Research and analysis

Government response to the Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity report

Published 2 October 2026

1. Introduction

Neurodivergent people have many valuable skills and talents our labour market needs yet they are much more likely to be out of work or underemployed. That is a huge loss of potential for the individual and is bad for our economy and productivity as a country. A diagnosis should not lead to someone being signed off, written off, or left without the hope of work. We want neurodivergent people to live as full a life as possible. This is why we are building towards a Pathways to Work guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for all disabled people, those with health conditions and neurodivergent people who are out of work and claiming out of work benefits. With the overall goal of closing the disability employment gap and backed by £3.5 billion of funding by the end of the decade, that means more help for neurodivergent people to get into work, including through:

Pathways to Work

1,000 Pathways to Work Advisers in Jobcentres across England, Scotland and Wales since July 2025, providing personalised one-to-one support to customers with health conditions and disabled people.

Youth Guarantee

The Youth Guarantee is the government’s commitment to back young people aged 16 to 24 by creating clear pathways into earning, learning and training opportunities. To achieve that commitment, we are investing an additional £2.5 billion into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy over the next 3 years, supporting almost one million young people and creating up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn. To support young people, we have established the Youth Guarantee Gateway, providing tailored employment support for every young person on Universal Credit (UC) who is looking for work from their first appointment in the Jobcentre. We are working closely with Mayoral Strategic Authorities to deliver 8 Youth Trailblazers that are testing innovative approaches to identify and deliver localised support to young people who are not in education employment or training (NEET) or at risk of becoming NEET. We are also expanding our network of Youth Hubs to more than 360 across Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). Youth Hubs are designed to ensure every young person in Great Britain can access joined-up support to overcome barriers to work and learning.

Connect to Work

Connect to Work, the £1 billion, voluntary, locally-led, Supported Employment programme. Connect to Work has a specialist pathway for neurodivergent and learning disabled participants, using the Supported Employment Quality Framework. The recently published official statistics for Connect to Work show that to end June 2026, 4,100 people aged under 25 had started on this pathway – so far 470 of these have already moved into work. This is an early snapshot of initial progress.

Pathways to Work Innovation Fund

The £60 million Pathways to Work Innovation Fund will provide grant funding to test innovative approaches to support disabled people and those with health conditions towards, into and to progress at work. Our first round of bids will open in September 2026 with the private, public and voluntary sectors all able to apply - opening up a new route for the funding and testing of accessible technology and other support. It is a ‘call to action’ for the private, voluntary and public sectors to come forward with the most ambitious, creative ideas to help disabled people and those with health conditions get into and on at work.

Fit note reforms

Fit note system reforms. From July 2026, 4 pilots across England will test a fundamentally different direction, aiming to move away from a tick-box approach towards personalised work and health support. In place of the traditional GP-led certification process, specialist work and health teams will work with people to develop tailored plans to support them to stay in work or return sustainably.

Keep Britain Working

Alongside this extra employment support, we’re partnering with employers to create more inclusive and accessible workplaces, including through the Keep Britain Working Review. Now in its vanguard phase, it is developing an active relationship with employers to explore their vital role in creating healthy and inclusive workplaces. We have also been funding employers to upskill on neurodiversity and supporting everyday needs at work, and over 1,800 employer representatives have benefited from that just this year.

2. Government response to the Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity report

The Expert Academic Panel’s work and their recommendations for government, employers and the research community on neurodiversity inclusion come at an important time in looking at the issue of work, health and participation in the workforce. Alan Milburn recently set out the scale of the challenge for young people who are NEET, Professor Peter Fonagy has delivered an interim report on his independent review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism, and we are delivering our 10 Year Health Plan, published in July 2025, which seeks to integrate health and employment support and incentivise greater cross-system collaboration. We have an ongoing, ambitious programme of change being rolled out to help deliver a more inclusive labour market that will grow this economy. This programme of change addresses many of the recommendations made by the Expert Panel:

1. We support the Panel’s key recommendation that neuro-inclusion in the workplace be needs-led, in that it focuses on the challenges an individual faces in a given context. It is in line with the findings of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)-led Prevalence Review, which in its next phase of work will seek to understand how needs-led approaches can be operationalised. In Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), we are planning a series of conversations with employers to explore what needs-led approaches and low-cost practical strategies in the workplace look like and how existing guidance supports this. This is alongside the work of Keep Britain Working’s Vanguard Phase with employers, which is seeking to establish the practical actions that keep employees in and thriving in work.

