Ready Willing but Still Waiting

 

We keep saying we want more disabled people in work. So why are we making the support they rely on harder to use?

The government is clear about its ambition: more disabled people in employment, fewer people stuck on benefits, and a labour market that makes better use of talent that is currently overlooked. It’s an aim many of us would support without hesitation.

But ambition only matters if the systems underneath it actually deliver — particularly for employers who are expected to turn policy into practice.

Access to Work sits at the heart of this. It is one of the few mechanisms the government directly controls that enables disabled people to take up work, stay in work and progress in their careers. For employers, it underwrites reasonable adjustments, reduces risk and makes inclusion practical rather than aspirational.

Yet recent data and lived experience point in an uncomfortable direction. Fewer people are having Access to Work support approved than a year ago, waiting times remain long, and the process is increasingly described as unpredictable. For large organisations, this is frustrating. For small employers, it can be decisive.

This plays out in very ordinary ways. A blind person secures a new job but needs specialist screen-reading software to access their employer’s systems. The employer wants them to be productive quickly, but the application for support drags on for months. The business is small, cash-constrained, and caught between goodwill and reality. What should have been a straightforward onboarding process becomes a problem to manage.

At that point, something subtle but important happens. The focus shifts away from the value the employee brings and onto the “issue” attached to employing them. Not because the employer is hostile, but because the system has transferred risk from the state to the business.

That risk lingers. The next time a disabled candidate applies, the employer remembers the delay, the uncertainty, the cost of waiting. Inclusion begins to feel like a gamble rather than a gain. Quietly, decisions change.

For the individual, the impact is equally corrosive. Needing support becomes something to apologise for. Confidence ebbs away. The experience is exhausting and exposing, and the thought of going through it again can make staying on benefits feel safer than trying once more.

This is why process matters. Systems don’t just deliver support; they shape attitudes, expectations and behaviour on both sides of the employment relationship.

It also explains why enthusiasm about technology and accessibility will only take us so far. Assistive technology can transform productivity and independence, but only if it can be accessed quickly, funded reliably, and delivered through processes that don’t make disabled people feel like the problem.

If the ambition is serious, Access to Work needs to be treated as core employment infrastructure. It should reduce risk, not create it. Encouraging employers to hire disabled people while weakening the system that supports them sends a mixed message — and mixed messages rarely lead to confident, inclusive hiring.