Submission by the Disability Charities Consortium to the Review of Specialist Disability Employment Support – a call for evidence
February 2011
Introduction
This is a response from members of the Disability Charities Consortium which is comprised of RADAR, RNIB, Mind, RNID, Scope, Mencap and Leonard Cheshire Disability. Several of these charities provide employment services and in these instances their own input has also been informed by the staff and clients involved in these programmes.
The review’s remit
1.1 The review occurs against a backdrop of a major programme of welfare reform that is placing increasing pressures on those disabled people claiming benefits to find work.
1.2 At the same time GDP fell 0.5% in the third quarter of last year and indicators suggest we could end up facing a ‘double dip’ recession.
1.3 The employment rate of disabled people is already significantly lower than that for non-disabled people with only one in every two disabled people in employment.
1.4 Increased pressures on unemployed disabled people to find work coupled with shrinking employment opportunities and a pre-existing disadvantage in the job marketplace means that it is more important than ever that disabled people are provided with effective and appropriate support to find work.
"So far the Government has focused its efforts on welfare reform and the Big Society - without seeing how the two could join up to reflect a new perspective of contribution going beyond basic economics." - Scope
Recommendation 1
The review’s findings should be used by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to ensure the needs of disabled people are met as they seek to improve employment rates.
1.5 The terms of reference state that the review must make recommendations based within existing spending limits. However, if more people are to be supported into work this will require increased funding. This is particularly the case for Access to Work where costs will rise proportionate to the number of disabled people in work.
Recommendation 2
Though outside of the terms of the review, the Review should highlight that spending on additional in-work support will need to rise as more people move into work.
1.6 Reforms are already underway in the areas being examined by this review. There are revisions to procedures for Access to Work (such as a new standardised list of equipment - January 2011), the workforce at Remploy have been offered voluntary redundancy and residential training colleges are being pressed to deliver efficiency savings of 16% in the first six months of the financial year 2011/12.
Recommendation 3
Significant changes, or ones that may have a long-term impact on the provision of specialist disability employment support, should be put on hold pending the findings of the review.
We have based our response on questions provided by the review team
Question 1
Strategically what is the direction of development that would best support disabled people's employment opportunities (including how generalist programmes like Work Programme serve disabled people)?
2.1 It is important that any discussion of employment recognises that whilst many disabled people will wish to move towards work not everyone may move into paid employment and people will need to move at a speed that is appropriate to them.
"Visual metaphors can be powerful ways of fixing concepts in people's minds. The escalator or platform lift provides a good metaphor. Both provide a means of travelling upwards but with the option of getting off at another floor and then getting back on to move to the top. In both instances the user is drawn upwards and not pushed and the buttons that control the journey are inside the lift." - RNIB
2.2 The support offered to disabled people must be based on what disabled people need and what works best in terms of supporting them to move towards work. The widely varying employment rates for disabled people reveals the different challenges encountered in obtaining work (Berthoud, 206, fig 5.2)[1]. Disabled people are not a homogenous group; they have a wide range of impairments, severity of impairment and adaptation and attitudes to their impairment. These factors show the importance of support that is specific to their needs. However, to date support has been inflexible, delivered through rigid programmes such as Pathways to Work (DWP, 2011)[2].
2.3 Not everyone will make it into full time paid employment and it is important to recognise the value of unpaid and part time work.
Recommendation 4
The review should highlight the importance of all work outcomes, from voluntary to paid, part time to full time.
2.4 In addition consideration also needs to be given to supporting self-employment and entrepreneurship among disabled people. This means:
· Ensuring that appropriate support is made available through government programmes to disabled people who wish to start their own business;
· Making sure that disabled people are included in initiatives to provide specific business support for disadvantaged groups such as the National Enterprise Allowance and Enterprise Clubs;
· Ensuring that banks and other financial institutions make appropriate adjustments to remove any barriers to accessing business finance faced by disabled people;
· Ensuring that the benefits system and employment programmes properly recognise and support self-employment, for example support for ‘test-trading’ is sporadically applied within the benefits system at the moment, meaning that people who wish to try to start their own business can miss out on the support that might help them to do so.
2.5 Given the need to reflect disabled people’s particular requirements in employment support it is concerning that the Work Programme, due to start this summer, has not been piloted and that this review is taking place too late to inform the design of the programme.
"This approach (payment by job outcomes) is at danger of marginalising disabled people with more complex needs with service providers seeing them as being non-profitable investments and being too difficult to support." - Scope
Recommendation 5
Impairment specific monitoring and annual reviews are necessary to measure how the Work Programme is meeting the needs of disabled people. Annual reviews should include consideration of whether disabled people are always being referred to the most appropriate subcontractor and whether people are ever being denied appropriate support on the basis of costs.
2.6 Whilst each government employment programme has its purpose, it is important that these different programmes all link up, both with each other and other forms of support, e.g. health, housing, transport etc.
"We are supportive of the Individual Placement and Support approach as the primary option but believe there is also an important role for a gradual and sequential approach for some people who are not confident to go straight into open employment. Examples include attending drop in sessions, using public transport independently, engaging in voluntary work, engaging in permitted work, engaging in part-time work, engaging in unsupported full-time work." - Mind
Recommendation 6
Going forwards employment programmes need to have a client centred approach and contracts need to recognise progression towards work, not just job outcomes.
