The Challenge
Poverty and economic inactivity cost Britain billions of pounds. They undermine prospects for economic growth, create needless dependency on welfare benefits, damage communities, cause poor health and waste lives.
Disabled people are less likely to be in paid work than other citizens. They have lower levels of qualifications, earn less than others with the same qualifications and are more likely to live in poverty.
There are more disabled adults of working age living in poverty than either children or pensioners living in poverty. One in three children living in poverty has a disabled parent.
Only five out of ten disabled adults are in paid work, compared with almost eight out of ten of other adults of working age. Legislation in the form of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and some positive employment policies have been introduced, and disabled people’s employment rates have gradually increased, from 43 per cent in 1998 to over 50 per cent by 2006.
However, only one in ten people with severe learning disabilities and two in ten people with mental health problems had a job in 2006. Employment rates are also lower than the 50 per cent national average for disabled people in some parts of Britain – 47 per cent in Scotland, 45 per cent in the North West region of England, 43 per cent in Wales, 42 per cent in London and just 40 per cent in North East England.
On average, disabled people face a 40 per cent reduction in their chances of getting a job. This particularly affects people with mental health problems; those aged 50 or over; those with lower qualifications; those of Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin; and those living in areas with few jobs.
Overall, disabled people have lower levels of qualification, which can limit the chances of having a job or getting on at work. It is important to note, however, that at every level of qualification, disabled people are up to three times more likely than other citizens to be without a job but want to work.
Since 1998 there has been a gradual extension of support to people receiving incapacity-related benefits from longstanding Jobcentre Plus schemes, together with private, public and voluntary sector job brokers under the New Deal for Disabled People.
Job brokers have helped many benefits claimants back to work. However, they appear to have been less successful in reaching people facing more complex barriers (including people with mental health problems who are less likely to get and keep a job than other disabled people), and in extending the range of employers recruiting disabled people. Yet evidence suggests that if employers have a positive experience of employing a disabled person they are more likely to do so again.
Whilst there is evidence that employers are becoming more likely to make adjustments for their employees, as required under the DDA, too many are still not recruiting or retaining disabled workers. For example, over 90 per cent say they would find it difficult or impossible to employ someone with a visual impairment. Around one in six workers lose their job after developing an impairment or long-term health condition (people with mental health problems and those in manual work have double the risk). Once out of work, many encounter negative attitudes from employers.
When in work, disabled people are less likely to have a professional or managerial job and are twice as likely to experience unfair treatment.
Disabled workers are also more likely to be lower paid than other similarly qualified workers – even taking account of whether the job is full or part-time. This ‘disability pay gap’ is almost 10 per cent (down from 14 per cent in 1998 but still a significant penalty). It also compounds in-work poverty: the risk of poverty is higher for children with working disabled parents than for children of non-disabled working parents. One quarter of all disabled parents with incomes below the relative poverty line are in work.
A national strategy is required to help people retain employment wherever possible when an impairment or long-term health condition begins, deteriorates or other circumstances change. This will require concerted action by government, employers, health, social care and employment services in a ‘new deal’ to help people stay in paid work. Crucially, this strategy needs to be rooted in the DDA and best practice.
Disabled people out of work may encounter limited support from services (often due to low expectations from staff working in those services). Investment – across health, social care and employment – has tended to emphasise ‘special’ support for ‘vulnerable’ people, rather than being based on the view of disabled people as citizens. Health and social care agencies have not given enough consideration to the employment potential of disabled people, though evidence now shows that specific approaches (like individual placement and support for people with mental health conditions) can work.
Contradictions persist in the approach taken by public policy to disability and employment. Whilst the DDA assumes that impairments and long-term health conditions can be accommodated, income maintenance benefits have assumed that there is a group of people with conditions that make them incapable of work.
The welfare reform legislation of 2006 – 07 takes this further by creating two categories within a single benefit to replace incapacity-related benefits. The majority are subject to mandatory interviews and, over time, work-related activities. The remainder are defined as having limited capability for work-related activity, based on the severity of their condition.
Benefit rules can also discourage recipients from engaging in voluntary work, public life or learning, which might be building blocks back into paid work. Whilst impairments and health conditions can in some circumstances make work an unviable option, welfare reform is unlikely to maximise either employment opportunities or income security and well-being until those contradictions are overcome.
In 2006, the Disability Rights Commission encouraged the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to test out the very first disability equality impact assessment on the Welfare Reform Bill, which helped to identify some of the risks and opportunities of reform.
