Memorandum submitted by MENCAP (OP 06)
SUMMARY OF
RECOMMENDATIONS
Individual Need
The ONE scheme should not treat people with
learning disabilities as a homogenous group. The Gateway must
be geared to an individual's needs.
Benefits Advice
There has been some concern that information
volunteered in response to questions on employment prospects could
be misused to review benefit entitlements. The flow of information
between personal advisers and benefits adjudication officers should
be clearly demarcated. The ONE scheme is part of the claims process
but it will not help anyone if eliciting an expressed interest
in work is taken to imply capacity for work.
The Scope of ONE
Mencap is concerned that in describing interviews
as "work focussed" the Government may be placing disproportionate
priority on getting people into paid employment at the expense
of other kinds of support, such as entitlement to benefits. We
hope that personal advisers will place the same emphasis on encouraging
people to claim disability and additional benefits and in-work
benefits to which they may be entitled.
Disability Awareness Training
ONE staff responsible for the assessment of
people with learning disabilities did initially undertake training
in learning disability awareness. This training needs to be ongoing
and should go further than basic disability awareness, helping
people to understand the implications of disability in a work
context.
The role of the Start-up Adviser
A ONE staff member, responsible for the registration
and orientation of the people with learning disabilities, should
act as an ambassador for the service. There is a need to take
account of the high profile of the project and recruit staff of
a sufficiently high calibre who are able to handle complex situations.
This person will need to be trained to a high standard in order
to assess the potential of a person with a learning disability
and to know how best to help them achieve their potential.
Sharing Good Practice
Personal advisers should be encouraged to develop
specialist areas of knowledge on disability matters. Personal
advisers should be expected to pool good practice and provide
support and advice to each other as well as building links with
disability organisations dealing with particular client groups.
Personal advisers who successfully engage with people with learning
disabilities should be championed.
Advocacy and Support
Mencap is reassured to learn that disabled people
with intellectual or communication difficulties have not been
expected to attend an interview without support. It is important
that a person with a learning disability is permitted to be accompanied
by a parent, relative or advocate to a work-focussed interview.
We have also been assured that home visits have been made available
where requested. We hope that this will be made standard good
practice.
Mencap recommends that personal advisers develop
links with local disability organisations and specialist employment
organisations in their locality. Mencap is concerned that this
has not happened consistently throughout the pilot scheme.
Working with Employers
Personal advisers will need to ensure that a
person with learning disabilities is provided with ongoing and
appropriate support in the workplace. Support should be extended
to employers and employees in relation to matters of retention
and adaptation to changing conditions and work practices, as well
as publicising access to work.
Performance Targets
Mencap would caution against internal targets
such as the number of interviews conducted in a week by a personal
adviser or a target of a specified number of people entering work.
Targets should include positive measures such as setting more
people in contact with the labour market, the consequence of which
may be a reduction in expenditure. There should be a specific
target ensuring that people with learning disabilities are claiming
all their benefits.
INTRODUCTION
Mencap is delighted to respond to the Select
Committee inquiry into the ONE Pilots. Mencap supports in principle
the provision of a one-stop service for advice on employment and
benefits. Mencap is pleased by the openness and commitment with
which the ONE scheme was launched. Mencap greatly appreciated
the opportunity to contribute to the guidance and training programmes
devised for the ONE personal advisers.
Mencap has monitored the ONE pilot scheme in
the four areas where Mencap has Pathway schemes in operation.[2]
Our recommendations are based on the experiences reported from
those areas.
"The Government's overall aim is to increase
the number of people with learning disabilities in employment
and to work towards their achieving parity with other disabled
people in the workforce . . . The challenge now is to ensure that
our programmes and policies reach as many people with learning
disabilities as possible and are delivered in ways which are responsive
to their needs." ("Valuing People", White Paper
on learning disability, DoH, March 2001).
Mencap welcomes the Government's commitment
in the White Paper, "Valuing People", to increasing
the number of people with a learning disability in employment
(currently estimated at 10%) to equal the number of disabled people
in employment in the population as a whole, estimated at 30%.
The low figure of people with a learning disability currently
in employment places them as one of the most marginalised groups
in the workforce. We are hopeful that the ONE scheme will contribute
towards achieving this Government objective.
