Select Committee on Work and Pensions Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 24

Memorandum submitted by the Local Government Association (EDP 33)

  1.  The Local Government Association (LGA) is the representative body for all local authorities in England and Wales. It welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Select Committee's inquiry on this important issue. The evidence below is structured as a response to the specific questions set out in the Committee's press release dated 7 November 2002 and is based on a consultation with LGA member authorities. The response from authorities has been good reflecting the high level of interest in this subject.

SUMMARY

  A.  The term "hidden unemployment" needs unpacking. While about 30% of people on incapacity-based benefits want to work, it would be easy to overstate the "job readiness" of those claiming IB as many people on long term IB are a long way from paid employment facing the common employability barriers of competence, skills, abilities, lack of confidence, transport etc. The lack of availability of appropriate local jobs and retraining support are important factors, as well as discrimination on grounds of disability and age. The LGA has a vision of how to achieve full employment through local employment alliances, job creation policies and skills and training measures, and local flexibilities in deprived areas.

  B.  Jobseekers Allowance and Incapacity Benefit are each held at poverty levels, which compound health problems and participation in local communities and work-based effort. Because of poverty trap effects, there is often very little reward for efforts to take people towards work. The wider concern is that the system should be as interested in helping people to move towards part-time or voluntary work, skills, qualifications and participation, as it is in the focus on full-time work at present.

  C.  The Incapacity Benefit rules do not seem to acknowledge the real dilemmas that claimants face in making the choices to move into work. It is not administered in a supportive way but requires people to take risks when engaging in any work-related activity. There remains a strong perception that if you come off IB and go into work you will lose benefit entitlement should the job not work out for whatever reason.

  D.  Jobcentre Plus should be facilitating full access to appropriate help and advice and providing a sensitive service which provides the financial security people need, when sick, unemployed and/or on a pathway towards work. Concerns are about the limited skills and capacity of Jobcentre Plus to get the basic benefits and support right, their need for more training and awareness, inadequate staffing levels and the need for better local and national liaison and co-operation. The Disability Employment Advisers and Action Teams for Jobs have been good resources, and they should be expanded. The outreach contracts for independent services for Black and Minority Ethnic customers are a promising step forward.

  E.  Initiatives such as Workstep have potential to make a difference although there are ways that they could be made more effective eg by reducing the 16 hour minimum working week to eight and by merging the administration or Workstep with Access to Work.

  F.  The New Deal for Disabled People programme has tended to work for clients with a very mild learning disability, but has worked much less well for people with a more complex need or moderate to severe learning disability due to the lack of intensive support in the workplace. The experience of local authorities has shown that a large proportion of people with a learning disability are excluded from the New Deal Schemes because of the emphasis is towards 16+ hours. These issues may also apply to people with mental health problems, a sensory impairment or a physical disability. The New Deal for Disabled People has a system of Job Brokers. However, referral arrangements and outreach efforts need to be improved.

  G.  We encourage the role of good public services and not-for-profit specialist employment, advice and support agencies. Benefit advice services are an essential part of this. Claimants often prefer independent services, as they recognise that independent services do not put their existing benefits at risk and have the experience to give comprehensive, sensitive advice on all benefits issues. The issue is also about providing disabled people with a proper range of choices about whether they prefer a specific disability specialist service, a general disability specialist service, or a mainstream service with proper awareness and access. However, thought will need to be given to how funding is structured to ensure that referral processes do not allow "cherry picking" and further exclusion for those who are harder to help. One way in which the private sector could be encouraged is through the work of private recruitment agencies.

  H.  Programmes of support should definitely focus on the individual needs rather than the disability—looking at ability and potential ability first—however, organisations providing support need to ensure they have staff that understand a wide range of disabilities and continually invest in staff development. However, representation submitted to the LGA has shown that the requirements of people with complex needs and a moderate to severe learning disability are currently not adequately catered for by either the under-resourced public sector or the projects promoted by the government such as New Deal.

  I.  Assistance for disabled people moving into work includes addressing complicated benefit issues and the need for specialised, high quality employment advice, guidance and support. As well as looking at incentives to move into full-time work, strategy must also provide advice on how benefits are affected by steps or pathways towards work, such as part-time work, training, study or voluntary work. Current benefit laws and practices can penalise or under-reward people who take steps towards work, or who take up full-time work. The benefit barriers include financial disincentives, the pressures of income disruption and delays and risks placed on existing benefits, such as possible review of Disability Living Allowance.

  J.  The submissions from local authorities support the view that many employers will not consider employing people with disabilities through ignorance and fear and that discrimination at the recruitment stage will affect the chances of many people with disabilities.

  K.  Lack of knowledge among employers of the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act is a problem as is fear of litigation or tribunals. Further publicity and guidance could help. Many employers hold onto rigid work requirements. Their inflexibility and anxieties mean that they will not fairly consider taking on disabled applicants. There is a strong need to support the development of social firms and Intermediate Labour Markets. These also contribute to local economies and regeneration.

  L.  There is much that can be learned from experience abroad eg the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service in Australia which operates a multi-disciplinary rehabilitation team of case managers engaged in assessing rehabilitation needs and providing programmes (via the commissioning of services) to promote independence and/or access employment.

DO THE HIGH NUMBERS CLAIMING INCAPACITY BENEFIT REPRESENT HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT?

