Access to Work - alarming slump in number of ‘customers’
Access to Work - alarming slump in number of ‘customers’
Government figures have revealed new evidence of an alarming slump in the number of disabled people granted funds to make their workplaces more accessible.
01/11/2011
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures show that just 2,320 ‘new customers’ were helped by the Access to Work (AtW) scheme in the first quarter of 2011-12, an average of 773 disabled people receiving new support every month.
In the first half of last year, the government was helping about 1,283 new customers a month. This fell to 980 a month in the third quarter of 2010-11, and then again to an average of just 867 a month from January to March 2011.
The new figures also show that the number of existing AtW ‘customers’ – those continuing to receive support – has dropped by almost 4,000, to just 18,570. The DWP’s Access to Work official statistics are available at: http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/workingage/atw/atw1011.pdf
Sources for this article include Disability News Service www.disabilitynewsservice.com