2. The Panel’s other main conclusion is on the value of universal design principles to ensure workplaces are accessible, inclusive, and equitable for everyone from the outset. Principles that minimise the need for retrospective workplace adjustments have the potential to support more inclusive workplaces for employees with a range of visible and non-visible, diagnosed and undiagnosed, conditions. The ethos underpinning universal design aligns with the goals of this government on healthy and inclusive workplaces. This is why we have embarked on a 16-week policy discovery exercise to explore how a framework of workplace design principles relating to physical environments, policies, procedures, and communications might be applied in workplaces. We are exploring if these principles can add value and make sense to both employees and employers, and also if they are manageable and proportionate for everyone involved. This work will conclude in the autumn. We look forward to the results of this testing and will follow the evidence in pursuing this work further.

3. The Panel rightly recognises that neurodivergence at work cannot be seen in a vacuum, and that even though many neurodivergent workers will not see themselves as disabled, the disability policy landscape can, does, and should protect their rights at work. This is why we are pursuing serious reform via our Make Work Pay commitment. A central pillar of Make Work Pay is the Employment Rights Act which received Royal Assent in 2025. Its reforms change employer duties, workplace protections and equality obligations.

The Employment Rights Act tackles many of the issues addressed by the Expert Panel head on by:

a) Increasing the time limit within which employees are able to make an Employment Tribunal claim from 3 months to 6 months from October 2026. Employees will benefit from having more time to prepare a strong case, to raise funds for legal costs as well as to resolve disputes internally or through the conciliation process, creating an opportunity for disputes to be resolved before they reach the Employment Tribunal.

b) Modernising trade union legislation, giving trade unions greater freedom to organise, represent and negotiate on behalf of workers. This includes introducing the right for trade union equality representatives to reasonable paid time off and access to facilities to enable them to fulfil their duties.

c) Strengthening the existing ‘day-one’ right to request flexible working, something that can significantly benefit neurodivergent workers.

d) Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) by extending eligibility to the up to 1.3 million low paid employees who, prior to 6 April 2026 were not entitled to SSP and ensures that all employees receive SSP from their first day of sickness absence – rather than having to wait until the fourth day. By ensuring employees have a level of financial security they need while they are unable to work through illness, the reforms can help to reduce the duration of sickness absences, boost productivity, and limit the spread of infectious diseases in the workplace.

4. The Employment Rights Act will be implemented in phases, and we look forward to many positive protections and tangible results it will bring across the employment landscape, not least for neurodivergent workers, including those who face intersectional challenges on the basis of ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status or a number of other factors. We have a plan for monitoring outcomes, being led by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BSIT).

5. In addition, to complement these reforms, BSIT and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) have set up a Dispute Resolution System Taskforce to consider longer-term system reform, bringing expertise to measures to promote prevention of workplace disputes. This is in addition to the ongoing Equality Advisory and Support Service, a government-commissioned helpline that provides free advice and support to individuals in Great Britain on issues relating to equality and human rights. The service supports individuals to resolve their disputes informally and can refer cases to the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS).

6. Government is committed to ensuring the employment tribunal system is fair, lawful, and accessible to all users, including disabled and self-represented claimants. The Employment Tribunal provides a range of measures to support disabled claimants, including those who are neurodivergent. Legal aid is available for advice, subject to means and merits tests, for employment law cases in relation to breaches of the Equality Act 2010 or previous discrimination legislation. Where an issue falls outside the scope of legal aid, funding may still be available through the Exceptional Case Funding Scheme. In relation to the Equality and Human Rights Commission and their budgets, in recent years the government has provided additional funding to the Commission, beyond their allocation, to help with in-year pressures. As an independent non-departmental public body, it is for the Commission to decide on how it allocates its budget.

