All Work, No Pay? Interpreters and deaf professionals face chaos due to delayed Access to Work payments

Lengthy delays to Access to Work payments – sometimes of many months – are causing severe anxiety for communication professionals, interpreting companies and Deaf employees.

Interpreters are facing financial difficulties, with increasing numbers refusing AtW jobs altogether.

Companies are owed thousands of pounds and struggling to balance payments.

Meanwhile, Deaf people at work are spending significant amounts of their working day trying to chase AtW payments on their behalf, fearful that they may lose their preferred providers due to the ongoing situation.

In his latest investigation for The Limping Chicken, Liam O’Dell reveals the extent of Access to Work’s towering payment backlog, and its impact.

It’s one of the most striking messages I’ve received on Twitter, and it lands in my direct messages at 1:55pm on a Tuesday. “We are owed almost £90k from [Access to Work],” it reads, “and half of that is made up of late payments – some go back 4-5 months.”

The sender is Lipspeaker UK, and as an organisation which looks to pay all of their interpreters and lipspeakers within seven days, delayed payments from Access to Work (AtW) – the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) scheme to support disabled people in employment – are creating a financial burden.

“It’s a sorry state of affairs,” Lesley Weatherson, Lipspeaker UK’s director, tells me. “Thankfully we have a good turnover from private clients and legal bookings such as police and solicitors and courts. Also, many [Disabled Students Allowance] clients, who thankfully are relatively quick to pay.

“We have had to delay our VAT return once in the past year though, to use the funds to make ends meet.”

Our conversation and several others follow a Twitter thread by Emma Dawber, known online as BSLTerpLife.

“Hundreds of interpreters are borrowing money from family, taking out loans or rinsing savings to pay rent/mortgages because the DWP cannot do a simple job of paying invoices for Access to Work,” she writes. “Not to mention the fact that many interpreters are being paid other people’s money with no way to pay it back despite chasing for months on end. It’s just an outrage and something needs to change.”

Hundreds of #interpreters are borrowing money from family, taking out loans or rinsing savings to pay rent/mortgages because the @DWP cannot do a simple job of paying invoices for #AccesstoWork
Who do we need to speak to? @guardian? @BBCNews ? @BBCWatchdog?
Will ANYONE listen?

— Terplife (@BSLterplife) September 8, 2021

For Sarah Glendenning, a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter from Lancashire, a delayed Access to Work payment led to arrears in her mortgage for two months, and meant she had to borrow money from her parents.

“I’m lucky I could borrow some money from [them] to tide me over but then I was left owing my elderly parents,” she reveals to me. “It shouldn’t be that hard to get the money back which is rightfully mine.”

She continues: “It had a huge impact on my mental health. I now no longer take AtW bookings. There are only one or two people I will do it for.”

Sarah’s money, which she says was between £600 to £1,000, had been paid into a bank account that had been closed down five years before. The issue was resolved following what she says was four months of “being passed to and from different departments”.

She claims that nobody explained to her why the amount was paid into the closed account in the first place.

“Why would AtW pay an amount into an account that hadn’t existed for five years,” asks Sarah. “My bank account was on my invoice, and they had always paid into the right account previously for this client. I wanted to scream.”

“Why would AtW pay an amount into an account that hadn’t existed for five years,” asks Sarah. “My bank account was on my invoice, and they had always paid into the right account previously for this client. I wanted to scream.”

Borrowing money also became a necessity for Scottish interpreter Nicolle Murdoch, in order to pay for her mortgage. “I actually had nothing,” she explains. “It’s the worst things have ever been for me financially.”

Nicolle is owed three Access to Work payments from May, and prior to her receiving a payment earlier this month, the figure stood at £4,600. It’s an experience which she describes as “terrible”, and has led to her reducing the amount of work she does for Access to Work claimants.

“The biggest joke of it all is that I had a tax bill to pay, but I couldn’t do that until the DWP paid me,” she continues. “They are quick to add late payment charges to tax bills but won’t pay late payments for AtW.”

The loss of invoices and timesheets certainly don’t help with the delays either, and Lesley tells me that despite them being stamped to the claim form, “around 20-30%” are lost by the Department for Work and Pensions every month.

“They have to be redone, signed and printed,” she explains, “when each claim has multiple timesheets, invoices and claim forms, it’s a time-consuming process”.

As late payments place financial strain on communication professionals, there is little interpreters and lipspeakers can do to raise it with the DWP directly. “Usually we can’t speak [to them] as [we] aren’t the deaf person of with the deaf person,” says Lesley.

Nicolle adds: “They won’t speak to me on the phone as it’s not my package and I’m not their client. I’ve directly emailed their complaints email and had one reply with promise of an investigation, then just ignored [me] after this.”

“They won’t speak to me on the phone as it’s not my package and I’m not their client. I’ve directly emailed their complaints email and had one reply with promise of an investigation, then just ignored [me] after this.”

As a result, it falls on Deaf claimants to pick up the administrative task. “My electronic notetakers are still waiting for payments from as far back as February,” says Kirsteen Allison, a profoundly deaf and visually impaired disability consultant from Scotland. “I have complained numerous times, been told they understood and payments would be made, only for the same problem to happen again.

