Access to Work Programme: Hearing Impairment
(asked on 11th March 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many users of Access to Work received funding for a British Sign Language interpreter in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and what was the average cost per person of those awards.
Statistics on the number of people in receipt of payment for Access to Work support and average annual payments per person, by support worker type which includes a category for ‘BSL Interpreter’ are published in tables PAY02 and AVG02 of the Access to Work official statistics: Access to Work statistics: April 2007 to March 2025 - GOV.UK. Table 1 summarises these figures:
Table 1. Number of customers in receipt of payment and average annual payment received per customer for ‘BSL Interpreter between financial years 2020/21 and 2024/25
Financial Year | Number of customers in receipt of payment for a ‘BSL Interpreter’ | Average annual payment per customer for ‘BSL Interpreter’ (£ nominal) | Average annual payment per customer for ‘BSL Interpreter’ (£ 2024/25 prices) |
2020/21 | 2,810 | 12,700 | 14,900 |
2021/22 | 2,890 | 15,200 | 17,900 |
2022/23 | 2,940 | 16,600 | 18,300 |
2023/24 | 3,170 | 17,200 | 17,900 |
2024/25 | 3,210 | 18,200 | 18,200 |
Notes
- Numbers of people have been rounded to nearest 10 and average annual payments to nearest £100.
- Real terms expenditure removes the effect of inflation to make year-on-year comparisons more informative, these figures are quoted in 2024/25 prices