3rd October 2026
There is an important change taking place in the way disabled people are supported into work, and it raises a particular question for Scotland.
The UK Government is reviewing and tightening the operation of Access to Work, a scheme which provides practical and financial support to disabled people who need help to start or remain in employment.
The scheme is reserved to Westminster, so the changes apply in Scotland as well as elsewhere in Great Britain. They come at a time when Scotland is pursuing its own ambitious programme to reduce the gap between the employment rates of disabled and non-disabled people.
The question is whether the two approaches are pulling in the same direction.
What is Access to Work?
Access to Work is designed to pay for support that goes beyond the reasonable adjustments an employer is legally required to make.
It can help with specialist equipment, adaptations, additional travel costs, support workers, job coaches, interpreters and other practical assistance. It can also provide support for people with mental health conditions and can be used where someone is working from home.
For someone who can work but needs additional support because of a disability, that assistance can make the difference between being able to take a job and being unable to do so.
The scheme therefore sits in a rather important position. It is not simply another benefit. Its purpose is to remove a barrier to employment.
The pressure on the scheme
The problem is that demand has risen sharply.
The UK Government says the number of applications in 2024/25 was more than double the number in 2018/19. By March 2026 there was a backlog of about 57,000 cases waiting for a decision beyond the expected timescale.
The Government has responded by increasing staffing. The number of people working on Access to Work rose from around 500 in March 2024 to 657 in March 2026, and the Government has announced plans to recruit another 480 case staff.
The target is to clear the backlog by September 2027.
That is not, therefore, a straightforward story of the Government simply abandoning the scheme. It is trying to deal with a system where demand has grown faster than its ability to process applications.
But there is another part of the story.
Awards are coming under greater scrutiny
The Government is also looking at whether existing awards remain appropriate when they are reviewed.
This matters because some people who have been receiving support are reporting reductions when their awards are renewed.
The Government's position is that the underlying rules have not simply been changed to remove support. Instead, it wants awards to reflect a person's actual circumstances and the support they currently need.
That distinction is important.
But for somebody whose circumstances have not changed, a reduction in support can nevertheless have very real consequences.
A person may have obtained employment precisely because a particular package of assistance was available. If that support is subsequently reduced, the question becomes whether the individual can continue doing the job.
That is why Access to Work is rather different from many other areas of public spending.
A saving on support does not necessarily remain a saving if the consequence is that somebody loses their job and requires other forms of state support instead.
Why Scotland has a particular interest
Scotland has its own employment-support system, No One Left Behind, delivered through the Scottish Government and local authorities.
The programme is intended to provide flexible, locally delivered support for people who face barriers to employment, including disabled people and those with health conditions.
And the scale of the challenge is considerable.
Scottish Government figures show that the employment rate for disabled people aged 16 to 64 was estimated at 50.9% in 2025, compared with 83.4% for non-disabled people.
That leaves a disability employment gap of more than 32 percentage points.
Scotland has set itself the ambition of at least halving that gap by 2038.
No One Left Behind is already dealing with substantial numbers of people. Between April 2019 and March 2026, more than 111,000 people started receiving support.
Around one-third entered employment, although disabled participants had considerably lower employment-entry rates than non-disabled participants.
Additional funding has also been used to expand Specialist Employability Support for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions across Scotland. At least 1,254 participants received this support between April 2025 and March 2026.
So Scotland is trying to build a system which helps people overcome barriers to employment.
But once somebody reaches the workplace, an important part of the financial support available to them is controlled elsewhere.
Two governments, one worker
This creates an unusual situation.
The Scottish Government can help somebody prepare for employment, gain skills, overcome barriers and find a job.
But if that person requires specialist equipment, additional travel assistance, a support worker or other help because of their disability, Access to Work is a UK Government responsibility.
That means a person's journey into work can cross a constitutional boundary without the individual necessarily noticing it.
Scotland can say: we want to help you get into work.
Westminster controls an important part of the answer to the next question:
What support will you receive once you get there?
That makes the current Access to Work review particularly relevant to Scotland.
The maximum grant has also stopped increasing
There is another point which deserves attention.
The maximum annual Access to Work grant is currently £69,260.
That figure rose to £69,260 in April 2024 and remains at that level for 2026/27.
A maximum grant of £69,260 may sound substantial. But holding a maximum unchanged while wages, professional support costs and other prices rise means that its purchasing power gradually falls.
For most users this maximum will be irrelevant because their awards are much smaller. But for people requiring extensive support, the ceiling matters.
The bigger question
There is a legitimate argument for making sure that a rapidly expanding scheme remains affordable and that awards are properly assessed.
There is also a legitimate concern about what happens if the process becomes so restrictive or slow that people who could work with support are discouraged from taking jobs or find themselves unable to remain in employment.
The Government itself has acknowledged the importance of the issue.
Its May 2026 statement said delays in Access to Work can affect the recruitment and retention of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. It also said wider changes to the scheme are being considered following consultation with disabled people, employers and representative organisations.
That wider review has not yet produced a final package of reforms.
So it would be premature to say that Westminster is cutting Access to Work in Scotland.
The more accurate description is that a heavily used scheme is under pressure, awards are being scrutinised more closely, a substantial backlog is being tackled and wider reforms are being considered.
Scotland should be watching closely
For Scotland, the issue is bigger than one UK Government programme.
The Scottish Government wants to substantially reduce the disability employment gap. Its own figures show just how difficult that will be.
Disabled people participating in No One Left Behind are already less likely to enter employment and less likely to remain in employment for 52 weeks than non-disabled participants.
If specialist support is essential to helping some of those people remain in work, then what happens to Access to Work becomes part of Scotland's employment strategy whether the Scottish Government controls it or not.
There is also a wider lesson.
Getting someone into employment is only half the job.
Keeping them there may require continuing support.
If governments want more disabled people to work, the test should therefore not simply be how many people are helped through the door of the workplace.
It should also be whether they can stay there.
And that is why the forthcoming changes to Access to Work deserve attention in Scotland.
A programme designed to remove barriers to employment should not accidentally create another barrier at the point where someone has finally managed to get a job.