Hi Robey
Because of the way AtW works, when they issue a funding letter, they make it clear that the funds need to be spent within X months and reclaimed within X months (the latter being about 9 months after the date of the last invoice from memory, but it might be 6 months). If the money isn't spent/reclaimed by that point then the case is closed. The individual employee would have to reapply and go through the whole process again if they wanted to seek the funding anew. Given what you say about the various delays at the organisational side, and that the organisation is going to find the funds to make the adjustments/purchase the aids/equipment, I personally wouldn't want to ask the employee to reapply and go through the whole assessment process again. I guess you could always attempt to make a late claim to AtW using their claim form process and put a covering letter with it saying 'please make an exception to your timeframes because of x,y,z which meant we couldn't get the invoices in until now...' and there's no harm doing so, but it's unlikely they'll pay if it's very very far out of their claim timeframes.. on the claim form it does say that the person completing it understands 'that Access to Work may not acceptclaims for reimbursement, if the claimis made more than 9 months after thecosts were incurred' (the use of 'may not' rather than 'will not' gives a small indication that they may apply discretion if they feel there is good reason )

In reply to Ann Simpson:

That's really helpful, Ann, thank you. It confirms what I suspected was the case. Forgive me, then, if I have a follow up to which you might know the answer.

In my research into AtW, I've seen that recipients are expected to provide three quotes for the services they need to be able to access the funding. In this case, the employee needs some administrative assistance with their work, which we were intending to provide through our normal resources of admin support, so getting quotes seems superfluous. Would they still be expected to provide the quotes for admin support from, say, employment agencies? It's for no more than 8 hours per week, so it seems improbable that such support could be secured through normal methods.

In reply to Robey:

Hi Robey
For all the AtW grants I've dealt with, AtW always provides the quotes when they send through the employer letter (so they have basically done the work to find 3 quotes, then tells employer what they are and that they'll fund the cheapest one). If they haven't done this in the case you've got, and if the 8 hours per week is going to be provided by existing internal resources (ie existing admin staff), it's unlikely that AtW will fund this, as they'll likely say that if the organisation already has the admin available, then it can make the adjustment recommended without additional cost, and therefore no funding provided.... It's worth scrutinising hte grant letter in detail (the employee and employer get slightly different versions, so if you don't have the employee version, ask the employee to give you a copy so you've got hte full info).

Hi Robey, If your grant runs out, you can call the Access to Work helpline. Access to Work helpline Telephone: 0800 121 7479 Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5pm If you explain the circumstances, they may grant an extension. If too much time hasn't passed and nothing has changed, another assessment may not be required. Regarding the three quotes, these should already be provided on the assessment your employee received.