Access to Work Programme
(asked on 27th March 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total value is of grants provided by her Department under the Access to Work scheme in each financial year since 2020-21; and how much her Department plans to provide in the (a) 2025-26 and (b) 2026-27 financial years.
The most recently available data on Access to Work (AtW) outturn expenditure is available in the Access to Work official statistics. Expenditure on Access to Work elements, for financial years 2020/21 to 2023/24 was:
Financial year | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 |
Nominal Terms | £106,624,000 | £147,717,000 | £179,679,000 | £255,171,000 |
Real Terms (2023/24 prices) | £120,536,000 | £167,867,000 | £190,777,000 | £255,171,000 |
This includes expenditure on all AtW elements, including the Mental Health Support Service (MHSS), but excludes expenditure on the Transitional Employer Support Grant (TESG). Further information on AtW expenditure, including breakdowns of expenditure by AtW element type, is published in the Access to Work official statistics and currently covers financial years 2007/08 through to 2023/24.
The most recently available data on AtW grant expenditure forecast under the current policy is published here for 2025/26 and 2026/27: Access to Work grant expenditure forecasts - GOV.UK. These figures do not align with figures from the AtW official statistics as they exclude grant expenditure on MHSS and include expenditure on TESG.
The department has budgeted £385m for grants in 2025/26 based on the current expenditure forecast. The budget for 2026/27 has not been set.
The budget is subject to significant change due to the uncertainty in the forecast and based on affordability and departmental funding pressures