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We Are Working – Allow Us To Continue

Statement from Graeae Theatre Company on the impact of recent proposed policy changes and benefits reform within the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper.

The UK is respected across the globe for the quality of work by disabled theatre-makers. Graeae is the national theatre for disabled people. For 45 years, the company has been at the forefront of the disability arts landscape; known internationally for nurturing the professional careers of thousands of disabled actors, directors, writers and other creatives.

We know how to “get disabled people into work”.

We employ over 200 Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people every year. We offer a fair wage with good conditions. It is our mission to break down the barriers to employment.

Since 2008, it has been harder: Austerity in the UK hit disabled people hard and we have lost friends and colleagues along the way. When we were telling the world “we are such stuff as dreams are made on” in the 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony, we were being called “scrimpers and scroungers” back home. We have fought tooth and nail for equality of access for our community of artists, not least during the pandemic when people felt forgotten, sidelined and struggled to return to increasingly inaccessible workplaces.

However, the situation we are facing now feels seismic. We have become aware of many changes, big and small, that work against the government’s stated aims of getting disabled people into work that we cannot see how they will succeed.

• DWP cutting carers allowance for 150,000 claimants. Many of our employees and freelancers survive by living at home or living with a carer.
• Reductions in PIP [1]
• Delays to and overhaul of the Access to Work system
• Legal changes to immigration rules and proposed removal of visas for care workers

[1] The Guardian, 21/05/2025
The government’s own impact assessment showed that the cuts to the personal independence payment (Pip) and the health element of universal credit would result in 3.2m households losing an average of £1,720 a year in benefits.

Together, with debate around assisted dying still raging, these changes create a hostile environment for disabled people, particularly those that have a dynamic impairment (one in which symptoms may change day to day).

These are all having a direct and immediate impact on the employability of disabled people and their long-term mental health and wellbeing.

It gets worse though. Applicants are given misinformation, are being denied benefits they have a right to and are ultimately withdrawing from engagement with work due to fear of losing what few rights they have.

The devil is in the detail. Within our team:

• People having Universal Credit cut and being told they must work more, even when their permitted work falls within the pre-agreed levels and have had a Workplace Capability Assessment
• There are delays to processing Access to Work claims of up to 10 months – meaning employees (or employers) have to put up the cost of paying for 10 months access themselves with no guarantee of recompense
• Misinformation and confusion from Access to Work is a daily occurrence – different eligibility rules apply in different regions and sometimes from assessor to assessor
• Access to Work are informing applicants that they now only pay access workers minimum wage – and requiring the individual or employer to pay the rest
• Access to Work are telling employers they will no longer pay for equipment costs

These are on top of the cumulative impact of all the other changes and delays of the last 15 years (closure of ILF, caps on ATW pots, botched UC rollout, cuts across the board and introduction of regular reassessments for people with long standing conditions).

Our community cannot and should not take this further assault on civil liberties.

Access to Work don’t cover all access costs. Over the last year, Graeae has contributed £78,800 towards interpreters, access workers, equipment and accessible travel for our 200 staff, freelancers and volunteers not covered under the scheme. This is in addition to employing an Access Manager and investing in an accessible building, bespoke to the needs of our community.

This is a substantial cost, but we make it work, because our employees and freelancers have a right to work. We receive funding from trusts and foundations that reflects the fact that our shows cost more to produce and take longer to prepare.

We say this now, because we do not want our community to feel this extra work is a burden, it is our reason for being.

However, the broken system is already impacting on how we run our business:

• We are still waiting on whether Access to Work will cover some costs from 15 months ago. 10 months is the usual delay. We have covered these costs from reserves in the meantime.
• We are being told the rules have changed after the claim has been approved and the money has been spent, leaving us with a financial burden.
• Freelancers are turning down work (or asking to volunteer when paid work is available) because they are terrified of going over permitted income of £150 per week and have to prove their need for ongoing access support all over again.
• Employees are nervous about accepting pay rises, because the £35 extra we offer a month could jeopardise their right to Universal Credit at current rates.

If all these latest rounds of changes were approved, it would mean our community would be excluded from work permanently.

