Connect to Work, Access to Work: will the changes close London's disability gap?

There are currently 1.16 million disabled Londoners, of whom around 650,000 – 55.8% – are in employment, according to the latest figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

This is significantly below the non-disabled employment rate in London of 79.3% – a figure which has increased by 1.1 points since 2023/24.

Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that the government cannot tackle employment equality and boost the fortunes of disabled Londoners without more devolution of powers.

He described the government's strategy for increasing employment for all groups: “Andy Burnham has brought a very clear perspective about the benefits of devolution to his role as prime minister, and I think those benefits are particularly clear in the case of employment support.

“What you need for effective employment support is each area, skills support, colleges, employment support, job centres working together; and you need the NHS as well.

"Those bodies are the key partners to make these programmes work successfully. And you can only do that with a devolved approach."

Up to 125,000 young Londoners aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training (NEETs) and early reports of the related Milburn review have suggested the employment support would be particularly focussed on them, alongside the removal of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and health related benefits for most disabled young people.

Only the most severely disabled young people will be able to continue to claim benefits.

However, further reports say that the government will apply the intensive employment support approach to a wide range of age groups.

“We’re doing a lot of work at the moment talking to the mayors – Sadiq and others – and let’s see where we where we get to," said Timms.

“But the mayors are all calling for greater devolution."

Call for devolved power to oversee job support programme

Sadiq Khan has been calling for control over programmes to get the unemployed into work for over a decade, saying in 2016 that more autonomy on the issue would “better help Londoners” to get jobs.

Last year he repeated these calls, telling the London Assembly that he wanted a “greater role in overseeing skills and employment provisions”.

In July, he told assembly members that City Hall could make “big difference” in reducing the number of young adults NEETs - young people aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training.

In recent years, Khan has demanded “deeper devolution of skills and employment” through a multi-year funding settlement for London, a boost to the Adult Skills Fund and more powers over employment support.

City Hall recently launched London’s first Deaf and Disabled Londoners Action Plan, which highlights the mayor’s Inclusive Talent Strategy (ITS) and Get London Working plan which aim to close the employment gap between disabled adults and those without a disability.

Connect to Work programme for people with disabilities

In 2024 the government launched Connect to Work, a voluntary programme to help people with disabilities or health conditions find sustainable work. In London, four different partners are rolling this out across the 32 boroughs, with Timms suggesting early data from the capital is “encouraging”.

“The actual commissioning is being done entirely locally,” he added. “Local authorities can choose who the best people, organisations, charities maybe, colleges, who are the best locally to deliver the programme.

"And in that way, we are confident that we will be able to provide a programme which is well-tailored to the particular local circumstances in each area.”

Lewisham council's programme offers support to all residents who face barriers to employment, including people with health conditions, learning disabilities, and refugees.

It announced in October 2026 that 411 residents had joined its programme over the last year, of which 100 had been helped into work.

Backlog in Access to Work grants

Timms said that that there has been a “surge” in demand for Access to Work grants, which pays for elements that are essential for some disabled people to go to work and perform their role. It may for example pay for a personal assistant.

Timms added: “That’s led to quite a big backlog and long delays for people."

Disabled service users told Salamander about the barriers they faced in claiming the Access to Work funding and called for disabled people themselves to be leading on policy design.

They told us how increasing levels of bureaucracy and delays in processing their claims had caused them immense stress.

Salamander has not seen evidence of delays being caused by a surge in demand.

Timms said: "We’re now going through an exercise of recruiting an extra 500 people, who’ll all be in post by the end of this year. They’ll need to be trained up, and we’re confident then that by September next year, we will have eliminated the backlog and we’ll be fully up to speed with everything.

“At the moment, 2.8 million people are out of work on health and disability grounds of one kind or another; hundreds of thousands of them, we know, would love to be in a job. We want to make sure that the system can provide the support that they need to get into work. And that’s good news for the economy, and very good news for the people affected as well.”

Timms was speaking at a visit to Auticon in London Bridge, a firm that hires autistic adults as consultants.

Reporting by BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporter Kumail Jaffer with additional reporting by Dorothy Stein.

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