Freelancing via Access to Work grant: are payment delays common?

[greencatwitch]

I have been a freelancer for a while and took on a new client recently.

The work itself is interesting: providing project management, admin and communications support to a small business owner who has a disability.

But the client is paying for my hours through an Access to Work Grant which they have been awarded by the DWP until the end of the year.

I have been asked to submit weekly invoice which is fine, but I have read that there is backlog for payments being processed by the DWP and frankly I can't afford to do work for this client and then have to wait weeks for Access to work to pay me and the whole process seems too convoluted. The DWP pays the amount of my invoice to the business owner who then pays me.

This was not made clear at the interview.

Does anyone has any experience of either working in this way or employing people through Access to work grants and could let me know whether there are real issues with timely payments? I did some googling yesterday and there seems to be stories of people reporting delays.

I am thinking of giving it a month while I interview for other opportunities and then giving my notice which is just one week, because I don't want to worry every month that my invoices are just going to pile up and take forever to be settled but I wanted to double check here if I might be worrying about nothing...

The way I do it, I pay the support worker myself and claim it back from ATW.
I would put in your contract for future that you will invoice directly to the client.

To answer your question though payments vary, but assuming they put it through and you approve it the same day it's about a month. Most I had was 6 weeks, sometimes 2 weeks. It varies.

Thank you for the reply. It is really helpful.

Yes, I think the issue is that this client does not want to pay me herself and then claim it back from ATW.

I think I am going to focus on seeking new clients/job opportunities and then let this one go once I have new work lined up.

I do this work too. I’m finding it tricky as there’s no pattern and sometimes access to work will pay a few at once. I get paid directly from them however. I’m on universal credit so have to declare a monthly income and expenses and it’s hard when some months I get paid more because I wasn’t paid the previous month. I’m also missing some payments which I need to chase. On the other hand I get paid more per hour than I would working in the role normally to make up for the hassle. Originally I was getting paid upfront from the client and she was claiming it back which did work better but was tough for her.

Thank you @Fleetwoodquack for sharing your experience as well.

I must say I am really put off by this system the more I hear about it so I do hope I find something else soon.

I think I am resenting the fact that I know the client has several sources of incomes and is doing well, but chose the least convenient way for me to get paid and the rate of pay is not that great anyway. So not much of an incentive for me to carry this on.