7. In relation to another recommendation of the Expert Panel, government is committed to introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers (such as, those with 250 or more employees) to improve transparency and tackle barriers to opportunity. We have published the pay gap public consultation findings and government response, setting out our proposed approach towards mandatory reporting. The proposed approach would require employers with 250 or more employees to report their ethnicity and disability pay gaps, report workforce composition by ethnicity and disability, and take actions to address pay gaps. Legislation will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows.

8. On the Expert Panel’s recommendation that employers are given 2 weeks to respond to reasonable adjustments requests, we are aware of stakeholder concerns regarding this issue. In 2025, the Cabinet Office (CO) announced research being undertaken by the University of York to investigate this issue. The CO commissioned further research from the government’s Open Innovation Team (OIT) to dive deeper into this issue. As part of their research, the OIT interviewed leading experts in the field - including disabled people. We published the outcomes of this research in September 2026. In addition to this work, reasonable adjustments are also a key area of focus for the Keep Britain Working review vanguard as part of developing the Healthy Working Lifecycle, to support workplaces to be healthier and more inclusive.

9. We agree with the Panel that the Disability Confident scheme, while well-established, has lacked the clarity, consistency and accountability needed to drive meaningful change in disability employment. This has been mentioned in the Keep Britain Working report too, and in direct stakeholder feedback. This is why, earlier this year, government announced a programme of reforms to strengthen the scheme. These include relaunching enhanced criteria across all 3 levels, introducing a credible and proportionate verification process, and creating an inclusive pathway with tailored support for small and medium sized employers. This work is being closely aligned with the Keep Britain Working vanguard. A central part of Disability Confident reform work is also embedding lived experience throughout the scheme, ensuring that the voices of disabled and neurodivergent people, and people with long term health conditions, actively shape how the scheme develops.

10. As part of our wider activity to support employers outside the Disability Confident scheme, government already has the foundations of a guidance portal through the Support with Employee Health and Disability service, which provides tailored, step by step guidance to help employers support disabled employees and those with health conditions to remain in work. However, we are now building on from this work through cross-government collaboration with Government Digital Service (GDS) and BSIT, exploring how existing support could evolve into a more joined-up, streamlined cross-government entry point to help employers seeking support with health and disability in the workplace.

11. We know that Access to Work remains a vital scheme supporting people into and in work, but we know from employee and employer feedback that we inherited issues in the scheme, which is why we’re working with disabled people and their organisations to improve it. Improvements are essential to ensure a better service for customers, to help disabled people start and stay in work, to provide clarity in what support should be provided and to ensure we are providing value for money for the taxpayer. There is a reform programme underway on the scheme, informed by public consultation and Access to Work collaboration committees. Once a future direction of the scheme is established, we will consider timelines and work closely with stakeholders to ensure appropriate transitions. In the meantime, we remain fully committed to reducing and clearing the scheme’s backlog. To support this important step, we are recruiting and training a ready and able workforce that will increase existing Access to Work staffing by over 70%, recruitment for this is already underway. This additional capacity will help ensure that people receive the timely and active support they deserve to secure, enter, and remain in employment, which is the primary goal of Access to Work.

12. The Panel makes important observations on the power of public procurement in securing fair employment outcomes for disadvantaged groups and how, with a long list of options, some outcomes may not be selected. The government recently published an updated and streamlined Social Value model with far fewer award criteria and target cohorts. The model now focuses on good jobs and skills and indicates that departments consider a number of priority ‘target cohorts’, one of which is ‘those with a long term health condition or disability’.

