Current Campaign:
protect access to work
We've asked the culture sector to stand in solidarity with disabled colleagues as part of a #ProtectAtW campaign.
You may have seen statements from organisations like Touretteshero and Graeae detailing the awful impact that policy changes in Access to Work are causing for disabled artists and workers.
Access to work is a programme run by The Department for Work and Pensions that subsidises the cost of access measures when employing a disabled person, or when someone is working as self-employed. It is not a perfect system, but it is a foundational part of how a lot of disabled people work.
This programme is now under threat, which has ramifications for disabled workers but is also has implications for the organisations that employ them. The responsibility to pay for these access measure will fall on cultural organisations at a time when we all face increasingly challenging situations, or we may see a dramatic decrease in employment rates for disabled people in the sector.
We don’t believe any part of the sector wants this to happen.
Therefore we have opened this hub, to try and co-ordinate the efforts of the cultural sector to influence policy.
The key way we currently need to influence this process is to submit a response to the green paper on the proposed changes. Though there are questions about how effective this is, it’s important for later advocacy that our thoughts are recognised now, so we don’t get the response “you should have said something in consultation”. We are collating this live document which will be updated until the deadline, where you might want to pull key arguments, statistics and case studies.
Consultation closes on June 30th.
read OUR CURRENT BRIEFING ⟶
Confused about what is happening? Looking for some key points you can use in your advocacy? This is our current briefing document that will help you with that.
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After this green paper has gone through consultation, it will still need to become a white paper and go through parliament. Sign up to receive occasional update briefing when there are key actions we can take in our advocacy.
We released an open letter, signed by workers, artists and leaders across the culture sector about the impact proposed changes would have. This letter was covered by industry media outlets and the guardian. We are still waiting for any response.
Read the press release we sent about the open letter.
We receive no public or grant funding to do this work and by “we” we mean the one self-employed person who runs BAP!
If you do want to make a donation to help with capacity for this work, do so here.