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Access To Work Award for travel

HRD58

Greetings one and all.
I am new her and this is my first post so forgive me if I have missed any etiquette expectations

I have been given an ATW Award for taxis to get me to work (and back). Given I work in a different county the award is high but it also means that I may have to have a personal outlay of £1600 per month, be required to complete 3 forms each month "in ink", get my manager to sign "in ink" and then send them by post to an address for "stamping" then they get passed to a Payments Manager and then allocated for payment which can take between 5 - 15 days.
There are no online claims facilities or DocuSign. I explained to the Advisor that if there is any delay in the claim then the risk of further debt gets even higher. I was advised to get the payments made to the taxi company that provides the fares.
If I have got something wrong please tell me!
Has anyone got any advice, hints, tips as I am staggered that this is how the DWP are operating in this day and age of working and living.
Many thanks!

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Comments

Alex_Alumni

Hi there @HRD58 and thank you for reaching out

This isn't an area I'm overly familiar with, but it does odd that this is reliant on pen and paper only, rather than a choice of options.

Have you called the Access to Work Helpline to raise the query with them at all?

Access to Work helpline

Telephone: 0800 121 7479
Textphone: 0800 121 7579
Relay UK (if you cannot hear or speak on the phone): 18001 then 0800 121 7479
British Sign Language (BSL) video relay service if you’re on a computer - find out how to use the service on mobile or tablet
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
Find out about call charges

HRD58

Thank you for your response, I am really grateful! It has been one of those days

. It was the ATW Advisor that told me I needed to undertake the process I described. It is as though it is being made as difficult as possible to make the claim, just like the difficulty in using public transport which is what made me apply in the first place. I was just reaching out for any other experience. If I get any better process in the meantime, I am happy to post it to avoid anyone else struggling to make this work

Alex_Alumni

Please do @HRD58 that would be very helpful

I can understand, I've heard from others who use AccessTo Work (ATW) that the process of both applying and making claims can be real battle, which is maybe one of the reasons ATW isn't especially well known and is perhaps under used.

This seems like an example of another organisational/communication/information barrier that disabled people have to navigate to get the support they need, as you say, almost as bad as public transport itself!

I hope you can find a more suitable solution, and keep us updated when you can.

HRD58

I will as I strongly believe where we learn about something that is particularly difficult until the "ah, moment" then share with as many people as possible to avoid their barriers for information and maybe, more in this case, everyone can claim for what they may be entitled to.
I will keep you posted and if in the meantime anyone has anything useful to share please do.