More than 2,500 leading voices from the British art sector, including the head of the National Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have signed an open letter in which the proposed changes to the work scheme are excluded from which disabled people are excluded from the labor.

Indhu Rubasingham, artistic director of the National Theater, and Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans, Co-artistic Directors of the RSC, were among the signatories of the letter that accused the government of having endangered decades of progress in the workplace. The letter is directed to the Department of Labor and Pensions (DWP) and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and warns that the reforms presented in the way to work could have an “devastating effects” on disabled employment rates, especially in the cultural sector.

“For decades, we have worked to ensure that the sector can provide disabled people better work, and now the suggestions threaten this progress,” says the letter. “There is a clear need to reform access to work. However, this must be based on the fact that disabled people are constructively supported, and not on a cost reduction exercise.”

The access to the work scheme managed by the DWP offers financial support to help disabled people, to get to work or to stay at work. The scholarship can finance special equipment, transport, job trainers and interpreters – important adjustments that often exceed employers.

However, the latest reports indicate that the system is already being restricted quietly. Jess Thom, the comedian of Disability Rights, recently announced that her access to job payments had been reduced by 61%, which made her work continued.

Tom Ryalls, one of the organizers of the letter, said Thom’s experience and the current consultation process had triggered a widespread concern. “There is advice, but it is also about unspoken cuts that already take place,” he told the Guardian.

Numbers show that disabled people are underrepresented in the creative industry, where almost 15% of the workforce identify as disabled – comparable to around 23% of the general working population. In organizations that are financed by the Arts Council England, the number is even lower at only 9%.

The open letter calls on the government to stop reforms until the office for budget responsibility publishes its assessment and calls on the ministers to protect and improve access to the work program. It also requires assurances that no changes undermine the participation of people with disabled people in cultural life and that a direct consultation of affected workers, in particular disabled artists and cultural employees, are required.

A government spokesman replied: “We are determined to create a welfare system that helps people at work and poverty. Our social reforms include a package of 1 billion GBP per year to support disabled people who can work to work so that career in the arts and other sectors have fulfilling careers.”

However, the activists argue that the rhetoric of opportunities must be compared by protection in practice. “The art sector has given the way to create more integrative workplaces,” said a signator. “These suggestions risk turning hard to reverse profits and excluding the voices that we have to hear.”