Jobs fears as Access to Work disability scheme owes businesses thousands

Companies used by disabled people say that the government has hundreds of thousands of pounds, and fear may have to let go of the staff.

According to the access scheme, companies and employees can request subsidies to help support disabled people in the workplace.

But companies have told the BBC that there are delays and huge delays in payments that leave them out of pocket.

A company told the BBC that it is OED almost £ 2000 for the scheme of access to work and worries that you have to close.

Another said that he had already been forced to close partly due to Probles with the program.

The ministers highlighted access to work as a way of promoting the work prospects for disabled people when the government announced billionaire well -being cuts last month.

The Department of Labor and Pensions (DWP) said that they had recently introduced a “simplified claims process” to make faster payments to companies.

The program can pay people with disabilities and companies that use them for additional costs associated with work. It covers a wide range of support, from paying taxis to fed wheelchairs.

Yateley Industries is a beneficial organization of about 90 years in Hampshire that uses almost 60 people, most of which have disabilities, in a variety of packaging work.

He says that he owes him 186,000 for the scheme of access to work.

“It is an existential threat to us,” says Executive President Sheldon McMullan. “If we do not understand it, we could close this magical place forever, and that would be a tragedy for the local community and for the government’s agenda more widely.”

Yateley Industries is part of a National Forum of Business Diseases supported: Specialization of companies in the use of people with disabilities.

McMullan says that many others are affected by the request for orders.

“The annoying thing is that the money granted by the leg,” he adds. “We have the paperwork saying that this is what each person’s leg gave, but the claim system is not established to reduce effective money.”

Companies say that, in addition to poor internal processes in the Department of Labor and Pensions, there has also been a great increase in bureaucracy associated with access to work in recent months, with many more ways that have to be filled, not loaded. Aware.

“Until the ministers realize that they are wrong, they are in danger of getting so many people disabled outside the workplace,” says Steven McGurk, president of the Community Union.

“It is very bureaucratic, very diffusion to claim: it is the greatest threat to the use of disabled people.”

In Newton Abbott in Devon, a coffee that used people with learning disabilities closed last month. Its founders say that new restrictions and problems with access to work contributed to closure.

Sarah Thorp, who established Café Non Limits, said the scheme had recently started months to reject funds for people who wanted to obtain some work experience.

The decision occurred despite the recommendation of the local work center of people to coffee. The change left the business with a £ 800 deficit per week.

“In the last 18 months, we have 20 people in paid employment, all with disabilities,” she says.

“When the problems around work experience changed in recent months, we had to reject people because we could not finance support. It seems really contradictory when all rhetoric is about to put disabled adults at work.”

When the government announced the cuts and restrictions on disability benefits last month, Foreign Minister Rachel Reeves verified the scheme of access to work as a program that could lose to get a job.

In addition to the companies that can claim, the issue of disabled people can request help under the scheme.

They are also suffering delays and arrears; In October, there were 55,000 pending applications, according to the DWP.

Some claimants expect more than six months to be evaluated, and people write on social networks that delays have turned out that they lose work sacrifices.

The Labor and Pension Department says that prioritizes those who are recently sacrificed a job.

Lucy Earle, 31, is a social media executive for a museum.

She has disabilities and variant conditions, including agonizing pain in her feet that mean chairs to use a wheelchair.

He was six months to claim to be looked at the access to work, and then assigned a wheelchair that was not adequate and left the pain at the top of his body.

“In recent weeks, I have been at work because I cannot handle the pain of using the wheelchair that is not built for me, or the bee in my feet and I will not go very far.”

She attributes the access scheme to help her stay in employment, but feels that they are rejecting reasonable requests.

“They are saying that the benefits are bees so that we can push more people to work, but also access to work is to have all thesis problems.”

Steve Darling’s deputy, the spokesman for Lib Dem Work and Pensions, says that while the principles behind access are excellent, “people and companies cover significant sums of their savings, while, while failures, decrease from the froms Frome helmets, closing.

The Minister of Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, said in February that access to work, established in 1994, “was not in good shape at this time.”

The expenditure on the program increased by 41% by 2023/24 to £ 257.8m.

“What we will have to do … is to make some quite significant reforms to access the work, see if the Sieros can do more. Here is a big problem and it is unlikely that the current style of access to work is sustainable in the long term.”

“We have to find something better and more effective, given the current level of very high demand.”

In a statement, the Labor and Pension Department said: “Last month we presented a new simplified claims process to ensure that pending payments are quickly carried out in companies.

“We also continually work with employers to explore how the process of accessing work and the claims process could be done for their employees and, therefore, people with high job support needs can prosper in employment.”