How can the government better support disabled people into work and to stay in work?: Campaigner briefing

1. Background

The Government is asking how disabled people can be better supported into work and to stay in work.

Its consultation on how to get more disabled people into work and to stay in work is open until 17 February 2017.

The document – Improving lives: the work, health and disability Green Paper – rightly recognises the obstacles that disabled people face in getting into and staying in employment. This is especially important for blind and partially sighted people. Only one in four of blind or partially sighted people are in employment, while the employment rate amongst disabled people in general is one in two and that of non-disabled people is four in five.

What’s RNIB doing?

We welcome the document’s aim to tackle the barriers that disabled people face in the job market, in a wide-ranging consultation covering employment, health and social security issues. However, there are both “snakes and ladders” within the Green Paper.

We’ll be responding to the Government’s consultation and will be working with MPs to ensure that the Green Paper meets the needs of blind and partially sighted people.

How you can help

Please respond to the consultation. It’s so important that the Government hears personal experiences and recommendations to truly understand the issues and what it can do to improve access to employment.

The consultation is only open until 17 February. The questions are lengthy and not all applicable to blind and partially sighted people, so we’ve produced a shorter version:

If you have any concerns or would like more information, please email or call us on 020 7391 2123.

2. The issues being looked at by the Government

Tackling a significant inequality

We’ve found that only one in four working age registered blind or partially sighted peopleare in paid employment and this number is falling.

But this isn’t because people with sight loss don’t want to work...

“I think if you ask most blind and partially sighted people they would actively want to be employed, be that self-employed or be that – more likely – working for an employer. Therearen’t many people who would want to be not working.”

“We are people on the whole who want to work, the same as most people in society do. We just have a disability.”

So why are so few people with sight loss in employment?

Supporting people into work

The right support

Many blind and partially sighted jobseekers need more support to prepare for work than is currentlyoffered.

Blind and partially sighted people looking for work need specialist support on their journey towards employment. To make sure people who need it can access this specialist support, there also needs to be a good referral system into those specialist providers.

“For me personally, the Jobcentre I go to, I have the most fantastic person there, she’s called a Disability Employment Agent. She gets me. She understands that I’m not someone swinging the lead, just not wanting to work. She understands that I desperately want to work. Anybody that knows me knows that I’m not a skiver.”

To make sure the right support is being given, service providers should be measured against performance targets. These should be based on supporting blind and partially sighted jobseekers, particularly those further from the job market, into sustained employment.

Employment support programmes

Employment support programmes should be based on an individual’s needs. The programmes need to recognise the barriers and enablers to employment faced by blind and partially sighted jobseekers.

Those in work also need similar support to stay in work. Employers need to better understand their role in this.

There should be a greater role for charities and specialist organisations to deliver services to people with complex or multiple barriers to employment.

Assessments for benefits for people with health conditions

In its current form, the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) discriminates against blind and partially sighted people. It fails to take into account the impact sight loss has on daily lives.

Changes to Employment and Support Allowance

From this April, the amount of money people in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG) of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) receive is being cut for new claimants. Creating this hardship, debt and stress for new claimants is unlikely to help disabled people seek work. Worrying about paying bills and just surviving will make it harder, not easier, to be ready to look for a job.

“There’s a huge disincentive in effect to go out and look for work because you could - if things didn’t work out - you could find yourself significantly financially worse off in the future, and it’s almost as if people are too scared to take the plunge.”

Creating this gap of £36 per week between the Support Group and the WRAG will only act as a disincentive for those people in the Support Group to engage in work-related activity.

“At the minute, in Employment and Support Allowance, it seems to be a complete paradox that in order to make things the best for yourself, you would be better off if you were in the Support Group and therefore not compelled to look for work.”

It would also be wrong to make work-related activity compulsory for people in the Support Group (which the Government’s document suggests might happen) – putting them at risk of inappropriate pressure and sanctions.

Supporting employers to recruit with confidence and create healthy workplaces

As part of the Government’s consultation, it wants to know why employers have trouble recruiting and retaining the talent of disabled people with health conditions and what expectation there should be on employers to do better.

The Access to Work scheme is key to supporting employers to recruit disabled people so we naturally feel that it has a role to play here. It should be promoted to employers more widely. Providers of employment services should be required to give information about the Access to Work scheme, and in-work benefits advice, or refer to a specialist organisation if needed.

Access to Work is in theory a great scheme, in practice however it often falls down. Many of our supporters tell us:

“Access to Work seemed a long drawn out process when I applied for it. I didn't really get help from them to fill in all the paper work.”

“I think many employers aren’t aware of the Access to Work scheme that is run by the Department for Work and Pensions to help offset the extra costs of providing specialist screenreading software, braille displays, etc.”

However, the problem here isn’t just down to insufficient support. Many employers simply lack the understanding of what disabled people can achieve.

“A lot of it is down to people, whether it’s employers or prospective employees, just not knowing what that person can do.”

Supporting employment through health and high quality care for all

Any work-focused conversations should be voluntary if they happen before the Work Capability Assessment. Delays to the Work Capability Assessment must be addressed. Meanwhile, people in work need support to stay in work. Again, advice and information on Access to Work and in-work benefits should be available.

Building a movement for change: taking action together

Positive attitudes to disabled people – and an end to negative stereotypes – must be a priority.

One of the ideas we’ve heard is:

“I think, first and foremost, there needs to be a sea change in the attitude of employers, and the government should be encouraging employers more strongly to employ people with disabilities, and therefore people with a visual impairment. Also the government themselves should lead by example, i.e. those government departments should be doing more themselves to employ more blind and partially sighted people.”

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