Mencap is concerned that research into the success
of the ONE scheme does not separate out people with a learning
disability from other "sick and disabled people". According
to the research officers at the Department for Work and Pensions,
administrative data do not require staff to record that a person
has a learning disability. The research document produced by the
Department of Social Security that examines employers' attitudes
into recruiting people from the ONE scheme[3]
states that of the three ONE relevant groups (lone parents, long-term
unemployed people, and people with disabilities and mental health
problems) employers were least likely to employ somebody from
the disabled category. The number of employers who had recruited
somebody with a physical disability was calculated to be eight
per cent of the employers who had recruited through the ONE scheme.
Five per cent of employers had recruited a person with "mental
health problems". These categorisations are very troubling
to Mencap, since it would appear that learning disability is not
recognised as a distinct group, and suggests that learning disability
has perhaps not been distinguished from a mental health condition.
Mencap is concerned that Government targets will not be adequately
measured unless administrative procedures are adjusted. The disability
awareness training that has been so central to the establishment
of the ONE pilots does not appear to have filtered through to
the evaluation and research process. As a result, there is no
record of the number of people with a learning disability who
have had contact with the ONE scheme.
Mencap believes that the success of the ONE
pilot scheme has been varied and that the success of the scheme
once it is implemented across the country will largely be dependent
upon appropriate and ongoing staff training and a commitment to
working with specialist organisations such as Mencap's Pathway,
to acquire and develop specialist knowledge.
Individual need
The training programme undertaken by personal
advisers and start-up advisers should ensure that people with
learning disabilities are not treated as a homogenous group. Staff
should be made aware of the wide range, type and degree of disability
and uniqueness of each individual—their abilities, aptitudes
and preferences. The gateway must be geared to an individual's
needs—planning must define the needs and aspirations of
each service user. Personal advisers should not make assumptions
about an individual because of their disability or have low expectations
about the ability of a person with learning disabilities who wants
to undertake work.
Start-up advisers and personal advisers should
be able to distinguish a learning disability from a mental health
condition or other types of disability, and administrative records
should clearly show how many people with a learning disability
have progressed into employment as a result of the ONE scheme.
The Scope of ONE
The Government has indicated that the ONE scheme
will perform a dual role. It will advise people with disabilities
on the range of benefits that they are entitled to and will support
claimant's efforts to find work. A relationship of trust will
need to be developed between the personal adviser and disabled
person and this will be crucial. There are inherent difficulties
in expecting a personal adviser to monitor a claimant's benefits
and provide assistance on possible work opportunities. Claimants
will need to be assured that information volunteered in response
to questions on employment prospects will not automatically be
used to inform a review of benefit entitlements. Often, a client's
willingness to work will be relevant to future prospects but not
to current capacity. The flow of information between personal
advisers and benefits adjudication officers should be clearly
demarcated.
Advice on Benefits
The ONE scheme should provide for increases
in existing awards of benefit where justified and a commitment
to pay benefits within a prescribed period of time. There are
fears that the new process might delay payments. Personal advisers
should encourage people to claim in-work benefits to which they
are entitled. Given the low level of take up of disability benefits,
the ONE scheme has a major role in promoting take up amongst eligible
client groups. Such initiatives provide scope for partnership,
co-operation and sharing of experience, information and expertise
with local authorities and the voluntary sector.
Mencap's enquiries revealed that personal advisers
were not working towards specific targets relating to claimants
receiving all of their benefits, although they were expected to
know what assistance was available for their clients and to ensure
that all of these benefits were being claimed.
In practice, according to staff at Mencap's
Pathway service in the Warwickshire pilot area, it appears that
personal advisers were able to give initial advice on both employment
and benefits. However, in order to gain expert information in
either area, it was necessary to refer clients to either a Benefits
Agency or Employment Service adviser for more in-depth knowledge.
This would suggest that personal advisers do not have the full
expertise to deliver the ONE concept of providing a streamlined
service and a relationship of trust with the personal advisers.
Further training would seem necessary to make good this downfall
in the provision of the service.
