Official Statistics

Access to Work statistics: April 2007 to March 2021

Published 29 September 2021

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

The latest release of these statistics can be found in the collection of Access to Work statistics.

Main stories

The key points from this release covering Access to Work in the financial year 2020 to 2021 are:

• Access to Work provision was approved for 35,990 people
• Total expenditure on Access to Work was £109.3 million
• 37,170 people were in receipt of Access to Work payment

What is Access to Work?

Access to Work is a publicly funded employment support programme that aims to help more disabled people start or stay in work. There are 2 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.

Elements are intended to supplement the reasonable adjustments that employers are required to make under the Equality Act 2010. The types of Element 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
• Miscellaneous

In some but not all cases an Assessment is required to find out whether a customer is eligible to receive an Element.

What do these statistics show?

These statistics are about 2 specific parts of the Access to Work customer journey:

• approval of Access to Work provision
• payment of Access to Work provision

They show the number of people who had Access to Work provision approved, number of people who received at least one Access to Work payment and Access to Work expenditure. These are disaggregated by various breakdowns including:

• financial year
• type of provision
• primary medical condition
• region
• age
• gender

The expenditure data in these statistics covers Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) expenditure only. In many cases, the employer will be asked to contribute to the cost of provision under “cost share” arrangements. The employer element of expenditure is not included in these statistics. We use this data to calculate statistics on the number of people in receipt of Access to Work payments in each year.

This release covers the period up to March 2021 in which the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic impacted the UK labour market. When interpreting results, particularly comparing time periods, users should be aware of the potential effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There were some changes to Access to Work policy in the financial year 2020 to 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. More information about this can be found in the background information and methodology note.

Access to Work continued to provide Communication Support for Interviews to individuals during 2020 to 2021. However, due to the Access to Work digital transformation programme and the move to a new administrative system, we are unable to identify how many people had an approval or received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews in 2020 to 2021. In 2019 to 2020, 270 people had an approval and 240 people received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews.

Access to Work customer journey

The main stages of a typical Access to Work customer journey are summarised here.

1. Application: The customer applies for Access to Work provision.

2. Approval/Rejection: DWP approves or rejects the provision after considering the customer’s eligibility and their employer’s duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010. The customer is notified of the decision and a grant may be approved to cover some or all of the costs of the approved provision.

3. Commissioning: The customer or their employer commissions the approved provision and submits invoices relating to approved grants to DWP.

4. Receipt: The customer receives the approved and commissioned provision.

5. Payment: DWP pays the invoices relating to approved grants. In some cases, a DWP payment is not required, for example because provision can be provided at no cost or the employer covers the relevant costs.

6. Review: DWP schedules reviews to ensure the provision is still adequate and to check that the customer is still eligible.

Access to Work approvals in 2020 to 2021

Access to Work (AtW) provision was approved for 35,990 people

Number of people who had any Access to Work provision of each type approved in 2020 to 2021

The key points are:

• of the 35,990 people who had an AtW provision approved in 2020 to 2021, 34,960 (97%) had an Element approved. The remaining 3% had one or more Assessments approved in 2020 to 2021 without any Elements approved in the same period. This may be because they had one or more Elements approved in a subsequent period or they did not require an Element or were not eligible for one
• 13,600 (38%) of those who had an AtW provision approved in 2020 to 2021 had an Assessment approved
• the remaining 62% had an Element approved without an Assessment approved in the same period. This is mainly because the corresponding Assessment was approved in a preceding period for example if the Element is a series of ongoing payments as seen with Travel to Work
• data relating to previous years can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet in Table 1

Please note that this statistical release does not include the number of people who had an approval or received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews in 2020 to 2021.

Support Worker Elements were approved for more people than any other type of Element

Number of people who had any Element of each type approved in 2020 to 2021

The key points are:

• the most common Element that was approved in 2020 to 2021 was the Support Worker Element. 47% of the 34,960 people who had any Element approved had one or more Support Worker Elements approved in the same period.
• the next most frequently approved Element types were:
  • Special Aids and Equipment (40%)
  • Mental Health Support Service (27%)
  • Travel to Work (13%)
• it should be noted that more than one Element of the same type or of different types can be approved for the same person in a given financial year
• it should also be noted that an approval for Access to Work does not necessarily result in a payment for Access to Work, a customer’s employer may pay for the support in full, or the customer may choose not to take up the support
• data relating to previous years can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet in Table 2

Please note that this statistical release does not include the number of people who had an approval or received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews in 2020 to 2021.

Access to Work expenditure over time

Total nominal expenditure on Access to Work was £109.3 million in 2020 to 2021

Expenditure on Access to Work provision 2009 to 2021 in millions (Nominal terms)

The key points are:

• total nominal expenditure on Access to Work provision dropped to £109.3 million in 2020 to 2021. This decrease may be due to the COVID-19 pandemic
• £106.6 million of this was expenditure on Elements. The remaining £2.7 million was on Assessments. Assessments account for around 2% of total expenditure
• nominal expenditure is the amount reflected on financial balance sheets. It does not account for inflation; therefore, real terms expenditure should be used for year on year comparisons
• see Table 11 for full data, and Table 12 for expenditure on Elements of each type in the accompanying spreadsheet

Please note that total expenditure figures contain data on Communication Support for Interviews.