Unless action is taken to increase the employment opportunities of disabled people and to reduce poverty (including when in work), the Government will not meet its aspiration of an employment rate for working age adults of 80 per cent or its medium and long-term targets to eradicate child poverty.
This paper proposes policy solutions to improve employment opportunities. It is part of a series offering the Disability Rights Commission’s (DRC) proposals for a future public policy agenda.
Everything in this paper should be taken as relevant to all three countries of Britain unless otherwise stated.
An alternative future?
The DRC believes the links between disability, poor employment opportunities and poverty can be broken. We expect to see an employment rate of 60 per cent for disabled people by 2014, with higher than average rises for those from impairment groups with the lowest employment rates.
The key objectives of an effective reform agenda are to:
- Root out employment discrimination and reduce disability disadvantage.
- Secure the practical support disabled people require to improve their employment prospects.
- Enable disabled people to ‘get on’ in employment, including more disabled people in high profile and senior jobs.
- Promote the retention of disabled people in employment.
- Ensure that reforms of the welfare state are consistent with the goal of promoting equality of opportunity for disabled people and their families, including adequate incomes for those judged unable fully to sustain themselves economically through employment.
Recommendations for action
1. To root out employment discrimination and reduce disability disadvantage
Government should:
1.1 Build on the DDA by extending ‘anticipatory duties’ to employers so that they are required to take a more proactive approach to their policies and procedures, for example in recruitment.
1.2 Facilitate the development of employer-to-employer campaigns and advice, as recommended in the Strategy Unit report, ‘Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People’.
Government and the public sector more broadly should:
1.3 Set a good example as employers of disabled people and offer work placements to disabled people out of work who would like a job.
1.4 Use procurement to generate more and better employment opportunities for disabled people by introducing disability and other equality requirements into the contracting process. These include requirements for accessible information technology systems and criteria for selecting contractors that reflect best practice in employment.
The Commission for Equality and Human Rights should:
1.5 Use an evidence-based balance of legal enforcement and promotion to effect lasting change.
Audit and inspection bodies should:
1.6 Report on the progress made by public bodies to employ and promote disabled people in line with government targets.
2. To secure the practical support disabled people require to improve their employment prospects
Government should:
2.1 Ensure that increased use of the private and voluntary sectors to deliver employment support is accompanied by standards of service provision and accountability that enable people to receive the best and most appropriate support. Where private and voluntary sector providers are managing aspects of the benefits system, which contains a set of national entitlements and rights of redress, they should have the same standards of accountability and due process as public sector agencies.
2.2 Ensure that, where needed, additional support with independent living is offered to people receiving benefit. Those needing such support should not automatically be considered ‘unable to work’ or too costly to help into employment. Government should incentivise providers to give employment support for disabled people, however ‘hard to reach’ they may appear. For example, people with learning disabilities, mental health problems and visual impairments should receive employment-focused support when out of work. Accountability and transparency of results are required so disabled people can exercise choice and control.
2.3 Ensure, through the procurement process, that private and voluntary sector providers are required to meet the same standards of equality and human rights as public bodies. This applies to employment support and, critically, where providers are managing aspects of the benefits system.
Health, social care and employment agencies should:
2.4 Base support for disabled citizens on the best available evidence about what works and ensure direct investment in evidence-based approaches. This is likely to entail reduced investment in separate, sheltered employment. Occupational health professionals should offer evidence-based advice on reasonable adjustments and other effective practices in disability and employment.
3. To enable disabled people to ‘get on’ in employment including more disabled people in high profile and senior jobs
Government should:
3.1 Consider support for disabled people to get into, and to stay in, paid work as part of the same process, so that the investment in job preparation is followed through into job retention and advancement in employment. This would build on existing schemes such as the New Deal, Workstep, Access to Work, Workforce Plus in Scotland and Want to Work in Wales. There should be incentives for staff to support retention and promotion as well as recruitment. Particular attention should be paid to ensuring that people with learning disabilities, mental health problems and visual impairments retain their job and progress in employment.
3.2 Establish whether the employment prospects of disabled people are adversely affected by the removal of Access to Work funding from central government departments from October 2006. If any such adverse impacts are found, Access to Work should be immediately reinstated. There should be no removal of Access to Work funding from the wider public sector.
3.3 Tackle in-work poverty and reduce the disability pay gap by ensuring that disabled people have access to appropriate employment and skills development. More flexibility in tax credits would help to make work pay for disabled people, including the childcare tax credit for working parents of disabled children.
3.4 Ensure through Department for Work and Pensions’ policy and practice that simply entering work does not of itself trigger a review of benefit. Disability Living Allowance is a contribution towards the additional costs of having an impairment or long-term condition. The fact that it is payable whether or not someone is in work means it can offer an important sense of security during the transition to work.
