Access to Work
44. The Access to Work (ATW) scheme provides advice
and financial help for disabled people and their employers for
employmentrelated costs resulting from a disability. Between
April 1996 and March 2001 37,236 people have received help through
ATW and the budget for 2000-01 was £29.9 million.[36]
The scheme generally received a positive response from those who
submitted written and oral evidence. However, it does come in
for severe criticism regarding its profile - it is said that too
few employers and disabled people are aware of it. Ms Simkiss
of RNIB referred to Access To Work as " a very well kept
secret."[37]
45. Ms Reith of Disability Alliance said, "One
of the problems is that employers have a fear of the costs involved
in taking on a disabled person, which bears no relation to reality,
but it prevents them taking someone on because they think it is
going to be expensive. One of the advantages of promoting Access
To Work is that not only will disabled people who need access
to work get it, but employers will feel reassured that, should
things work out expensive, there is a fund they can tap into.
In fact, we know that most of the changes that need to be made
to accommodate a disabled person are incredibly inexpensive; they
are pretty minor. Quite often they are to do with hours of work
rather than putting in expensive equipment. One of the things
that is overlooked is the need to reassure employers, and letting
them know about Access To Work so that fear is taken away."[38]
46. Other problems identified with ATW include the
low level of funding and delays in making assessments and processing
applications. Entitlement is discretionary, there is no appeals
system and it fails to facilitate career progression as there
is a lack of continuity in support when a disabled person changes
jobs. ATW is not available for work placements, vocational training
or volunteering. Also, the impact of ATW on an employer's duty
to make reasonable adjustments is said[39]
to cause confusion.
47. The Committee believes that Access to Work provides
crucial and cost effective support to disabled people and their
employers. It is a success story which could be repeated on a
much larger scale if the budget were to be increased further.
We recommend that the Access to Work budget should be increased
by a significant proportion to reflect the number of disabled
people who want to work and who need support to enable them to
do so. We also urge the Government to embark on a much wider publicity
campaign - aimed at disabled people and their employers - to increase
awareness of Access to Work.
Retention and rehabilitation
48. The eligibility requirements for Incapacity Benefit
mean that virtually everyone claiming it once had a job. Because
those on Income Support and Severe Disablement Allowance may not
have been working directly before claiming, the Green Paper cites
a figure of 28 per cent of people on incapacity benefits who were
previously in employment.[40]
49. Support for job retention programmes to prevent
people from dropping out of the labour market due to failing health
or the onset of a disability is widespread. UnumProvident suggests
that the failure to offer rehabilitation services is directly
linked to the increase in the numbers of people claiming Incapacity
Benefits.[41] The Employers
Forum on Disability say, "If we are to minimise the numbers
of people moving onto disability related benefits in the future
and if we are to minimise the risks employers associate with hiring
disabled people now, we need to put the provision of retention
related services and employer retention related policy much higher
up the policy agenda."[42]
50. Key suggestions for improvement include utilising
the existing expertise of DEAs so that JCP can prioritise job
retention. The importance of the Access to Work scheme in enabling
employers to retain employees who become sick or disabled also
plays a crucial role.
51. Jobcentre Plus should work more closely with
employers to ensure the retention and rehabilitation of employees.
The Committee welcomes the rehabilitation pilots outlined in the
Green Paper but is concerned that no mention is made of support
to ensure job retention for employees who become disabled. We
believe that much more support should be available to prevent
disabled people from dropping out of the labour force. In
line with our recommendations in the Employment Strategy report,
we believe that the Government has not harnessed sufficiently
the resources of the voluntary and private sectors. The former
has much greater experience of the intensive and long-term rehabilitation
work needed for claimants who have been on Incapacity Benefit
for a number of years. The latter has greater expertise of job
retention and rapid rehabilitation, particularly overseas in countries
like Australia where employers bear the cost of job loss through
illness or accident. We express below our concerns that the funding
regime prevents the full flowering of those areas of expertise.
We are also concerned that all the pilots proposed in the Green
Paper are to be led by the public sector - i.e. by Jobcentre Plus
and the NHS. We strongly recommend that the Government ensure
that half of the pilots are provided by the private and voluntary
sectors, to allow a much greater range of approaches to be tested.
In so doing, we draw the Government's attention to the recommendations
of the Committee's inquiry into the ONE pilots which concluded
that the narrow and detailed contractual specifications had prevented
the private and voluntary sectors from innovating as much as they
would have wanted to. Since the voluntary and private sectors
would be seeking to demonstrate their usefulness to the roll-out
of these pilots, such contractual conditions should be relaxed.
19 "New areas to benefit from Jobcentre Plus offices,
DWP press release, 10 June 2002 Back
20
Ev 68, Qq 11, 12 and 16 [Ms Simkiss] Back
21
Ev 96 Back
22
Ev 96 Back
23
Ev 36 Back
24
Ev 7 Back
25
Ev 20 Back
26
Qq 16 -18 Back
27
Qq 145 - 146 Back
28
Visit note - Appendix 42 Back
29
Q 188 Back
30
Q 25 Back
31
Q 148 Back
32
Work and Pensions Committee, Third Report of Session 2001-02
The Government's Employment Strategy HC 815 Back
33
For the full list of exempted categories, see Pathways to Work:
Helping people into employment, CM 5690, p55. Current figures
show that almost 400,000 claimants will be exempt (DWP Quarterly
Summary of Statistics, Nov 2002) Back
34
Ev 21 Back
35
Ev 27 Back
36
HC Deb, 13 May 2002, col 481w Back
37
Q 21 Back
38
Q 22 Back
39
Ev 122, para 44 (v) Back
40
Department for Work and Pensions, Pathways to Work: Helping
people into employment, CM 5690, November 2002, p55 Back
41
Ev 77 Back
42
Appendix 37, para 6b Back