According to research carried out into staff
satisfaction with the ONE pilots,[4]
staff felt that the training they received was not adequate. It
was felt that the training they received in benefits was not sufficiently
in-depth, and took place so far in advance of commencement of
work that staff had forgotten what they had learned once they
began working with clients. Particular concern was expressed in
relation to the changed rules for Severe Disablement Allowance
and the rules for in-work benefits. Staff also felt that they
did not have the training needed to deal with people with disabilities
in relation to work, and that in some instances dealing with such
cases caused them distress.
Disability Awareness Training
The DfES need to put in place systems for ongoing
training in learning disability, based on explicit standards for
all those responsible for the assessment and subsequent placement
into jobs and retention of people with learning disabilities.
It is crucial that those who interview people with learning disabilities
about benefit entitlement and future work possibilities should
have appropriate expertise both to conduct the interview and to
understand their specific work and benefit requirements.
The basic areas of awareness, such as being
able to recognise the manifestations of a learning disability
and the best means of communicating with somebody with a learning
disability, should be covered by disability awareness training.
But the implications of disability, such as the difficulty people
with a learning disability face when trying to adjust to new circumstances
and new people, should form a part of more advanced training.
This level of understanding is crucial to the success of placing
people with learning disabilities into jobs where they will successfully
adjust to the workplace. Personal advisers should be encouraged
to develop specialist areas of knowledge. For example, personal
advisers could specialise in assisting benefit claimants with
disabled children, or claimants with sensory impairments, learning
disabilities or mental health problems. Personal advisers who
successfully engage with people with learning disabilities should
be championed.
Mencap is aware of at least one person with
a learning disability who "bluffed his way through"
his interview with his ONE special adviser without his adviser
recognising that he had a learning disability. At times a person
may have only a mild learning disability and may not wish to describe
themselves as having a learning disability. It is for this reason
that training must be of a sufficient standard to enable a member
of staff to ask the appropriate questions and make appropriate
observations to ascertain what needs each client may have.
Staff at Mencap's Pathway office in Leeds, where
a ONE private and voluntary sector pilot scheme was taking place,
did not have the opportunity to offer any training or advice to
the ONE team, despite the brief of this particular pilot to reach
out to voluntary sector agencies and form partnerships with them.
The clients that were referred to the ONE scheme by Pathway had
problems with the information they received through the ONE special
adviser. It was felt that although the staff tried very hard,
they did not understand enough about learning disability to deliver
an adequate service.
Likewise, at Mencap's Pathway office in Suffolk,
also a ONE private and voluntary sector pilot area, no contact
was established between Pathway and the ONE team.
The only area where Mencap's Pathway service
formed a good working relationship with the ONE team in their
area was in Warwickshire, a basic model pilot scheme. Pathway
staff provided training to the ONE team and met quarterly with
the ONE staff to discuss progress and advise on how best to work
with learning disabled clients. In this pilot area, approximately
10 people with a learning disability were referred to Pathway
from the ONE team, all of whom secured paid employment as a result.
A greater number of people with a learning disability referred
to Pathway by the ONE team went on to undertake training schemes.
The significant disparity in success of the
pilot schemes in these areas would seem largely to be explained
by the willingness of the ONE team to engage with specialist groups
with outside knowledge such as Mencap's Pathway in their training
and development programmes. Mencap would recommend that ONE teams
should reach out to specialist agencies such as Pathway as a matter
of course, and that such involvement is ongoing.
The role of the Start-up Adviser
The initial contact with the system will be
with a member of staff responsible for the registration and orientation
of new claimants. A claimant will be required to supply basic
information, including personal details, reasons for claiming
benefit and other details necessary for processing the benefit
claim. This person will be responsible at this stage for deciding
whether a people with learning disabilities should be referred
to a personal adviser for a discussion about work opportunities.
This staff member, known as the start-up adviser,
will act as an ambassador for the ONE scheme. They are the first
point of contact for its customers. There is a need to take account
of high profile of the project and recruit staff of a sufficiently
high calibre who are able to handle complex situations and understand
the needs of a person with a learning disability. The person needs
to be non-judgmental and provide unthreatening opportunities for
people with learning disabilities to talk about their needs. In
some cases, a staff member will be able to identify a person with
a learning disability because he/she has been referred by a social
worker or specialist college. In other cases a person with learning
disabilities may arrive without being referred in such a way or
will not be accompanied to the interview by a social worker/parent.