• The pool of available access workers would be heavily affected by the change in immigration rules
• Our access workers are unable to accept minimum wage – they are skilled, trained professionals that deserve a fair salary – meaning we would have to pick up the cost
• The extra costs would mean we can run fewer projects, employing fewer disabled people and reaching smaller audiences

We are used to fighting for the right of Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists to create, to lead and to have agency in any room they are in. Devastatingly, it feels like we are now fighting for their right to be in the room in the first place.

It is not just Graeae facing these challenges. We are seriously concerned that these changes will decimate the disability arts movement started in 1980 and is respected around the world.

“What’s past is prologue,” so let us set a better vision for the future. One that doesn’t sideline and silence the contribution of disabled people in society:

• Disabled-led policy decisions: Consultation with disabled people, both in and outside of the workplace will lead to fairer and more sustainable long-term workable systems
• Transformation vs Cuts: Stop announcing “transformation” of existing systems, such as Back to Work measures, at the same time as announcing cuts. Universal Credit does need transformation; it needs to offer greater flexibility to start and stop work, reflecting that some people have dynamic disabilities; it needs to reflect the lack of available opportunity, it needs to have respect and understanding for the extra daily living costs incurred by disabled people, it needs to eliminate the points-based eligibility test and develop an empathetic and dignified system of assessment; it needs to stop making assumptions about ‘who has the greatest need’ [2] and consult those who have direct lived experience of the system.
• Investment in Access to Work: more trained case workers with lived experience of disability, better training for staff, improved awareness of the system, accessible administration processes, more pay on offer to disabled employees.
• Value working people: celebrate rather than undermine the contribution that care workers provide – whether paid or unpaid, British or not from the UK, their work is vital and undervalued. Furthermore, the proposal to pay people minimum wage undermines carefully established agreements with Unions and industry bodies.
• Clarity of Information: make detail more widely available and accessible for claimants – less obfuscation, misinformation and stop incentivising denied applications.
• Change the narrative: People don’t only have value because they can work. For those that are able to work, create systems that allow them to do so. For those that aren’t, focus on improving quality of life including access to basic rights and public services.

With these changes in place, you will achieve your stated aims.

[2] Guardian, 21/05/2025
‘Unless we ensure public money is focused on those with the greatest need and is spent in ways that have the best chance of improving people’s lives, the welfare state simply won’t be there for people who really need it in the future,” she (Liz Kendall) will say.

CASE STUDIES

Case study 1

K is a Freelance Artist. They are a wheelchair user and have an Access to Work (ATW) award for travel to work and a Support Worker, as a note-taker and PA. K has been waiting since July 2024 for their ATW renewal to be processed and assigned to a case-worker as the systemic delays have become longer and longer. K was finally assigned a case-worker in March 2025 and after much back and forth and supplying numerous documentation and contracts/ breakdowns of the support needed to enable their freelance work over a year, they have been ‘awarded’ a SW at just 17 hours per week at minimum wage of £12.12 per hour, rather than the required £24.57 per hour. The expectation is that they self-fund or the employer funds the remainder to pay for their SW.

In terms of travel, they have been ‘awarded’ only 4 taxi journeys per month rather than the requested minimum of 14 journeys per month. They are unable to use public transport. This ‘award’ is so arbitrary and doesn’t come close to acknowledging the reality of what K requires to continue to fulfil their freelance work commitments. They will be unable to accept work with this level of funding and this is in direct contradiction of the government’s recent pledge to ‘support disabled people back into work’.

Case study 2

R is an actor who requires a Support Worker in the rehearsal room/ backstage to assist with various tasks related to their job.  They applied for an Access to Work grant for a Support Worker (SW) in September 2024.  The application was finally processed and assigned a caseworker in April 2025, long after their acting job had finished, in October 2024.  They were awarded a Job Aide for 8 hours per week, despite the request being for a SW for a minimum of 24 hours per week and maximum of 32.5 hours per week which had already been funded by the employer.  ATW tried to award an hourly rate of national minimum wage, which after pushback and detailed breakdown of what the SW role covered and why it was necessary to pay the rate of £22 per hour for this role, they eventually agreed to fund 8 hours per week at £22p/h but ONLY for the performance weeks of the project, not the rehearsal period.

We were devastated to learn about the impact these changes are having on Jess Thom, co-artistic director of Touretteshero. Follow this link to learn more about this impact in Jess’s own words. Touretteshero statement.