Expenditure on Access to Work provision, 2009 to 2021 (Real terms)

The key points are:

• real terms expenditure removes the effect of inflation to make year on year comparisons possible, using 2020 to 2021 as the base year
• in the last year, real total expenditure decreased by 27%. This change might have been driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Expenditure changes differed for different elements, which is explained in sections below
• however, prior to this decrease, we were seeing a relatively steady increase in Access to Work expenditure with a 35% increase between 2015 to 2016 and 2019 to 2020
• see statistics on the number of people who received a payment by element type
• see Table 11a of the accompanying spreadsheet for more details

More information

We use expenditure data from the Department for Work and Pensions’ Disability Service Client (DiSC) administrative system. This provides granularity (for example, expenditure broken down by provision type), but we reweight this data to match the total Access to Work expenditure recorded through the department’s Single Operating Platform (SOP). SOP is the payment system used for much of the department’s business.

SOP provides a more reliable measure of spend than DiSC however the data cannot always be disaggregated to the same level of detail as that in DiSC. Please see the accompanying Background information and methodology note for more detail.

Number in receipt of payment of Access to Work over time

37,170 people were in receipt of Access to Work payments in 2020 to 2021

Number of people who were in receipt of one or more payments for any Access to Work provision of each type, 2009 to 2021

The key points are:

• there was a 14% decrease in the number of people who received a payment for Access to Work provision in 2020 to 2021. This may have been due to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the UK labour market
• of the 37,170 people who received a payment for Access to Work provision in 2020 to 2021, 26,590 (72%) received the payment for one or more Elements. The remaining 28% received a payment for an Assessment only, without receiving a payment for any Elements in the same period. This may be because they received a payment for one or more Elements in a subsequent period or they did not require an Element or were not eligible for one
• of those who received a payment for Access to Work provision in 2020 to 2021, 13,230 (36%) received a payment for one or more Assessments. The remaining 64% received a payment for an Element only, without receiving a payment for an Assessment. This may be where the customer received the assessment in a preceding period
• see Table 6 of the accompanying spreadsheet for full data

Please note that this statistical release does not include the number of people who had an approval or received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews in 2020 to 2021.

More people were in receipt of a payment for Support Workers than any other type of Element

Number of people who received a payment for any Access to Work Element of each type, 2009 to 2021

The key points are:

• despite the recent drop, the Support Worker Element continues to be the most common Element amongst people who received a payment
• Travel to Work had the second highest number of people who received a payment, although it decreased by 23% from 2019 to 2020 to 2020 to 2021
• Mental Health Support Service has been rising since 2015 to 16, increasing from 1,030 to 6,910 in 2020 to 2021. In the last year, the number of people who received a payment for Mental Health Support Service rose by 20%
• see Table 7 of the accompanying spreadsheet for full data

Please note that this statistical release does not include the number of people who had an approval or received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews in 2020 to 2021.

Characteristics of Access to Work customers in 2020 to 2021

Percentage of total expenditure and percentage in receipt of payment in 2020 to 2021 by primary medical condition

The key points are:

• the largest Access to Work customer group in terms of number of payments, by primary medical condition are those with a ‘Mental health condition’, who account for 20% (7,530) of the total number of customers. Those with the primary medical condition ‘Deaf or hard of hearing’ are the second most common group and make up 14% of customers (5,330 people)
• those who are ‘Deaf and hard of hearing’ are in receipt of the highest proportion (46%) of total Access to Work expenditure
• see Tables 8 and 13 of the accompanying spreadsheet for full data

Please note that this statistical release does not include the number of people who had an approval or received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews in 2020 to 2021.

Access to Work continues to support young people as well as those customers who are older

Percentage of people in receipt of a payment in 2020 to 2021 in each age group

The key points are:

• the largest Access to Work customer group in terms of number of payments, by age are those aged 45 to 54 who account for 27% of the total number of customers
• people of all eligible ages are in receipt of Access to Work support
• see Table 8 of the accompanying spreadsheet for full data

Please note that this statistical release does not include the number of people who had an approval or received a payment for Communication Support for Interviews in 2020 to 2021.

More information about these statistics

These statistics have been developed using guidelines set out by the UK Statistics Authority and are new official statistics undergoing development. They have therefore been designated as experimental statistics. We plan to publish these statistics on an annual basis and will explore the feasibility of expanding their scope to cover other parts of the Access to Work customer journey such as applications to Access to Work. Users are invited to comment on the development and relevance of these statistics at this stage and can send feedback to: access.toworkstatistics@dwp.gov.uk

These statistics were obtained from DWP’s Disability Service Client (DiSC) administrative system. DiSC is a live system and figures may be revised in future publications as records are amended or added to the system. More information about DiSC and revisions to these statistics can be found in the accompanying Background information and methodology note.

Figures in this publication are rounded to the nearest 10 and nearest £1,000. Percentages are calculated using figures prior to rounding and are rounded to the nearest integer. Totals may not sum due to rounding or missing data.

Where to find out more

More information about these statistics can be found in the Background information and methodology note and the Data tables that accompany each release.

Read more information about Access to Work.

Guidance on Access to Work for employers.

More information about experimental statistics.

Contact details

For queries or feedback on this publication, please contact: access.toworkstatistics@dwp.gov.uk

For press queries, please contact: 0203 267 5129

ISBN: 978-1-78659-363-4

Next release

This publication is annual, and the next release will be published in August or September 2022.