One reconsideration, four weeks, no appeal
Access to Work has told you the answer, and it isn't the one you expected. Fewer hours than the assessor recommended, a rate nobody will work for, or support that quietly didn't make the letter at all.
You get one chance to ask for reconsideration. Get it right, and a different case manager looks again with fresh eyes. Get it wrong, or miss the window, and the decision stands.
There's no form for this. No online portal walks you through it, and gov.uk's own guidance on the process runs to a single paragraph. Meanwhile a small industry has grown up around writing this letter for you, charging up to £50 for the service and £8.99 for a template. None of it is complicated once you know what a case manager is actually looking for.
This is what to check, what to write, and what to send, in DWP's own terms. There's a free template that does most of the writing for you.
The rules, in four lines
- You have four weeks from the date on your decision letter to ask for reconsideration [Access to Work decision letter, ATW01CL v5.0, p.6].
- Ask for the Access to Work Reconsideration Team, using the phone number or postal address printed on your own letter. There's no published email address for this team [ATW01CL v5.0, p.6].
- You get one reconsideration, carried out by a different case manager to the one who made the original decision [Access to Work customer factsheet, May 2026].
- A reconsideration decision can take up to five weeks [Public Accounts Committee, Access to Work evidence, Jun 2026].
Write those four dates down before you do anything else. The clock on the first one is already running.
Before you write
Two things are worth ten minutes each before you draft a word.
Get your assessment report, if you haven't already. It's the document your award is supposed to match, and the fastest way to see where the two disagree. Ask your case manager for it in writing if you weren't sent a copy.
Pull together your quotes. If your award funds support at a rate below what you were quoted, those quotes are your strongest evidence. Our guide to how quotes work covers what the case manager needs to see.
Lay your assessment report, your award letter and your quotes next to each other. Read the award letter line by line against the assessment: same hours, same category, same rate. Anywhere they diverge is a candidate for one of the four grounds below.
With both documents in hand, you're ready to work out which of the four grounds actually apply to you. Most reconsiderations only need one or two, argued well, not all four.
The four grounds that work
These are drawn from the pattern DWP's own guidance describes, generalised and anonymised. Use the one, two or three that genuinely fit your letter. Padding a reconsideration with grounds that don't apply weakens the ones that do.
Ground one: the award departs from the assessor's recommendation, without written reasons
Your needs assessment report recommends a number of hours or a category of support. Your award letter grants something different, and the letter doesn't explain the change. DWP's staff guide says bandings are 'a guide' that case managers work within, not a fixed formula that overrides the assessment without comment [Access to Work staff guide, updated 18 Jun 2026, paras 34–38]. If your letter is silent on why it departed from the report, say so plainly.
Worked example (anonymised): an assessment recommended 10 hours of support a week; the award funded 7, with no line anywhere explaining the reduction.
Ground two: your evidence was never put in front of the decision maker
Quotes and supporting evidence sometimes get sent to the assessment provider but don't make it into the report the case manager actually sees, appearing instead as 'cost: to be confirmed.' It's easy to assume that once you've sent something, it's been read and weighed. That's not always what happens between an assessment provider and the case manager who prices the award. If that happened to you, ask directly whether your quotes were before the person who made the decision. If they weren't, that's the ground.
Ground three: the award, as written, doesn't work in practice
An hourly rate that no support worker in your area will accept isn't a technical dispute, it's a practical one. If your three quotes for the relevant support category all sit above the awarded rate, say what that gap actually is, in pounds. For example: an award set at a specific hourly rate against three written quotes clustered well above it, for the same category of support.
Ground four: there was no contact before the decision
DWP's staff guide is explicit that a case manager 'must try to understand the reasons' when a customer disagrees with proposed funding, before the decision is finalised [Access to Work staff guide, 18 Jun 2026, para 35]. That is a specific, documented commitment. If your only contact was a missed call or a voicemail on the same day the letter itself was dated, that's not the process the guidance describes, and it's worth stating plainly rather than assuming it doesn't matter.
Worked example: the only attempted contact before a decision letter was a single withheld-number voicemail, left on the date the letter was itself dated.
You don't need all four grounds to be true. One well-evidenced ground, tied to a specific paragraph of the staff guide, carries more weight than four thin ones.
The four asks
A reconsideration letter works better as a request than a complaint. State plainly what you want changed:
- Restore the hours the assessment recommended, or explain in writing why they were reduced.
- Set the rate to your quoted market rate, or within the correct DWP banding for your support category, whichever the case manager can support.