13. We are encouraged that the Expert Panel has found that the NHS Talking Therapies Service (in England) and programme offers valuable support to neurodivergent people, including employment advice regardless of employment status. There is work underway on ensuring appropriate accommodation of neurodiversity by NHS Talking Therapies. This was discussed and agreed by the NHS Talking Therapies Expert Advisory Group in November 2025, and work is moving forward on this front. This includes promotion of an Autism Positive Practice Guide within the Talking Therapies network, producing guidance on how services can be adapted for autistic people, adding neurodiversity related content into the NHS Talking Therapies Manual, amending training curricula, and providing additional guidance on how autism and ADHD should be recorded in datasets. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is also expanding NHS Talking Therapies so that close to a million people complete a course of treatment by March 2029, with a continued focus on improving quality, outcomes and access.

14. Related to inclusive workplaces is the Expert Panel’s recommendation that sensory-friendly building design is embedded in national policy and building regulations. While there are no plans to make this a legislative requirement, we must not lose sight of the extremely valuable and widely accepted accessibility standards that do exist. PAS 6463:2022, developed by Cabinet Office in conjunction with experts and consulted on publicly, provides guidance to the built environment and how to accommodate for neurodivergent needs. WCAG 2.2., developed through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) process, provides a shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organisations, and governments internationally. Cabinet Office Disability and Access Ambassadors, who are also sector leaders, are currently providing industry-led expertise required on embedding these accessibility standards into national policy. They also offer their expertise to The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) National Planning Policy Framework Review to support neuro-inclusive building standards.

15. We also recognise that technology and AI are rapidly transforming how people live and work and that assistive and accessible technology can enable independence, greater inclusion and participation for people who can face barriers to work, including neurodivergent people. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has brought together technology companies and disabled people’s organisations and continues to work with them to identify how we can help employers and employees access technology that can remove the barriers preventing disabled and neurodivergent people from finding and keeping work.

16. Alongside this, the government is also committed to increasing awareness of existing assistive technologies and exploring ways to build capacity and digital skills, so that disabled people, neurodivergent people and people with a health condition, can use the assistive technology they already have more effectively. In December 2025, a new digital resource was launched on GOV.UK which helps to explain what assistive technology is, how people can access it and how it can be funded. Over the coming year, this digital resource will be developed further helping to raise awareness of assistive technology and how it can be used to enable independence, greater inclusion and participation. Furthermore, our Pathways to Work Innovation Fund is a call to action for the private, voluntary and public sectors to come forward with the most ambitious and creative ideas, including the use of new technology, to help disabled people get into and on at work.

17. The Expert Panel also speaks directly to employers in its report. From government’s perspective, they have reiterated to us what we increasingly know about successful employment journeys, that psychological safety in the workplace is key. The line manager-employee relationship, where present, plays a big role in this, enabling disclosure, adjustments, and ongoing adjustments in a timely manner. We know that some employers and managers concede a lack of skill and confidence in relation to workplace conversations and a fear of getting things wrong. This was also highlighted in Sir Charlie Mayfield’s independent Keep Britain Working Review. Since publication, the Review has made swift progress, exploring the subject of disability inclusion with vanguard employers, disabled people’s organisations and people with lived experience over a series of workshops. Keep Britain Working has partnered with the British Standards Institution to support development of a robust, recognised standard and we are working to establish a Workplace Health Intelligence Unit to build evidence for what works, and enable a national scaling in the coming years.

18. Finally, we recognise the Panel’s finding that the overall evidence base on neurodiversity and workplace inclusion needs bolstering. In addition to the research work taking place across government on reasonable adjustments, we are enhancing the Department’s Biennial Employer Survey to capture evidence on support for neurodivergent employees and identify gaps; publication is planned for summer 2027. We are also currently scoping a research commission to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to deepen our understanding of labour market outcomes for neurodivergent people. We continue to explore the opportunities and challenges associated with linked datasets, in recognition of the importance of being able to take a holistic view of neurodivergent people’s life experiences.

The Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity has delivered a valuable contribution to progressing our ambitions on inclusive employment. We look forward to working with employers, neurodivergent people and their representatives, and other stakeholders, including DWP’s Independent Disability Advisory Panel led by expert Zara Todd, to ensure that a diagnosis of a neurodivergent condition does not lead to wasted talent and a life on benefits.