Whilst the Access to Work scheme is a vital instrument for enabling disabled people and individuals with health conditions to remain in employment; rising demand has exposed structural strain within the scheme, raising questions not only of operational capacity but of design alignment.
The evidence submission by Dr Meltem Yavuz Sercekman, Dr Ozlem Ayaz and Prof Mustafa F. Ozbilgin argues that operational strain in this scheme reflects not only increased demand but also structural misalignment between scheme design and contemporary patterns of work limiting health. They highlight that Access to Work remains largely aligned with a static model of disability, while a growing share of claimants experience fluctuating, episodic and invisible conditions. Where assessment frameworks assume stability, fluctuating conditions may trigger repeated review cycles without substantive change in underlying diagnosis, increasing administrative workload. They propose that reform should integrate a dynamic capacity approach, reduce unnecessary reassessment, allow provisional support where diagnosis is delayed, and strengthen accountability between DWP, employers and line managers.
See their full evidence submission here (published by the committee in March 2026).