3.5 Ensure that disabled people have the support they need to make the transition back to work, which includes Disability Living Allowance and the Access to Work scheme. Disabled people should no longer bear most of the risks of making this transition. Disincentives that also affect many others out of work (such as the operation of housing benefit) need to be tackled.
3.6 Extend the right to request flexible working to all employees. This would enable more disabled parents and those with mental health problems, in particular, to achieve their full potential in employment. Covering all employees would be simpler than the present system of categories of employees and would complement employers’ reasonable adjustment duties under the DDA.
3.7 Make equal pay audits, already mandatory in the civil service, compulsory for the wider public sector at national, regional and local levels.
4. To promote the retention of disabled people in employment
Government, employers and health, social care and employment services/agencies should:
4.1 Develop good practice to enable employers and individuals to identify early on where problems may arise. This could include ‘trigger points’ within the first few weeks of absence from work. A more managed process for statutory sick pay should be introduced.
4.2 Improve options for advice and support. Individuals need advice and support to manage a new condition and employers also need this to understand how a condition may impact on the job and what adjustments may be required. The range of support needed may not be available through traditional occupational health or through the retention role of programmes like Workstep. Options should be developed in relation to which agency provides and pays for support. Importantly, support needs to be available to the employer as well as to the employee.
4.3 Develop proposals for disability-related absence. Paid time off can be crucial to recovery. In some instances, individuals may need to be absent from work in order to learn how to manage their impairment or health condition or for their employer to arrange an adjustment. Disability-related absences should be dealt with separately from sickness-related absences to ensure that people are not placed at a disadvantage in relation to performance or promotion. Options need to be developed to specify eligibility, time-span of leave and how leave relates to the employers’ DDA obligations (some companies have a policy on disability or rehabilitation leave).
5. To ensure that reforms of the welfare state are consistent with the goal of promoting equality of opportunity for disabled people and their families, including adequate incomes for those judged unable fully to sustain themselves economically through employment
Government should:
5.1 Make welfare reform consistent with the DDA, which considers that barriers to employment can be overcome through reasonable adjustments. Longer-term reform (such as a single working age benefit) should be based on concepts such as ‘labour market disadvantage in relation to an impairment or long-term health condition’. This should include both a measure of individual health and functionality and of potential reasonable adjustments.
5.2 Introduce greater flexibility in benefits and tax credits to take account of the needs of disabled people and their families, such as fluctuating circumstances, condition management and caring roles.
5.3 Remove disincentives within the benefits system to taking part in work-related activities – including volunteering and public life – so that the skills and talents of disabled people are harnessed for wider participation.
5.4 Ensure benefit levels and rules are consistent with the Disability Equality Duty requirement for the public sector to promote equality of opportunity, including participation in public life.
5.5 Routinely undertake disability equality impact assessments (and other equality assessments) when sifting future options for welfare reform.
5.6 Step up efforts to make the benefits system simpler. In the meantime, there should be more accessible information and advice available to claimants about their potential entitlements to benefits and what might affect them.
Measuring change
1. Government should monitor reductions in disability disadvantage to include:
- annual increases in the proportions of disabled people in employment, rising to 60 per cent by 201419
- annual increases in the proportion of people with mental health problems, people with learning disabilities and people with visual impairments in paid employment – rising at a faster rate than the overall employment rate for disabled people by doubling their 2006 employment rates by 2014
- a reduction of one quarter in the proportion of disabled people living in poverty (from 30 per cent to below 23 per cent) by 2014
- annual increases in the proportion of disabled people in management and leadership positions
- annual increases in the proportion of employers undertaking evidence-based action, including board level leadership, training managers in disability equality and making reasonable adjustments.
2. Government should monitor the increased availability of evidence-based employment support, using evidence from the inspectorates; and an increase in the proportion of employers recruiting disabled people from benefit through ‘intermediaries’ like job brokers and Jobcentre Plus.
3. Government should set targets and monitor annual reductions in the pay gap between disabled and non-disabled employees.
4. Government should monitor the proportion of workers leaving their jobs following the onset of an impairment or poor health and set a target of reducing this from one in six to one in ten. A target should also be set to reduce the risk of people with mental health problems leaving work, from double the rate of other workers to the same rate.
5. Government should use disability equality impact assessments to monitor the impact of the welfare system.
6. Progress should be reported under the Disability Equality Duty requirements by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Assembly Government First Minister. Reporting should also relate findings to ethnicity, age, gender, parental and carer status, religion and sexual orientation.
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