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Service Leavers Adjustments Passport guidance

Updated 26 July 2023

This guide has been developed to support people who are having conversations with Armed Forces Personnel who need adjustments or people who are in the process of or have exited the Armed Forces and are transitioning into civilian employment.

Who is eligible to participate in the Adjustments Passport?

The Adjustments Passport is aimed at Armed Forces Personnel who need adjustments, with the purpose to aid the Service Personnel who are transitioning into civilian employment, regardless of why they leave service, this will include:

• Those being medically discharged for reasons which include the need for aids to employment.
• Those medically discharging for unrelated reasons but who still require aids to employment.
• Those leaving the service for other reasons (Welfare/Discipline/End of Engagement etc) who may need aids to future employment.

What is the Adjustments Passport?

The Adjustments Passport provides an up-to-date record of the adjustments the Service Leaver may need when they move into employment.

The passport cannot be passed on to anyone automatically, meaning the Service Leaver has control of the information and who sees it.

The purpose of the passport is to:

• provide the Service Leaver with a record of adjustments and/or additional requirements they may need in work.
• support and empower the Service Leaver to have confident conversations about their adjustments and requirements with potential employers.
• support any future employer by providing an overview of the Service Leaver’s requirements to inform any HR or occupational health discussions.
• support any future Access to Work application.
• help remove the need for an Access to Work assessment when the Service Leaver moves into employment or change jobs; and
• provide the Service Leaver and their manager with the basis for conversations about adjustments and adjustment reviews.

How does the individual know they need additional aids:

• From the medical services
• Via the Access to Work Scheme
• Via the DWP Work Coach in the Jobcentre

What in-work support is available?

Read more information and guidance for employers.

Access to Work (AtW) is a discretionary grant that provide support for people with a disability or health condition to move into work or retain employment.

What support can Access to Work provide?

AtW can provide funding for the extra disability related costs of working that are more than the standard reasonable adjustment that an employer is expected to provide under the Equality Act. The grant can provide tailored support to meet the needs of the individual up to £66,000 per person per year.

The support can include:

• Communication support at interviews
• An interpreter or other support at a job interview if claimant has difficulty communicating
• Travel to/in work
• Money towards any extra travel costs to and from work if claimant cannot use available public transport, or if they need help to adapt their vehicle
• Workplace assessments
• Assessment to evaluate needs, may not be needed if needs are already identified
• Specialist aids and equipment for individuals to enable disabled people
• JAWS - Developed for computer users who are blind which prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. JAWS provides speech and Braille output for the most popular computer applications on your PC.
• Dragon - Dragon eliminates barriers by letting you interact with your computer by voice. It turns your spoken thoughts into text and your voice commands into action, so you don’t have to worry about the mechanics of typing and spelling.
• Zoom text - Magnifier/Reader enlarges and enhances everything on your computer screen, echoes your typing and essential program activity, and automatically reads documents, web pages and, email
• TextHelp Read&Write - Reads words, passages, or whole documents aloud with easy-to-follow dual-colour highlighting

Why introduce the Adjustments Passport?

The Adjustments Passport provides the Service Leaver with a focused, up-to-date document that captures their adjustments and provides a useful communication tool to support conversations with employers.

The Adjustments Passport has four key objectives:

• To support Service Leavers to identify what extra support and changes they might need when they are ready to move or support them to move into employment.
• To improve awareness and take up of Access to Work.
• To support Service Leavers, giving them a structured document to build their confidence and support their conversations with employers about adjustments and the support they may need when they are ready to move into work. Work can also include self-employment, an apprenticeship or work experience
• To raise awareness of Access to Work and support the Service Leaver’s AtW applications by supporting the completion of the application and removing the need for an assessment if the needs remain the same.

How can the Adjustments Passport support the Service Leaver?

The Adjustments Passport can support the Service Leaver by supporting:

• Employer conversations by enabling Service Leavers to have an informed conversation with a new employer about their requirements and raise the possibility of in-work support; and
• Completing the Access to Work application helping reduce the need for an Access to Work assessment or repeated assessments where the individual’s needs remain the same, enabling adjustments to be put in place quicker.

