Very welcome that more disabled people are taking up the Access to Work scheme - IPSE
It is very welcome that new statistics show more people are using the Access to Work scheme, writes IPSE.
Jonathan Lima-Matthews, IPSE’s Public Affairs Manager and author of the report Making Self-Employment Work for Disabled People, said: “It’s very welcome to see more disabled people taking up the government’s Access to Work scheme. Disabled people we have spoken to in the course of our research have praised it highly.
“The one problem is that this excellent scheme still isn’t being publicised widely enough – particularly to the self-employed. 36,240 is a very small proportion of the UK’s seven million disabled people. It is also concerning that more has not been done to promote Access to Work among a key group: the disabled self-employed.
“As Mr Tomlinson rightly says, for many disabled people, finding and staying in employment can be unfairly challenging. That’s why so many disabled people are striking out on their own and becoming self-employed. In fact, at 611,000 people, they are one in seven of the entire self-employed population.
“To properly support this large and growing group, we believe the government should not only be tracking how many disabled self-employed people are using Access to Work, but also doing more to promote it among them. As we pointed out in our report on the disabled self-employed, for many, Access to Work is still the best kept secret for supporting disabled people.”