Mencap's enquiries have confirmed that start-up
advisers do receive disability awareness training at the commencement
of their employment, and that an electronic version of the disability
awareness training and guidance pack is available to all staff
for reference. However, further training is only available on
request and with the permission of a line manager.
The ONE scheme advises that start-up advisers
should be working towards an NVQ level 3 in customer service.
Mencap is concerned that this qualification may not offer sufficient
focus on building disability-related knowledge and expertise.
Sharing good practice
Personal advisers should be expected to pool
good practice and provide support and advice to each other as
well as building links with disability organisations dealing with
particular client groups. Although local autonomy will be the
strength of the work-focussed gateway, it is essential that good
practice demonstrated in one area is adopted elsewhere and that
initiatives identified as essential, particularly with regard
to training of personal advisers, are developed in each locality.
Mencap's enquiries suggest that good practice
was not shared and replicated across the pilot areas. The successful
relationship between Pathway and the ONE team in Warwickshire
was not achieved in Suffolk or Leeds, despite these being private
and voluntary sector pilot schemes. Although regular conferences
and meetings took place bringing together the managers of the
pilot schemes, it would not appear that this inconsistency of
contact with specialist agencies was tackled.
Advocacy and support
It is important that as far as possible a person
with a learning disability understands the role of the ONE scheme,
and understands his / her rights and entitlement to benefits and
how to claim them. It is important to recognise that it is unworkable
to expect disabled people with intellectual or communication difficulties
to attend an interview without support.
The aim of advocacy in all its forms is to ensure
that people with learning disabilities are not deprived of their
rights through lack of information, lack of resources or lack
of someone to speak up for them. This will have costs implications
for the Benefits Agency in terms of provision of support and because
each interview takes longer to complete. It is important that
these considerations are built into the budget for the personal
adviser scheme.
Mencap is reassured to learn that clients with
learning disabilities were entitled to support when needed. However,
when a person with a learning disability attends interview at
the ONE office, they are required to request in advance if they
feel that they may need longer than the standard forty five minutes
for their interview. Mencap would urge that once a start-up adviser
has identified that a client has a learning disability, the work-focussed
interview should automatically be extended, to prevent the client
having to make this request.
Although the offices of each of the ONE pilot
schemes were physically accessible to disabled people, information
was not provided in a form easily accessible to people with a
learning disability, i.e. in basic language with diagrams and
large print. Although the communications team at the ONE office
in Sheffield agreed such a format would be made available on request,
Mencap would strongly advise that such a format be made available
alongside all other formats, so as to prevent delays in providing
people with a learning disability with information that is readily
available to other groups.
Research carried out into the satisfaction of
clients with the ONE scheme[5]
states that the "sick and disabled" client group were
significantly less satisfied with the ONE scheme than other client
groups. Where clients expressed a genuine difficulty in attending
a work focussed meeting, staff felt that home visits were not
encouraged by management, according to the research. Some carers
were reported as resenting the requirement to attend interview
and felt that the "work-focussed interview" added an
unnecessary and time-consuming procedure to their benefit claim,
when their child or partner would clearly not become available
for work due to the degree of their disability. Mencap would urge
that the option of carrying out interviews in the home be encouraged
as standard good practice where a severely disabled client or
their carer requests it.
Working with employers
Mencap believes that the Government, in conjunction
with disability groups, should raise awareness of the positive
business reasons for employing people with learning disabilities.
An employer faced with the option of recruiting a disabled person
with learning disabilities, requiring additional support and training,
will need further incentives before taking on that disabled person.
It would not be acceptable for a personal adviser to refer a person
to a job if the support mechanisms are not in place to support
the person in the workplace.
ONE staff should be encouraged to develop links
with other service providers in order to build up their knowledge
and expertise of people with learning disabilities living in their
local community. Mencap's Pathway will have developed good links
with the local business community and specialist colleges. Mencap
recommends that personal advisers develop links with specialist
employment organisations in their locality and that the extent
to which such links are developed are monitored and published.
Regional directors should come together to evaluate good practice
in their area.
Where clients were referred to Pathway by the
ONE service and employment subsequently came about (in the Warwickshire
area only) Mencap is pleased to learn that the need for appropriate
support was recognised and made available. However, research conducted
into the satisfaction of clients taking part in the ONE pilot
and the staff working for ONE states quite clearly that staff
did not have time to make contact with employers in order to establish
links and explain the potential benefits of recruiting somebody
from one of the client groups.[6]
The research states that in some areas it was felt that ONE had
not been marketed effectively, and that the promise of advisers
going out and getting to know employers did not come to fruition.
