For the past three years, as part of my Access to Work grant, I’ve had a Support Worker assisting me in doing my job. This guy was fresh out of university when he joined me — very green, but eager to learn. Before long, I had him creating steering committee slides, taking minutes, and moving user stories around a backlog, all under my wonky, watchful eyes.

When he wasn’t faffing about with PowerPoint, he would be wrestling with my ever-busy calendar to set up meetings and translating status update documents into a format legible for my screen reader, all while contending with my constant Teams messages asking to borrow his eyes while I ordered a new car or tried to insert a line into a project brief without Word crashing every few minutes.

Whenever I had to go into the office, his sighted-guide training would kick in and he would be there with a waiting elbow to lead me from my desk to another meeting room across campus, all whilst juggling his laptop, notebook and coffee — safely stowed in a non-drip insulated cup.

Once we were safely installed in the room, he would connect up his laptop to present the slides we’d been working on and use the inaccessible touch screen to connect to a conference call.

In face-to-face meetings, he would ping me discreet little Teams messages explaining what was being shared — quietly read out through my bone-conduction headphones — allowing me to fully participate in the meeting without breaking the flow of the conversation.

I really don’t think the job title “Support Worker” suitably describes the role he performed. He was much more of a Personal Assistant, or what some circles call an “Access Assistant”. I refer to him in the past tense because he recently moved on to pastures new, leaving me with the tumultuous task of finding a replacement to fill the extremely large void.

You would think that wouldn’t be too difficult — especially when you factor in the opportunity to work for a prestigious German car manufacturer — but sadly, finding a good Access Assistant is about as hard as putting a top hat on a giraffe: very hard indeed.

You see, as the job title suggests, a Support Worker — the preferred term used by Access to Work — is one of those roles where the pay simply doesn’t reflect the importance or variety of the work involved.

Much like every other government-funded scheme, you have to fight and justify every penny, providing reams of evidence explaining why this screen reader is more suitable than that one, why a taxi from the station is a better option than the lesser-spotted bus, why a full-time assistant is necessary rather than someone for one day a week, and why an actual human being is essential rather than an AI companion.

Access to Work is one of those schemes that doesn’t get the visibility it deserves because it demonstrates how, with a little targeted support, disabled people who are able to work can do exactly that.

Contrary to popular belief — especially if you listen to certain high-profile individuals — disabled people are not content sitting back and waiting for the next handout. If we are able (and it’s important to stress that not all of us are), we are more than willing to put our skills, knowledge and experience to good use and earn the same money and recognition as our non-disabled peers. The problem is that many of us need critical adjustments to make that possible.

Many of these adjustments can be expensive, meaning some employers still favour an alternative non-disabled candidate, despite the Equality Act making this unlawful discrimination.

Even so, according to recent Department for Work and Pensions statistics, around 53% of working-age disabled people are in paid employment, compared with more than 82% of non-disabled people. For people who are registered blind or partially sighted, research published by The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) shows the employment rate drops to just 27%, meaning almost three quarters of us are out of work.

To add insult to injury, figures from both the Office for National Statistics and the Trades Union Congress suggest disabled people are typically paid between 13% and 17% less than non-disabled workers.

So, when commentators and senior politicians constantly tell us disabled people need to be encouraged into work, schemes like Access to Work are not simply helpful — they are often the difference between us fulfilling our so-called obligations to society and being scapegoated as once-more unwilling to put some effort in.

But it isn’t quite as simple as that.

According to National Audit Office figures, the average waiting time for a new Access to Work assessment has risen from around 28 working days in 2021/22 to 109 working days by late 2025. Some applicants are now reportedly being warned they may wait up to 37 weeks for a decision.

I don’t know many employers who would keep a position open for that long while waiting for an Access to Work claim to be processed and support put in place.

An employer could, if they wished, take the risk and purchase the equipment themselves, but with some screen-reader packages costing upwards of £2,500, that is a gamble many organisations are unwilling to take.

So the first problem is the time it takes to receive an award, but that’s not the end of it.

The official DWP factsheet confirms the maximum Access to Work award has effectively been frozen at £69,260 since 2024. For many people this isn’t an issue, as DWP’s own analysis shows the average award value sits somewhere between £4,000 and £7,000 per claimant, rising to approximately £9,300 for claimants whose primary condition is recorded as “difficulty in seeing”.

But averages need to be treated with caution because awards vary hugely depending on individual needs. When you require help with transport costs, specialist software and a near full-time assistant, that maximum award suddenly becomes far more significant — especially as costs continue to rise.

Going back to my own situation, it has now been four weeks since my Access Assistant moved on and I find myself in the unenviable position of having to bumble along.

As much as the people around me are more than happy to help, they have their own priorities and jobs to do, so I can’t reasonably keep asking them. Plus, they don’t necessarily understand what I need, which means I then have to explain everything before we even begin.

All of that takes valuable time and energy, so sometimes it’s just easier to muddle through and accept that things will take longer than normal — at least for now.