“I am being bounced around like a game of pass the parcel, from advisor to advisor,” she writes, adding that both annual leave and three different teams (case management, payments, and complaints resolution) meant that she had to contact several civil servants. “I have escalated my complaint, but it’s been about a month now and no update.”

Oliver Richardson, meanwhile, has received a different response from the DWP when he asked about paying his lipspeakers and speech-to-text reporters. “When I’ve challenged [them] around payments they have just said its due to high demand,” the profoundly deaf scientist tells me. “I also asked about late payment fees which they said wasn’t their responsibility.”

While the outstanding money – which, at one point, totalled £12,000 – was eventually paid by the department, the whole experience left Richardson feeling frustrated. “[I] felt I was firefighting some days, rather than doing the job to the best of my ability,” he writes.

Kirsteen feels frustrated too. “[I am] angry that I’m being passed around; angry that I get hung up on if I try text relay; distressed that long-term relationships with [electronic notetakers] may break down; [and] worried about my ability to do my job,” she explains, with these being just four from a list of emotions the process has made her feel. Concerns were also raised around relationships with employers, her own finances and potential legal action.

“[I am] angry that I’m being passed around; angry that I get hung up on if I try text relay; distressed that long-term relationships with [electronic notetakers] may break down; [and] worried about my ability to do my job.”

“Some ENTs have refused to work for me anymore,” reveals Kirsteen, adding that the DWP could only pay hourly rates for support provided, despite her providing minimum booking fees at the application stage of her Access to Work case.

“One quote from an ENT was for £60 (two-hour minimum booking fee),” she explains. “AtW awarded me £30 per hour – they took her quote and divided it for an hourly rate.

“However, when she claimed £60 for an hour – due to minimum booking fees – she only got £30,” Kirsteen continues. “I challenged this as I cannot get anyone for £30ph and AtW increased it to £45, but will still only pay for hours worked.”

Not only that, but even when outstanding amounts are paid, issues remain. “When my ENTs get payments, there is no note of which invoice is being paid,” says Kirsteen, “making it harder to challenge.”

It’s difficulties which ASLI – the Association of Sign Language Interpreters – says is ongoing. “[They are] of great concern considering the issues members have faced throughout the pandemic,” they tell The Limping Chicken in a statement, “and we have worried about people leaving the profession due to non-payment.”

The wider issue has already been raised with ministers, too, with the National Union of British Sign Language Interpreters (NUBSLI) writing to Justin Tomlinson MP – then the Minister for Disabled People – earlier this year.

“The intention of the letter is to make Mr Tomlinson aware of how our members […] are suffering and struggling to make ends meet due to a DWP process that is both archaic and broken,” NUBSLI write in a blog post published in July. “The letter points out the stark difference between Access to Work’s ‘aim to process claims within 10 working days of receiving a correctly completed claim form’ and the reality faced by our members and their clients.”

“Since the start of 2021 and particularly, since April, it has become the norm for interpreters and translators to have to wait in excess of two months for payment,” they add, “despite a correctly completed claim form having been submitted with their invoice(s).”

“Since the start of 2021 and particularly, since April, it has become the norm for interpreters and translators to have to wait in excess of two months for payment, despite a correctly completed claim form having been submitted with their invoice(s).”

The union told The Limping Chicken that Mr Tomlinson’s response – which is due to be published on their website “imminently” – was “extremely unhelpful” and “comprehensively failed” to address the points the organisation had raised.

“The issues we asked Justin Tomlinson to respond to were: clarification on the actual reason(s) behind the current backlog of claims and resultant requests for budget holders to re-submit their claim forms,” NUBSLI say, ”assurance that urgent measures are being taken to resolve the current backlog with details of what these measures will look like; clarification on whether the DWP is officially claiming that Royal Mail have lost significant amounts of paperwork […] as this is a breach of GDPR [and] request to review the current DWP policy, allowing interpreters and translators to issue late payment invoices.”

They went on to add that their Access to Work action group now has “substantial evidence” of the system’s “ongoing failures”, and that they are in discussions with their membership about further action.

“NUBSLI is committed to standing up for interpreters and translators, and standing with deaf communities,” their statement concludes. “We will continue to allocate time and resources to these issues until a solution is offered that satisfies the concerns of those affected.”

“Ministers have long spoken about the benefits of Access to Work,” Vicky Foxcroft MP, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, says in a statement, “but it is clear faults and delays in the system are letting disabled people and their employers down.

“Labour welcomes the Government’s commitment to simplifying the programme, but it must go much further and faster to ensure more disabled people don’t face excessive barriers when seeking employment.”

The Limping Chicken filed a Freedom of Information request with the DWP asking for documentation on the number of outstanding Access to Work payments, only to be told that the information is “not held by this department” after a search of their paper and electronic records.

“We do not record the number of unpaid/outstanding invoices; the value of the unpaid/outstanding invoices or what type of support the unpaid/outstanding invoices cover,” the response reads.

In a statement, a Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson says: “Following postal delays, we are seeing payment clearance times returning to normal levels. Payments are made as quickly as possible once a claim has been received.”

The DWP will also trial a new digital claims system for claimants in the coming months, where they’ll be able to view previous claims and their status.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.