It was felt by staff that employers had no knowledge of ONE, and
that rather than waste time explaining the concept of the scheme,
they would simply say that they were calling from the Employment
Service. In this way the principle behind ONE gets forgotten.
At the outset of the pilot scheme, Mencap's
report, "Taking Care of Business" was sent to all ONE
staff. It would appear that the good intentions of the ONE scheme
in working with potential employers did not come to fruition,
and in many instances the potential for implementing the initiatives
in "Taking Care of Business" has not been built upon.
More needs to be done to make the business case for appointing
people with learning disabilities into employment.
Targets
Research into staff satisfaction with the ONE
pilot scheme[7]
states that the main target that staff were aware of was the three-day
target between start-up and initial personal adviser meetings.
Besides this target (which was rarely met) the pilot areas varied
as to the extent to which targets had been introduced and formalised.
However, there was a tendency across all the pilot areas to introduce
targets around the accuracy of submitted claims and around the
number of client submissions and placings.
Where targets exist, Mencap would like to see
them as a positive incentive such as setting more people in contact
with the labour market, the consequence of which may be a reduction
in expenditure, or ensuring that people with learning disabilities
are claiming all their benefits. For example, in the case of a
Severe Disablement Allowance claimant, a personal adviser interview
may be judged as a success if the claimant goes on to take up
other benefits to which they are entitled. One option would be
for Government to develop performance indicators that would measure
the number of people in receipt of Disability Living Allowance
who are in work or in receipt of therapeutic earnings, as well
as disabled people remaining in work.
It appears, according to the research mentioned,
that in practice staff gave priority to ensuring that claim activities
were covered, and that this activity took up a great deal of time,
leaving little time to discuss employment possibilities. Mencap
would strongly urge in the light of this research that the amount
of time allocated to interviewing people with learning disabilities
be significantly extended, so that they have the opportunity to
talk about employment prospects where appropriate.
Susan Boddy
National Campaigns Officer
5 October 2001
Annex 1
Mencap Employment Services
Mencap's Employment Service (often known as
Pathway) was established in 1973 and has now expanded to comprise
a number of local services in various parts of the country. Mencap
Pathway has pioneered employment services for people with a learning
disability, focusing from the start on securing jobs in ordinary
workplaces in the community—such as factories, shops, cafes
and offices.
Mencap Pathway supports people with a learning
disability through work preparation, job recruitment and training
once a job is secured. The service also supports clients with
building work relationships and social interaction in the workplace.
The service has a long history of working with employers of differing
sizes across all sectors. This work takes place both on a local
basis and where the company is part of a national or multinational
company, on a strategic basis. Pathway has developed good links
with a number of companies and organisations, such as Marks &
Spencer, Tesco, Kodak, many local authorities and C&A.
Over the last 15 years, Mencap Pathway has enabled
over 3,500 adults with a learning disability to gain employment.
Services are currently in operation in approximately 30 local
authority areas.
2 For an explanation of what Mencap's Pathway service
does see Annex 1. Back
3
DSS Research Report No. 139, "Recruiting Benefit Claimants:
A Survey of Employers in ONE Pilot Areas", Karen Blunt, Jan
Shury, David Vivian and Faye Allard, 2001. Back
4
In-House Report No. 84, "Delivering a Work-Focussed Service:
Interim Findings from the ONE Case Studies and Staff Research",
John Kelleher, Penny Youll, Penny Nelson, Kari Hadjivassiliou,
2001. Back
5
In-House Report No. 84, "Delivering a Work-Focussed Service:
Interim Findings from the ONE Case Studies and Staff Research",
John Kelleher, Penny Youll, Penny Nelson, Kari Hadjivassiliou,
2001. Back
6
In-House Report No. 84, "Delivering a Work-Focussed Service:
Interim Findings from the ONE Case Studies and Staff Research",
John Kelleher, Penny Youll, Penny Nelson, Kari Hadjivassiliou,
2001. Back
7
In-House Report No. 84, ibid. Back
| 
