The British Assistive Technology Association (BATA) calls on the UK Government to protect the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) and introduce an Assistive Technology Passport, as it launches its policy roadmap in Parliament.
‘Backing Disabled Students: The DSA as a Foundation for their Future’ is a policy roadmap setting out how the DSA can keep disabled students in education and help them into work. The report warns that replacing specialist assistive technology (AT) with free or mainstream AI tools would shift costs onto students, universities, welfare and health services, rather than save money.
The roadmap is being launched at a parliamentary breakfast reception in Westminster, where parliamentarians will meet disabled students, universities, disability charities and the AT industry, and try specialist and free tools side by side at live assistive technology stands.
The DSA funds specialist AT, training and support for around 88,000 students in England (2023/24). Support is needs-led, tailored to each student through an individual needs assessment. Around 59% of recipients say they would not feel confident passing their course without it, and 68% say it lets them participate more fully in their studies.
BATA warns that free or mainstream AI tools cannot replace specialist provision. Swapping them risks a false economy, with costs resurfacing in university support services and the welfare system. An illustrative cost of around £1,300 per student compares with an average Exchequer return of around £67,000 for every student who starts a degree.
The roadmap places the DSA within a wider crisis of young disabled people falling out of education and work; six in ten young people claiming health and disability benefits are still claimants a decade later.
BATA is calling for an Assistive Technology Passport: a portable, individually owned record of a person’s AT needs, the solutions that work for them and the adjustments they rely on, building on Ireland’s AT Passport pilot. This would cut duplication and help clear the Access to Work backlog, which stands at 66,000 cases. Applications currently take an average of 106 working days to process, against a 25-day target.
Carolyne Smith, Treasurer & Director, BATA said:
“The Disabled Students’ Allowance is one of the best investments the U.K Government makes for disabled students. For around £1,300, a student gets the specialist assistive technology and training they need to finish their degree, and the country gets back many times that over their working life. Replacing that with free tools might look like a saving on paper, but the costs don’t disappear. They land on universities, on the taxpayer and on the NHS. An Assistive Technology Passport would let support follow the person, not the scheme, and help clear an Access to Work backlog that is holding thousands of people back.”
Richard Quigley MP (Isle of Wight West) added:
“I was very pleased to sponsor this event in Parliament and stand with the disabled students whose education depends on this technology. The Government has got this wrong. AI has a role to play, but we should not pretend it can replace proven assistive technologies or the support disabled students need to succeed. Disability support allowance is proven to work and sends more back to the exchequer than it costs. If we are serious about widening opportunity, we must listen to disabled students and protect the tools that help level the playing field”.
The U.K is presented with an opportunity to either be on the forefront, or on the back foot based on how it proceeds here.
