The Extermination of Disabled People at Work – Access To Work in 2025
Each week at our Extant team meeting we offer a nugget of information from the arts news world that has caught our attention. My initial go to place is Disability Arts Online, so imagine my alarm last month (23rd May to be exact) when I stumbled upon this devastating post from Jess Thom, Co-Artistic Director of Touretteshero, an organisation she co-founded 15 years ago.
In her post, Jess explained that as of that day, she would no longer be able to do her job as Co-Artistic Director of Touretteshero due to Access To Work’s recent decision to cut her grant by over 60%. Her grant covered a full-time support worker, accessible travel and specialist equipment. Jess has put in a ‘Reconsideration’ request and hopes to continue her role in the future, but until the outcome, the challenges feel insurmountable.
I’d already read a statement from Graeae in response to the recent proposed policy changes and benefits reform within the Pathways To Work : Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, promising to stand in solidarity beside the 200 disabled and neurodivergent people they employ each year, so whilst Jess’ blog wasn’t a complete surprise, it was still difficult to read this from a pioneering UK artist who is now unable to do her job.
I have used Access To Work regularly in one form or other for over 20 years. Starting out with taxis from the train station (a lifeline when living out in the sticks), before moving on to regular time with an access worker for notetaking, driving and audio description. Sure, I’ve noticed a slight dwindling in allocated hours in recent years, but having worked as a freelancer up until now, with flexible monthly access needs, and, as I only use access for part of my working week, it’s worked extremely well so far. Building relationships with access workers who know my needs has been a lifeline.
Before reading Jess’ blog I’d been at the point of contacting Access to Work to discuss getting more hours to support my time at Extant and potentially ‘up’ my hourly rate. There’s a difference in rates of pay between London and the Southwest and I was having trouble finding Access Workers who were happy with my hourly offer. I’d been perhaps stupidly optimistic that Access to Work would see my request as a good thing and be happy to help. But, at Jess’ situation, and hearing ATW funding for access workers is likely to be cut later in the year, I feel sad, shocked and outraged by a system that supposedly wants to get more disabled people into work, but ultimately is cutting back, threatening to take away the vital support we need to do our jobs.
The team at Disability Arts Online and Decode have been working hard to provide advice and support around ATW. They held advice sessions for organisations and freelancers where they made sense of the leaks and rumours that had been flying around. There are two key phases to be aware of:
Phase one which was due to take place on 6 May, (but is currently paused) will see specialist equipment being classed as standard business items, so it becomes the employer’s, or self-employed person’s responsibility to provide them. This includes equipment a non-disabled employee wouldn’t need to do their job, such as ergonomic chairs, desks, keyboards, noise cancelling headphones and headsets, any type of reading support, such as magnifiers or colour overlays, writing and reading support software, mental health management software, digital notepads, like Remarkable tablets and productivity devices. This phase will also see a hard limit on hourly rates for Access Workers, less flexibility around small increases in the grant and a push for more tasks to come under Job Aide (someone who does a part of your job for you if the barriers are too great) rather than (as I have) a Job Aide Enabler (someone who supports me by carrying/setting up equipment/taking dictation, guiding me to, and around venues and providing AD etc. so I can actually complete my job myself). DAO say Job Aide is the cheaper option and is currently given for only 20% of the claimant’s working hours, whereas some people receive Job Aide Enablers for pretty much their full working hours if needed.
This leads to ‘The Extermination of Disabled People at Work’ (my words) or phase two, which is supposed to come in to force from September/October 2025 and includes the removal of all job aide enabling and replacement support – both technological and human – meaning Access Workers will no longer exist! Let me repeat that. There will be no more vital, friendly and inclusive Access Workers. Without my trusted band, how can I stay on a level playing field with my colleagues or even navigate unfamiliar locations to do my job? I can’t. Even if ATW were just to supply taxis, I couldn’t carry out all tasks to the best of my ability without access support. What am I, and other visually impaired people in my position meant to do?
DAO have put up an information page on their website where all this is outlined fully and have resources available to support anyone affected. They are also requesting people to sign an open letter to Lisa Nandy (DCMS) and Liz Kendall (DWP) to ask them to take a series of immediate actions to ensure a full and proper consultation takes place around both ATW and other benefits. And lastly, they are urging individuals write to their local MP by 30 June using this template.
Organisations are being encouraged to build Access Support into their applications. Extant already does this for projects like No Dramas and Enhance, which currently employs around 16 visually impaired freelancers. Our Artist Development Manager works with 75-100 freelancers each year, helping them to build access costs into funding bids, but this isn’t sustainable and it shouldn’t be the responsibility of Extant or any other organisations to subsidise the cost of Access Workers. This is the responsibility of the government and ATW.
It feels that in a world where one moment disabled people are being encouraged to work, but in reality, our basic access needs and rights to work are being taken away. With the cuts to Universal Credit and PIP, the Assisted Dying Bill, and the now ”pending” Access To Work cuts denying me a way to pay my way in the world and make a difference by doing the job I love, my very existence is being called into question. My non-disabled colleagues aren’t being asked to face these battles when they get up to start their working day, so why should I?
We can’t let more disabled people feel forced to quit their jobs and stop creating work they are passionate about. Join me in our fight, so that visually impaired people have the technology and support required to not only keep Access Workers, but allow us to do our jobs. I’ll be on ATW’s tail at every turn – writing to them and to my MP, signing open letters, demonstrating and talking to the media, demanding a cancellation of cuts. We managed to save our train station ticket offices so that we can buy tickets in person to travel to work and we can do the same with ATW to keep working – we have to, there’s no other option.
How can I not work, when I want to?
Tam Gilbert, Trainee Artistic Director, June 2025