RADAR define client centred approaches thus: "giving disabled people choice and control, raising motivation and expectation, providing opportunities to choose a career, support and incentives for ongoing career development, easy to access support, programmes optimising accessibility e.g. in communication and delivered by people versed in the social model of disability."
Question 2
Is the employment rate for disabled people the best measure of success? Are there any other measures you think are important?
3.1 Whilst the employment rate is one top-level indicator, in order to reflect both progression to work and other positive outcomes it is important that a range of different measures are used. Many people do not move into work on current employment support programmes e.g. Work Choice has a target ambition of 60%.
3.2 Recent research to underpin the development of a distance travelled toolkit (Purvis, A. et al, 2009)[3] promoted a five step A-E system of measuring client progress:
· The first transition from A to B is linked to clients’ own recognition of their support needs and is generally characterised by an agreed action plan which includes both skills directly related to the workplace and life skills.
· The second transition from B to C is linked to the client making initial progress, for example, developing skills to help manage their impairment, for example, learning to use speech activated software.
· The third transition from C to D is linked to the client making sustained progress, for example, being able to independently produce a CV.
· The final transition from D to E is linked to clients being fully work ready, for example being able to independently job search and complete a job application form.
3.3 All transitions made should be recorded in the client action plan making it possible to measure each individual’s progression.
Recommendation 7
In order to measure the success of employment programmes it is important not to focus exclusively on job outcomes or the employment rate of disabled people. There should also be measurement against the key milestones that mark an individual's movement towards the workplace. These milestones and a system of customer feedback could be established through the Merlin standard.
"However, all we really know about these two programmes (the Work Programme and Work Choice) at the moment are the fundamentals with little clear detail about how delivery will function." - Mind
3.4 Other measures of success in addition to a job outcome should include the types of job gained and possibly career progression.
Recommendation 8
Other indicators should include:
1) The disability pay gap (i.e. between disabled and non disabled people undertaking comparable jobs);
2) Relative retention rates (subject to agreed definitions);
3) The relative time taken to find work.
Question 3
How can we raise aspirations, and increase opportunities for career development and progression?
4.1 There are many different approaches to raising the aspirations of disabled people. Approaches include positive images of disabled people in the media, confidence building courses, pre-employment support and mentoring. There is almost no government funding for any of this at present.
Recommendation 9
The Government should invest in schemes aimed at raising the employment aspirations of disabled people. For example the Government (in a similar way to the Fit for Work Pilots) could offer voluntary sector organisations the opportunity to bid for grant funding to test a variety of approaches to raising aspirations and commission independent evaluations to determine best practice in what works.
"Inform and educate parents and professionals about what is possible - start young!" - RADAR
4.2 At present individuals accessing employment support are provided with information about the conditionality regime but are poorly informed of the “back-to-work” support on offer. This leaves people unaware of the options open to them.
Recommendation 10
Crucial to raising aspirations is more explanation to jobseekers from providers and the Government of the employment support on offer, the quality of that support and the extent to which it meets clients’ needs.
Question 4
What can employers do to enable more disabled people to get, and keep, employment? And what support do employers need?
Recommendation 11
Options for improving retention rates for disabled people should include the following:
· In-work mentoring where desired and available from a person in a more senior position elsewhere but comparable level of disability;
· Ensuring that individuals are not excluded from training opportunities due to issues like access;
· Disability awareness training for colleagues to facilitate successful team working with disabled colleagues.
Recommendation 12
To enhance the prospects of disabled people obtaining work employers should:
· Audit their building accessibility and their recruitment and retention policies and procedures;
· Advertise recruitment opportunities in formats accessible to disabled people;
· Offer work experience, work taster days, internships and mock interviews to disabled people;
· Ensure that job advertisements are in plain English and that online materials are compatible with screen reading software;
· Sign-up to the two ticks scheme – we would welcome a government target for sign up by all FTSE 100 companies;
· Make reasonable adjustments to their recruitment process, for example, allowing individuals to take part in a work trial.
5.1 Most disabled people are not born with a disability but acquire their impairment later in life. At present many newly disabled people lose their jobs because employers wrongly assume that they no longer have the ability to perform the task or duties they were hired for. The DCC was supportive of John Robertson MP’s previous Employment Retention Bill, which would have introduced a system of ‘rehabilitation leave’. This is the process whereby a newly disabled employee or one with a long term health condition as recognised by the Equality Act would be entitled to an assessment to determine their capacity to work and this may or may not trigger a period of rehabilitation. During this period of rehabilitation they would agree a back to work plan, keep in touch with their employer and use the time to both adjust to their new life circumstances and acquire any disability skills that would enable them to return to work. They may continue in their previous role or assume a revised position that takes account of their impairment.
5.2 The policy is distinct from sick leave in that it is aimed at employees who are capable of staying in work but who require further assessment, treatment and/or rehabilitation. The assessment is key and should ideally be carried out within two to four weeks of a person acquiring an impairment or health condition likely to have a long-term impact. Any period of rehabilitation agreed would be subject to a test of reasonableness; account would be taken of the employee's duties, the resources available to the employer and the employee's prognosis. The rehabilitation period would also allow time for an employer to make the necessary adjustments to ensure that the workplace is accessible and that appropriate support has been put in place (Fox and Stafford, 2007)[4]
Recommendation 13
Employers could be supported through:
· Advice on the business case and support managing sickness, long-term absence and retention leave;