The National Audit Office's investigation into the Department for Work & Pensions' Access to Work scheme finds a programme growing faster than DWP's ability to run it. DWP itself accepts it cannot show whether the scheme delivers value for money, and its own loosely defined guidance has let award decisions drift from policy intent - a gap DWP is only now trying to close through staff training. Rising demand has driven processing times and backlogs well past DWP's own targets, and DWP does not expect them to fall significantly without policy change; the case data needed to diagnose where the process breaks down are not robust enough to support that analysis. Efficiency measures introduced to speed decisions have knowingly traded away some of the evidence base that kept awards aligned with policy, and a fast-growing volume of reconsiderations is consuming capacity that might otherwise reduce the backlog. Even after more than doubling staff numbers and spending, case-manager productivity has fallen short of DWP's own standard since 2023. Access to Work is a demand-led grant scheme, introduced in 1994, that helps people who have a physical or mental health condition or disability get or stay in work, funding things such as specialist equipment, support workers, travel costs and workplace adaptations, on top of an employer's legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments. It is funded and administered by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) in Great Britain, with DWP case managers assessing eligibility and awards individually for each customer. For this investigation the NAO analysed DWP's application, spending and staffing data, reviewed DWP's guidance and internal assessments, and consulted eight organisations representing disabled people and employers; the work was not designed to assess whether the scheme provides value for money. 74,200 people received Access to Work funding in 2024-25, up 97% from 37,700 in 2018-19. 157,000 applications for support were made in 2024-25, more than double the 76,100 made in 2018-19. GBP 321 million was spent on Access to Work provision in 2024-25, a 96% real-terms increase since 2018-19; DWP forecasts spending could reach GBP 517 million by 2029-30. 62,100 applications were awaiting a decision at 31 March 2025, compared with 21,700 three years earlier, and average processing time reached 109 working days in November 2025, against a 25-day target. Access to Work grants are made under section 2 of the Employment and Training Act 1973. Employers' separate duty to make reasonable adjustments is set out in the Equality Act 2010; Access to Work funding is intended to sit above and beyond that duty, not substitute for it. DWP has set five internal principles (not statutory rules) governing awards: above and beyond a reasonable adjustment, additional costs, no account taken of a non-disabled comparator's costs, minimum needs met, and value for money. DWP has a service target of deciding applications within 25 working days, against which performance has been reported as 109 days in November 2025. DWP exceeded its Access to Work budget in 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2022-23, by an average of GBP 3.6 million (2.8%), and spending on staff administering the scheme rose in real terms from GBP 12.6 million in 2021-22 to GBP 24.4 million in 2024-25. DWP increased scheme staff from an average of 247 full-time equivalents in 2021-22 to 588 in 2024-25 (593 by October 2025), and introduced evidence-reduction measures for travel-to-work, special aids/equipment and support-worker applications intended to speed up decisions. Despite the increase in staff, case managers have processed fewer cases per day on average than DWP's own standard of 2.8 since May 2023, and DWP no longer considers that standard achievable. Outstanding applications rose 160% and outstanding payments 233% between March 2023 and March 2025, even as staff numbers rose 46% over almost the same period, so extra capacity has not translated into a shrinking backlog. DWP has no quantitative assessment of whether the scheme achieves its objectives, and complaints about the scheme rose from 234 in 2022-23 to 800 in the first half of 2025-26 alone, over half of them about how long DWP took to decide. While the scheme clearly has benefits, DWP "does not know whether the scheme provides value for money"; it has little evidence on the difference the funding has made and does not check whether the support was of benefit (Summary para 8, p.7; paras 1.10-1.12, pp.15-16). There is no business case or underpinning legislation providing a reference point for assessing value for money, and DWP has undertaken no quantitative assessment of the scheme's effectiveness. DWP "has concerns that, because it has not designed the scheme in a prescriptive way or defined the rules tightly, awards have not always aligned with the policy intent and funding decisions have been inconsistent" (Summary para 9, p.8). An internal audit in August 2024 found DWP's guidance for Access to Work "high-level" and limiting what case managers can do to challenge applicants (para 1.13, p.16); a 2025 review of 200 cases found some 40% of funded support should have been provided by the employer, employee or NHS, and that employers had failed to make reasonable adjustments in 18% of cases reviewed (para 1.16, p.17). Average processing time "more than doubled, from 28 working days in 2021-22 to 66 working days in 2024-25" and reached 109 days by November 2025, against DWP's 25-day target (para 3.2, p.29); the backlog of applications awaiting a decision "almost trebled, from 21,700 at 31 March 2022 to 62,100 at 31 March 2025" (para 14, p.10). DWP "does not expect the backlog to fall significantly in the short term" without policy change, additional budget and further productivity improvements (para 18, p.11). The NAO "were unable to use DWP's data for more detailed analysis, for example to identify where in the process cases are most commonly held up", because the data "are not sufficiently robust as the manual input of large volumes of data by case managers increases the risk of inaccuracies", and DWP "does not record information on all parts of the process" in a form susceptible to analysis (para 3.4, p.31). Having removed evidence requirements for travel-to-work, special-aids and support-worker applications to speed up decisions (para 3.11, p.35), the NAO notes that "while the measures may have reduced the administrative workload... reducing the amount of supporting evidence that customers have to supply will also weaken DWP's control framework and increase the risk that grant awards are not aligned with the policy intent of the scheme" (para 3.12, p.36). Requests for reconsideration of awards rose "from 194 in 2021-22 to 385 in 2023-24, with a more significant increase to 1,575 in 2024-25"; case managers spend on average 241 minutes on a reconsideration against 115 minutes for a new application, so "the more reconsiderations there are, the fewer resources there are available to tackle the backlog of outstanding applications" (para 3.13, p.36). Scheme staff rose from an average of 247 full-time equivalents in 2021-22 to 588 in 2024-25, with administration costs rising in real terms from GBP 12.6 million to GBP 24.4 million over the same period (para 3.8, p.34), yet "since May 2023, case managers have processed fewer cases per day on average than" DWP's own standard of 2.8, which DWP no longer considers achievable (para 3.10, p.34); induction for new case managers takes around six months, diverting experienced staff from casework to training (para 3.14, p.37).