The UK’s Access to Work helpline currently tells callers a decision may take 37 weeks. The National Audit Office found applications more than doubled between 2018-19 and 2024-25, and that average decision times rose from 28 days in 2020-21 to 66 days in 2024-25. Canada has no equivalent national scheme.
Call the United Kingdom’s Access to Work helpline right now and, before a person picks up, a recorded message tells you roughly how long a decision will take. In March, a senior civil servant told a committee of MPs what that message currently says: 37 weeks.
Access to Work is the British scheme that pays for the practical support a person needs to do a job when a workplace adjustment goes beyond what an employer is expected to provide: a British Sign Language interpreter, specialist software, a support worker, help with the cost of getting to work. For many people it is the difference between holding a job and losing one. When the money that makes work possible takes most of a year to arrive, the job often cannot wait that long.
What the watchdog found
In February, the National Audit Office, the United Kingdom’s independent public spending watchdog, published an investigation into how the scheme is run. Its findings describe a program that grew faster than the system behind it.
Applications more than doubled between 2018-19 and 2024-25, from 76,100 to 157,000, a rise the NAO links to greater identification of mental health conditions and neurodiversity. The number of people receiving payments rose 97 per cent over the same period, from 37,700 to 74,200, and by 2024-25 just over half had mental health or learning conditions.
The processing time grew with it. The average time to decide an application went from 28 days in 2020-21 to 66 days in 2024-25, and reached 109 days in November 2025, against a stated target of 25 days. The queue grew too: applications waiting for a decision almost trebled, from 21,700 in March 2022 to 62,100 in March 2025, and outstanding requests for payment more than quadrupled, from 6,900 to 31,700 over the same three years. Complaints climbed from 234 in 2022-23 to 657 in 2024-25, with 800 in the first six months of 2025-26, most of them about delay.
Spending rose as demand did, from £163 million in 2018-19 to £321 million in 2024-25, and is forecast to reach £517 million by 2029-30. The NAO’s central recommendation is not about money but about evidence: close the data gaps and build evaluation into any future change, so the scheme’s effect and value can actually be measured.
Thirty-seven weeks, in the committee’s words
The 37-week figure came out when the Commons public accounts committee questioned senior officials in March. Helga Swidenbank, the department’s director of accessibility, disability and disputes, said the helpline recording tells callers how long a decision is likely to take, and “currently, we are saying 37 weeks.” When members of the committee reacted, she said this was “the longest it may take for some customers.”
One MP on the committee, Amanda Hack, put the number in human terms: “It is very hard not to be distracted by the 37 weeks figure. I had my first baby quicker than 37 weeks.” The committee’s chair said the backlog was costing people jobs they had been offered, and costing some small employers and charities money they had expected. The department said it planned to improve consistency in decisions and then take on several hundred more caseworkers, and expected the backlog to start falling over the following 18 months.
Why a processing delay is a job-security problem
The reason a wait like this does more than frustrate is worth stating plainly, and the NAO stated it. Access to Work is designed to sit on top of what an employer already has to do. In the watchdog’s own words, the scheme provides support “over and above an employer’s legal duty to make reasonable adjustments.” Employers in the United Kingdom are required to make reasonable adjustments so that a worker with a disability or health condition is not put at a substantial disadvantage.
So a backlog does not pause a legal duty. It leaves the individual, and often a small employer, carrying the cost and the uncertainty while a decision that releases funding sits in a queue. A job offer can lapse. A support arrangement can stall. The people least able to absorb months of limbo are the ones inside it.
How Canada handles the same need
Canada has no single national scheme that mirrors Access to Work, no one portable, individual, in-work grant with a national clock ticking on it. Support is delivered in more than one place, and the legal footing sits underneath all of it.
The floor is the duty to accommodate. The Canadian Human Rights Commission describes it as the obligation on employers and service providers “to adjust rules, policies or practices to enable everyone to participate fully,” an obligation that runs up to the point of undue hardship, which an employer has to prove with evidence rather than assert. For federally regulated workplaces that duty sits in the Canadian Human Rights Act; every province and territory has its own human rights law carrying an equivalent duty. Accommodation, in other words, is a legal right here, not a courtesy an employer extends.
On the funding side, the main federal program is the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities, run by Employment and Social Development Canada since 1997. It works differently from Access to Work: rather than paying an individual’s in-work support directly, it funds projects delivered by community organizations, skills training, job placements, self-employment support, and help for employers to make workplaces inclusive. Alongside it sit provincial and territorial employment and vocational-rehabilitation programs, which vary from one province to the next. The result is a patchwork rather than a single door, with no equivalent 37-week national queue, but also no single portable entitlement a worker can point to and claim.
What it means if you are asking for accommodation in Canada
The practical takeaway is not about the British backlog, it is about the right that sits under all of this. If you need an adjustment to do your job in Canada, that is a request an employer has a legal duty to work through with you, up to the point of undue hardship, and the burden of proving that point is theirs. A funding shortfall or a program waitlist does not erase the duty. If an employer refuses to engage, the route is a human rights complaint, federally through the Canadian Human Rights Commission or provincially through your province’s human rights body.
This is general information about public programs and rights, not legal advice. For your own situation, a human rights commission, a community legal clinic, or an employment lawyer can tell you what applies to you.
Sources
- National Audit Office, “Processing delays and backlogs in Access to Work affect job security and employer finances” (press release), 6 February 2026: https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/processing-delays-and-backlogs-in-access-to-work-affect-job-security-and-employer-finances/
- Disability News Service, “New Access to Work applicants being told they could have to wait 37 weeks for decision, MPs hear,” 19 March 2026: https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/new-access-to-work-applicants-being-told-they-could-have-to-wait-37-weeks-for-decision-mps-hear/
- Canadian Human Rights Commission, “Duty to accommodate”: https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/individuals/human-rights/duty-accommodate
- Employment and Social Development Canada, “Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities”: https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/opportunity-fund-disability.html
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What is Access to Work?
It is the British scheme that pays for the practical support a person needs to do a job when a workplace adjustment goes beyond what an employer is expected to provide: a British Sign Language interpreter, specialist software, a support worker, or help with the cost of getting to work.
How long is the Access to Work wait?
In March, Helga Swidenbank, the department’s director of accessibility, disability and disputes, told the Commons public accounts committee that the helpline recording currently says 37 weeks, which she described as the longest it may take for some customers. The average time to decide an application reached 109 days in November 2025, against a stated target of 25 days.
What did the National Audit Office find?
Applications more than doubled between 2018-19 and 2024-25, from 76,100 to 157,000. Applications waiting for a decision almost trebled, from 21,700 in March 2022 to 62,100 in March 2025. Complaints climbed from 234 in 2022-23 to 657 in 2024-25. Its central recommendation was to close the data gaps and build evaluation into any future change.
Does Canada have an equivalent to Access to Work?
No single national scheme mirrors it, and there is no one portable, individual, in-work grant with a national clock ticking on it. The main federal program is the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities, which funds projects delivered by community organizations rather than paying an individual’s in-work support directly. Provincial and territorial employment and vocational-rehabilitation programs sit alongside it.
What are my accommodation rights in Canada?
The Canadian Human Rights Commission describes the duty to accommodate as the obligation on employers and service providers to adjust rules, policies or practices to enable everyone to participate fully, running up to the point of undue hardship, which an employer has to prove with evidence. If an employer refuses to engage, the route is a human rights complaint. This is general information, not legal advice.
