• Mental Health Support Service
• Transitional Employer Support Grant
• Miscellaneous

What do these forecasts cover?

This publication covers the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Access to Work grant expenditure forecasts and methodology. Access to Work grant expenditure excludes expenditure on Access to Work Assessments, Mental Health Support Services and administration costs of the scheme. This definition of grant expenditure differs to that used for the Access to Work Official Statistics (which include expenditure on Mental Health Support Services and Access to Work Assessments), so totals will differ, but the data sources used are the same.

The forecasts are based on the current Access to Work scheme continuing under the current policy rules. Any potential future changes to the scheme are not considered and forecasts may differ to the funding allocated to DWP.

The forecasts exclude the cost of applications received but not yet processed - in February 2025 there were 62,000 applications waiting to be processed (this includes new claims, renewals and change of circumstances)^{[footnote 1]}.

The forecasts contain a high level of uncertainty due to the significant increases seen in demand and uncertainty as to how this might continue. They can therefore be subject to significant change.

This is intended as a one-off publication to outline the methodology. Future updates to the Access to Work forecasts will be published through the DWP benefit expenditure and caseload tables which cover historical and forecast benefit expenditure and caseload data and are usually published after each fiscal event. The Access to Work grant expenditure forecasts covered in this publication will be included in the Spring Statement 2025 tables and updated forecasts will be in each future publication.

Forecast methodology

The forecast methodology consists of three key parts, each disaggregated by type of element received:

• the number of people who received an Access to Work grant expenditure payment
• the average award per person for those who received an Access to Work grant expenditure payment
• total Access to Work grant expenditure

The forecast methodology is reviewed regularly, and the information contained within this publication is based on the most recent forecast. As such, the methodology may change in future updates of the forecast.

Number of people receiving an Access to Work payment

Figure 1: The number of people receiving a payment for an Access to Work element of each type

Figure 1 shows that the number of people who received an Access to Work payment has increased significantly between 2021/22 and 2023/24 and is forecast to continue increasing to 2029/30. This increase is mainly amongst people receiving Support Worker and Travel to Work elements.

The forecast for the volume of people receiving payment is based on assumptions about how the trend might continue for each element:

• Support Worker, Travel to Work and Travel in Work have all seen significant growth in the number of customers in receipt of payment since 2021/22. The forecast assumes the volumes continue increasing in line with the latest 3-year trend in total monthly payment volumes
• Special Aids and Equipment has also seen significant growth in the number of customers in receipt of payment since 2021/22. The forecast assumes volumes remain flat from the point of latest monthly outturn. This assumes demand will remain high compared to earlier years; payments for this element tend to be one-off payments which means the number of people receiving payment is expected to be mainly driven by new demand rather than people continuing to receive ongoing payments
• For Adaptations to Premises/Vehicles, Transitional Employer Support Grant and Miscellaneous – the number of customers in receipt of payment of these elements have been relatively stable over time so the forecast is assumed to remain flat from the point of latest outturn data
• For Communication Support at Interview element, monthly data is not available on the volumes of customers in receipt of payment from September 2020 onwards, so it is excluded from payment volumes from that point, but data on expenditure is included

These assumptions are highly uncertain and are based on a judgement over which period of historical data is used to inform the trend. The period between 2020 and 2022 may also be impacted by the potential effect of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Using different periods would give different results but all plausible periods would give significant increases in the number of people in payment.

Note, people who received a payment for more than one element in a given financial year are counted once against each of the relevant types of element.

Average amount received per person

Figure 2: Average amount received per person for Access to Work elements of each type in nominal terms

Figure 2 shows the yearly average amounts received per person over time and the forecast amount from 2024/25 to 2029/30. Only people receiving a payment for an Access to Work element within each financial year are included in the average. The Support Worker element receives the highest average payment amount per person and this amount has been increasing over time.

The forecast assumes average payment amounts received for the Support Worker element will increase in line with average weekly earnings. For all other elements it is assumed average payment amounts received will increase in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Forecasts for average weekly earnings and CPI are both from The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) economic and fiscal outlook October 2024 forecasts^{[footnote 2]}.

Note that changes in amounts received for the period between 2020 and 2022 may be impacted by the potential effect of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Total Access to Work grant expenditure

The forecasts for the number of customers in receipt of a payment for Access to Work grant expenditure multiplied by the corresponding forecast for the average amount received per person provides an initial expenditure estimate and forecast.

