The Conservative government’s pledge to halve the disability employment gap and help more than 1 million extra people with disabilities into work was a key element of the party’s 2015 general election manifesto.
But fulfilling this goal will take more than 200 years at the current rate of progress, according to a new report, which argues that urgent action is needed.
The £500 million in funding allocated for the Work and Health Programme - the policy designed to tackle the problem - is “far too low to make inroads into the disability employment gap”, the research concludes.
‘Stubborn’ problem
The study, by the Learning and Work Institute (LWI), reveals that the gap in the employment rate between people with a disability and the rest of the population is wider in the UK than in the majority of other European countries. According to the latest official statistics, just 47 per cent of people with disabilities of working age were in employment between October and December 2015. Among non-disabled people, this figure stood at 80 per cent.
In order to meet its election pledge, the government would need to increase the employment rate among people with disabilities to 62.8 per cent by 2020, which would equate to 1.12 million more people finding employment. But the gap has decreased by only 0.1 percentage points since the 2015 election.
The report says that the gap is unacceptably big and “has remained stubbornly wide over the past two decades”.
With the Green Paper on plans for a new Work and Health Programme to address the gap not expected until later this year, LWI deputy chief executive Stephen Evans warns that the government is “not on track” and calls for additional investment (see box, right).
Last November, TES revealed that fewer than one in five people with a disability or suffering from a serious illness who enrolled on the government’s flagship Work Programme, introduced in 2011, had subsequently managed to find employment.
The report estimates that, through the Work Programme and the smaller, specialist Work Choice scheme, “just one in 10 disabled people who are out of work are currently receiving employment support, and just one in five of these will go on to secure employment”.
The Work Programme comes to an end in 2017, and will be replaced by the Work and Health Programme. Currently, provision is largely offered by independent training providers, with some colleges and charities also signed up. Since 2011, about 1.75 million people have been referred to the service, in which providers receive full payment only if participants go on to find and stay in work.
The new specialist Work and Health Programme will specifically target claimants with health conditions or disabilities and those unemployed for more than two years.
Dwindling support
In its new report, the LWI estimates that spending on contracted-out employment support for people with disabilities could fall by more than half over the next four years.
“Disabled people claiming [Jobseeker’s Allowance] who were previously supported through the Work Programme will in future receive additional support through Jobcentre Plus,” the report says. “However, even excluding these claimants, funding of the Work and Health Programme will be around one-third lower than the programmes that it replaces.”
Anna Bird, group head of policy at disability charity Scope, said that many people with disabilities continued to face barriers to finding jobs - from employers’ attitudes to inaccessible workplaces. “There is still a huge gap between the employment rate of disabled people and the rest of the population,” she added.
Training provider Ingeus has helped more than 45,000 people with disabilities and health conditions across the country back into work. Richard Carter, head of health and wellbeing, stressed the importance of people having access to a team of healthcare professionals.
“We have physiotherapists, psychologists, counsellors, mental health nurses and occupational therapists working alongside our employment advisers,” he said. “One-to-one and group interventions help our clients improve their understanding of their health condition or disability, empowering them to manage their health proactively and return to suitable employment where appropriate.”
Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, agreed that “much more needs to be done”. He added: “We want the new programme to lead to greater involvement of smaller, specialist and third sector providers, which have the experience and expertise to offer disabled people the support to secure sustainable employment.”
To improve the rate of progress, the LWI is calling for extra funding and has suggested introducing a new framework for local outcome agreements with devolved authorities. The proportion of funding allocated through a payment-by-results approach should also be reduced to create “greater space for innovation and investment”, the report says.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “Getting disabled people into work and halving the disability employment gap are top priorities, and our Green Paper will be looking at the best ways to do this. Our latest figures show that 365,000 more disabled people are in work compared with 2014.”
TES is media partner for the Learning and Work Institute’s IntoWork Convention on 11-12 July in Birmingham
This is an article from the 8 July edition of TES. This week’s TES magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here
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