Adjustments Passport flow chart

An initial conversation with the Armed Forces Personnel/Service Leaver to identify general needs and support requirements.

1. Offer the individual the opportunity to complete an Adjustments Passport to support their journey into employment. This can be done at any time during the exit process.

2. Explain how the Adjustments Passport can support the individual and that the passport belongs to them and cannot be shared without their consent.

3. Together complete the passport using any previous assessments, or include details of any Access to Work used.

The Adjustments Passport also provides an opportunity for the individual to provide details about how their disability or health condition could affect their ability to work.

4. The Adjustments Passport provides an opportunity for you to raise awareness of Access to Work and any additional support the individual could get when they move into civilian employment. The passport can also be used to support an Access to Work application.

5. Explain the passport can be used to support job interviews. They can share the passport with the employer or use the passport to have a structured conversation with the employer about their disability and in-work adjustments.

6. Explain how the passport can support employers and enable the employer to gain an understanding of the individual’s workplace adjustments and raise awareness of the support and funding Access to Wrok could provide.

7. Inform the individual that they can apply for Access to Work up to 12 weeks before they start work, and they can share the passport with Access to Work to support their application.

8. Explain if the individual shares the passport with Access to Work, it can help to speed up the decision-making process and remove the need for a holistic assessment.

9. Explain once the Access to Work application has been made an Access to Work case manager will contact them and their employer to offer advice and talk through possible support Access to Work can provide.

10. Explain the individual will be informed about the amount of support Access to Work will provide, including any adjustments and/or specialist aids and equipment they require

Adjustments Passport checklist

To support completion of the Adjustments Passport with the Service Leaver, explain that the Adjustments Passport could make it easier for them to progress into employment and receive the appropriate adjustments, by:

• identifying what support and adjustments they might need in-work,
• supporting conversations with employers about adjustments and in-work support.
• helping to build employer understanding of their disability and adjustments and be used to feed into employer occupational health assessments; and
• supporting the Access to Work application process.

It is important to stress that the passport belongs to the Service Leaver, and it cannot be shared with others without their permission.

Personal details

Gain an understanding of the type of:

• Work the individual is looking for.
• The number of hours they want to work.
• The location where they want to work.

Health and disability

Find out more about the individual’s disability or health condition:

• Does it fluctuate?
• If yes, how often and is extra support needed when the condition worsens?

Support in education

• Has the individual had any extra support on their work placement?
• If yes, what support did they have?
• Specialist Equipment e.g., assistive software/technology
• Communication support e.g., Lip Speaker
• Travel assistance e.g., taxis
• Support Worker e.g., a note taker or BSL interpreter

Support at work

Travel to Work

• Does the individual think they might need support to get to work? If so, what support do they need?
• This could include difficulties using public transport at peak times, a taxi, adaptations to a vehicle, a travel buddy.

Accessing work premises

• Does the individual need any support to access work premises? If yes, what support do they need?
• This could include, lifts, ramps for a wheelchair, widened doors, parking.

Communication support

• Does the individual need support with communication? If yes, what support do they need?
• This could include communication support at interview, British Sign Language Interpreter, video relay service, Lip Speaker, a notetaker.

Specialist IT programmes

• Has the individual used any specialist IT programmes at school, home or in work? If yes, what have they used?
• This could include software such as Jaws, Dragon, Zoomtext, Read & Write Gold.

Training

• If the individual has not used any specialist IT programmes previously, ask them to consider whether they would like more information about what is available and how this could support them.
• Advise that you can support them to contact Access to Work to find out more

Specialist equipment

• Is there any specialist equipment the individual has used in the past they have found useful?
• This could include equipment such as, specialist office equipment such as a mouse, keyboards, chairs, and desk, a braille reader, and a handheld magnifier.
• If they have not used specialist equipment, would they like more information about what is available and how it could support them?

Support to move into work

• Would the individual need someone with them at work to support them?
• If so, what kind of support could they provide?
• This could include a job coach to support with learning the tasks of the job, a job aide to support with some of the tasks the individual cannot do because of their disability/health condition, someone to personally support them with reading due to sight loss, dysplasia, or dyslexia, disability awareness training for other employees the individual works with.