Adjustments are then made to account for other factors that might be expected to have an additional impact on grant expenditure which are not already covered in the forecast trends. Currently the only adjustment made is an increase in expenditure due to knock-on impacts from existing DWP measures to support more people, including disabled people, into employment. These measures, collectively, might increase take up of Access to Work.

The estimated expenditure from using payment volumes and amounts data is then aligned to the final actual grant expenditure data from the department’s payment system and the forecast is also adjusted to reflect the average difference (usually <5%).

Figure 3: Access to Work grant expenditure by element in nominal terms (£ million)

Figure 3 shows that grant expenditure is forecast to increase. This increase is mainly from Support Worker and Travel to Work elements.

Table 1: Access to Work grant expenditure forecasts

Financial Year	Number of people receiving payment (000’s)	Average amount per person, nominal terms (£)	Expenditure nominal terms (£ million)
2023/24	37	6,650	249
2024/25	45	7,090	318
2025/26	53	7,330	385
2026/27	60	7,680	463
2027/28	68	7,990	545
2028/29	76	8,290	629
2029/30	84	8,500	712

Table 1 shows that grant expenditure is forecast to increase from £249 million in 2023/24 to £712 million in 2029/30, mainly due to growth in the volume of people in payment and partly due to growth in average payment amounts.

This methodology is used for the medium-term forecast for Access to Work grant expenditure which covers a 5-year period. During each financial year, the grant expenditure estimate for that year is adjusted for internal departmental use. This is based on actual expenditure throughout the year and therefore these updates can differ to the medium-term forecast. For 2024/25, the in-year expenditure based on outturn data to January 2025 is forecast to be £290 million. This is lower than the medium-term forecast of £318 million mainly due to an increase in the volume of outstanding payments.

Data sources

1. The Department for Work and Pensions’ Disability Service Client (DiSC) administrative system. DiSC data are input by Access to Work advisers and contact centre agents. DiSC is the primary source of information used for past data and covers information on the number of people in receipt of each element and the amounts received.

2. The Single Operating Platform (SOP) is the payment system used for much of the department’s business. SOP provides a more reliable measure of spend than DiSC. In theory, all payments recorded in DiSC should reconcile with the SOP system but this is not always the case. Although SOP provides more reliable summary data on spend, the data cannot be disaggregated to the same level of detail as that in DiSC. Therefore, expenditure data from DiSC is used to provide granularity, but this data is then reweighted to match the total expenditure recorded through SOP. In most years, the difference between the two measures of expenditure is small (<5% difference).

3. Office for Budget Responsibility Economic and Fiscal Outlook – October 2024

4. Operational Management Information – this data is used to estimate the number of outstanding applications. It is collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard so should therefore be treated with caution.

Related links

Access to Work Official Statistics

Benefit expenditure and caseload tables – Access to Work forecasts will be added to the Spring 2025 tables and updated forecasts will be included in each future publication

Principles followed in the compilation and release of this publication

Although the forecasts are not Official Statistics or National Statistics, where possible they follow the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Code is built around 3 main concepts, or pillars:

• trustworthiness – is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics
• quality – is about using data and methods that produce assured statistics
• value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs for information

The following explains how we have applied the pillars of the code in a proportionate way.

Trustworthiness

DWP analysts work to a professional competency framework and Civil Service core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity, and impartiality. Analysts have produced this analysis and conducted rigorous quality assurance in line to the standards usually applied to ad hoc releases. Background and methodology information is also included in the release.

The analysis has been signed off by the expert lead analyst and the department’s Head of Profession for Statistics was consulted on the production and publication process.

Care has been taken to ensure only those who needed to see the analysis prior to publication had access to it.

Quality

Past data is a combination of departmental accounting data, which is audited by the National Audit Office, and data released as, or underpinning, departmental Official Statistics.

Forecasts and assumptions are compiled by analysts, taking account of the latest data and applying analytical methods using their professional judgement. These forecasts and assumptions are scrutinised and approved within DWP.

Value

The publication of this ad hoc release ensures the analysis is equally available to all users as well as providing transparency and up to date information to the public.

These figures provide an overview of Access to Work expenditure and caseload forecasts which can be used to inform the government’s budget, to inform debate and to increase the stock of information available to policymakers.

Making this information accessible helps reduce the administrative burden of answering Parliamentary Questions, Freedom of Information requests and ad hoc queries about forecast expenditure.

1. Operational Management Information – this data is used to estimate the number of outstanding applications. It is collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard so should therefore be treated with caution. ↩

2. Office for Budget Responsibility Economic and Fiscal Outlook – October 2024 ↩