- Confirm the coding category the award falls under, with written reasons for the decision.
- Confirm the interim claims route, so you know how to get paid while the reconsideration is under way.
What to enclose
- A copy of your decision letter.
- Your needs assessment report (or your request for it, if you're still waiting).
- Your written quotes, with the provider named on each.
- A short, dated cover letter setting out which grounds apply and which of the four asks you're making.
What happens next
Reconsideration decisions can take up to five weeks [PAC, Jun 2026]. Your original award, meanwhile, usually still has to be set up within thirteen weeks of the original decision letter or Access to Work may withdraw it [ATW01CL, p.3]. That creates a real trap: the clock on your existing award doesn't pause while reconsideration is under way, so it's possible to be five weeks into waiting for a better answer and still staring down a setup deadline built around the worse one.
If your award is due to lapse before a decision is likely, name that in your cover letter and ask directly what happens to the setup deadline while you wait. Don't assume it's been considered. Nothing in the published guidance says it automatically extends.
Claims for money already spent normally can't be accepted more than nine months after the payment was made [ATW01CL, p.3; gov.uk]. Keep claiming under the existing award while you wait, rather than pausing everything until reconsideration is resolved. A slow reconsideration is a reason to keep two processes moving at once, not a reason to stop the one that's already working.
Does challenging actually work?
Worth asking before you spend an evening on this. Across one recent reassessment cycle, 89.5% of cases came back with a reduced award, and the average cut was 53% [Disability Rights UK, Mar 2026]. The same reporting found that challenged cuts were frequently reversed.
That matters for how you frame your letter. A cut award isn't usually a judgement on your individual case, it's the visible edge of a pattern affecting most reassessments in the same period. You're not asking a case manager to admit a personal mistake. You're asking them to look again at a decision made inside a system that, by its own numbers, gets a lot of these wrong the first time. Challenging is the ordinary, expected next step here, not an escalation.
For the full decision tree covering which problem your letter actually has, start with what to do when your award is wrong.
'Mandatory reconsideration' and 'appeal': the language that doesn't apply
If you've searched for this, you've probably seen the phrase 'mandatory reconsideration' and a form called CRMR1. Neither applies to Access to Work.
Mandatory reconsideration and CRMR1 belong to benefits like PIP, ESA and Universal Credit. Access to Work is a grant, not a benefit, and it runs its own, separate process: one reconsideration, by a different case manager, using your own letter's contact details [ATW01CL, p.6; AtW customer factsheet, May 2026].
There's also no appeal after that reconsideration. If the second decision still isn't right, your options are a formal complaint, escalation to the Independent Case Examiner, or, in specific circumstances, judicial review. Those are routes for a solicitor or an advice organisation to guide, not this article.
That's a real limitation, and it's exactly why the letter you send now is worth getting right. There's no second attempt at reconsideration itself, so this is the version of your case a different case manager will actually read.
None of this needs a solicitor or a week off work. It needs the letter dated correctly, the right grounds, and the evidence attached. The free template does the structure; you supply the specifics. And if you'd like a read on whether your grounds are the strong ones before you post it: book a 20-minute award second opinion call.
This guide is built from lived experience and DWP's published guidance. It isn't legal advice. For a formal complaint, escalation or judicial review, speak to Disability Rights UK, Citizens Advice or a local law centre.
Frequently asked questions
Is Access to Work reconsideration the same as mandatory reconsideration?
No. Mandatory reconsideration and the CRMR1 form apply to benefits such as PIP and Universal Credit. Access to Work is a grant with its own process: one reconsideration, carried out by a different case manager, requested using the contact details on your decision letter [ATW01CL, p.6].
Can I appeal if reconsideration doesn't change the decision?
There's no appeal route after an Access to Work reconsideration. If the outcome still doesn't reflect your needs, the next steps are a formal complaint, escalation to the Independent Case Examiner, or judicial review in specific circumstances. An advice organisation such as Disability Rights UK, Citizens Advice or a local law centre can help you weigh those up.
How long does reconsideration take?
Up to five weeks from the point your request is received [PAC, Jun 2026]. Keep claiming under your existing award while you wait, and flag any setup deadline that falls due before a decision is likely.
Will asking for reconsideration put my existing award at risk?
Nothing in the published guidance treats a reconsideration request as a penalty for disagreeing. The factsheet confirms every customer is entitled to one reconsideration, by a different case manager, as a normal part of the process [AtW customer factsheet, May 2026]. The second case manager decides afresh on the evidence, which is why the letter is worth building on your strongest grounds.