Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether an Access to Work scheme has been implemented in their Department.

Access to Work is a demand-led, personalised discretionary grant which contributes to the disability-related extra costs of working faced by disabled people and those with a health condition in the workplace that are beyond standard reasonable adjustments. It does not replace an employer's duty under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments. In April 2022, the FCDO assumed responsibility for providing such adjustments for their staff.

Since April 2022, FCDO has a designated team which provides Reasonable Adjustments to its disabled UK-based staff in line with the Equality Act 2010. It also provides its disabled staff with a Workplace Adjustment Passport to facilitate the seamless retention of adjustments on a change of line manager, job role or move between business areas. The Department is an accredited 'Disability Confident Leader' under the government's Disability Confident Scheme (https://disabilityconfident.campaign.gov.uk/) which denotes organisations which have a positive commitment towards disabled people.