Access to Work

E is a theatre company, employing full-time and part-time staff as well as using people on a freelance, sessional basis during productions. E considers it their role to take on the burden of the application process and all its paperwork off the disabled person and deal with it from within the resources of the company. This can be difficult and disproportionately demanding if the disabled person’s contract is a short-term one. And, says E, some artists would rather manage without support than go through the application process for a short-term contract.

Access to Work, says E, have not demonstrated any understanding of the processes involved in making theatre and even, at one point, tried to categorise the rehearsal process as ‘training’ and therefore outside the Access to Work remit.

However, E does not regularly employ disabled people and does not, therefore, have ongoing contact with Access to Work. This means that each application is like the very first and every contact involves starting the relationship afresh which can be very frustrating.

A specific issue arose with some office furniture that E paid for. It had been specifically designed and made for an individual but Access to Work refused to reimburse the company saying that they could sell it on to the individual’s new employer when she moved on. She left her post but not to move to another permanent post so the furniture - which was very expensive - is still with E, not useable by anyone else.

Other difficulties include the time taken for Access to Work to reimburse payments already made. A company, such as E, with a healthy cash-flow, can accommodate this but this would be a real problem for smaller companies.

Moral of the story
Ensure that you negotiate with Access to Work how costs will be paid and point out in advance, any difficulties with arrangements they offer.

Try and form a relationship with one person from Access to Work whom you can educate about the work you do and the needs your employees have when they work for you. This may also help reassure people who work for you on a short-term basis that it is worth pursuing an application.

NEWSFLASH
Acces to Work has recently moved from a regionally based and administered system of decision-making to a standardised, national system. This should lead to a situation of flexibility with standardisation. As well as this, a clearer system of dealing with customer complaints would have helped E to clarify their responsibilities and given them the chance to complain if they were not happy with the decisions that were made.

In addition, Access to Work are developing a way of looking at the long-term collection of customer feedback which should also be a way of constantly improving the service.