We've added our signature to an open letter to the Secretaries of State for the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport calling on the government to protect and improve Access to Work. 

Add your signature now

---

Alongside organisations and individuals from across the culture sector, we're proud to support efforts to urge the government to pause reforms on Access to Work, and guarantee protections and improvements to a vital system. 

In the "Pathways to Work" Green Paper published by the UK Government, the following policy changes and adjustments to the Access to Work scheme were proposed:

• Caps on Access to Work
  
  
• Introductions of regular assessments for people with long-term conditions
  
  
• The closure of The Independent Living Fund (ILF)
  
  
• The unsuccessful and cruel consolidation of Universal Credit
  
  
• Cuts to Adult Social Care funding and NHS budgets

These changes would join existing proposals to cut other lifelines for disabled people, such as Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and build on decades of austerity policies.

We agree that Access to Work needs change. Self employed applicants are currently waiting 55 weeks for their applications to be seen, and employed applicants are facing waits of 35 weeks. Changes to Access to Work should be based on constructively supporting disabled people into meaningful work, not simply cutting costs. 

The government aims to get more disabled people into work, but their proposed methods of cuts and adjustments are counterintuitive in achieving this. Access to Work, which subsidises access costs for disabled workers, is a foundational part of how disabled people find secure and meaningful employment. In reducing the availability of this support, disabled people will face more significant barriers in finding work, not 'be encouraged' into jobs.

In the culture sector, disabled workers are particularly at risk. There is already a stark divide in the representation of disabled people in the cultural workforce, which will only be worsened by the government's proposals. 

We call on the government to take immediate action:

• Halt the current process. No reform of this scale should proceed without transparency. The Office for Budget Responsibility must publish their full assessment of how these proposals will affect disability employment rates before any consultation takes place.
  Demonstrate positive impacts of reforms on the employment rate of disabled people  before consultation takes place.
  
  
• Commit to improve Access to Work. Work with those most affected to develop new proposals that strengthen the programme, not hollow it out. If the government is serious about its commitment to increasing employment among disabled people.
  
  
• Guarantee that reforms do no harm. Any changes to benefits or support systems must be rigorously tested to ensure they do not create new barriers for disabled people in accessing, participating in, or leading cultural life and wider society.
  
  
• Consult those most affected before implementing. The voices of disabled people: artists, cultural workers, and disabled-led organisations must be central to this process. Without their expertise and lived experience, these reforms will cause irreversible damage.

We urge you to add your name to the 2,600 others on this open letter and stand in solidarity with disabled workers across our sector. We cannot understate the importance of a thriving and sustainable creative industry that is inclusive and accessible to all. 

Add your signature now

---

Banner image: photograph courtesy of Liz Crow from the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive showing a Telethon protest outside LTW TV in 1990. Description: a film photograph showing a protest. Disabled people, including wheelchair users, are gathered by a car park. They hold up placards and banners reading "Is this a cripple free zone?" and "Ask us not Aspel".