  2.  Local authorities and their partners working in the field of employment policy differ greatly on this issue and the question needs unpacking. National research identified through Job Centre Plus supports the view that around 30% of Incapacity Benefit (IB) recipients wish to work. The issue for these people is really whether the work they are able to do is available, and whether the working environment would be sufficiently supportive for them to take the risk. Moreover the benefits trap also comes into play, particularly for people only able to work limited hours who could find themselves worse off, or little better off, as a result. Almost 50% of people on Incapacity Benefit also get Income Support. In addition, a significant number of people also get means-tested Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit. Overall this means that a good majority of IB claimants are caught by the limited earnings disregard of £20 a week and then high "marginal tax rates" of 85-100%. This means that there is often very little reward for efforts to take people towards work. In local authorities the vast majority of people on the sick who we see are caught by these low earning disregards and tapers.

HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENTTHE EAST MIDLANDS EXAMPLE

  A recent report (200?) carried out by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University presents new estimates of "hidden" or "real" unemployment in the East Midlands. Key findings are that the real level of unemployment in the region was nearly three times higher than the claimant count at a real rate of 8.8% (January 2002) compared to a claimant level of 3.2%. The difference represents an estimated 123,000 hidden unemployed.

  Across the East Midlands in August 2001, 105,000 men and 71,000 women of working age were claiming Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance. However the geographical spread of claimants is not uniform across the region but is concentrated in areas, which have experienced large-scale job losses in the 1980's and 1990's, especially from traditional industries and have faced significant unemployment problems for many years. Leicester, Nottingham and Derby stand out as having high levels compared to their surrounding districts.

  3.  Jobseekers Allowance and Incapacity Benefit are each held at poverty levels, which compound health problems and participation in local communities and work-based effort. We want to see JSA increased and that Incapacity Benefit, or Income Support with a disability premium, should in addition recognise extra costs due to disability or ill health. There is a continuum between those who cannot work at all, due to ill health or disability, through to those who could work in a particular type of work, if available. The test of incapacity—the Personal Capability Assessment—is a blunt cut-off point and is widely experienced as punitive and unrealistic. It has points scores which claimants often have little confidence in. Job loss has fallen disproportionately on less healthy workers, many of whom are older and less skilled. There are also those who feel that work is not financially an option—this in part may not be true but because of the complexity (or perceived complexity) of the benefit/tax credit system, people will not engage with Jobcentre plus or other support agencies for fear of losing benefits. A wider concern is that the system should be as interested in helping people to move towards part-time or voluntary work, skills, qualifications and participation, as it is in the focus on full-time work at present. In addition, the LGA has a vision of how to achieve full employment through local employment alliances, job creation policies and skills and training measures, and local flexibilities in deprived areas. For example, this is set out in the documents Beyond the New Deal: A new approach to local employment policy, Helping the Hardest to Reach into Work and Joining It Up: Tackling Unemployment Locally (copies of these documents will be submitted to the Committee under separate cover). [20]These reports include examples of the community leadership role taken by local authorities, working in partnership to promote employment for hard-to-reach groups.

  4.  The Incapacity Benefit rules do not seem to acknowledge the real dilemmas that claimants face in making the choices to move into work. It is not administered in a supportive way but requires people to take risks when engaging in any work-related activity. There remains a strong perception that if you come off IB and go into work you will lose benefit entitlement should the job not work out for whatever reason.

  5.  However it would be easy to overstate the "job readiness" of those claiming IB as many people on long term IB are a long way from paid employment. In addition to their disability, they face the common employability barriers of competence, skills, abilities, lack of confidence, transport etc. Although some may wish to work they need intensive support to get there on a one-to-one basis, which can absorb a great deal of resources.

  6.  Within the client group of people with learning disabilities the readiness for work is even more unlikely. More often than not it will be necessary to encourage such clients to believe that they can earn any money—lots of people with learning disabilities still believe that "I can't earn because my benefits will get stopped". Also because lots of people have some support from parents/carers/social workers etc this support would hopefully ensure that people's work was supervised and Job Centre Plus was informed in the appropriate manner. For the majority of the client group getting any work is difficult, so they would be unlikely to be doing any work without an employment support agency involved.

  7.  The Government is obviously and quite rightly concerned with reducing the numbers of people on incapacity related benefits and encouraging more people back to work. However for people with a more moderate to severe learning disability they are unlikely to be able to reach the hours needed to be worked each week yet have just as much to offer the world of work and just as much right to work. This would seem to be echoed by the recent government white paper "Valuing People—a Strategy for Learning Disability in the 21st Century" and the Disability Discrimination Act.

WHAT IS, OR SHOULD BE, THE ROLE OF JOBCENTRE PLUS? ARE THEY DOING ENOUGH ACTIVELY TO ENGAGE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN FINDING SUITABLE WORK? ARE INITIATIVES SUCH AS WORKSTEP SUCCESSFUL?

  8.  The role of Job Centre Plus should include signposting people towards relevant services available to suit their individual needs. This generally happens for people where they may be suited to a service such as a New Deal provider or Work Step. If people have additional needs or want to explore more voluntary or work experience options first, but their long-term prospects are limited to paid work of just a few hours a week or casual paid work, then there are far fewer places to signpost people to.

  9.  Jobcentre Plus should be facilitating full access to appropriate help and advice and providing a sensitive service which provides the financial security people need, when sick, unemployed and/or on a pathway towards work. Concerns are about the limited skills and capacity of Jobcentre Plus to get the basic benefits and support right, their need for more training and awareness, inadequate staffing levels and the need for better local and national liaison and co-operation. The Disability Employment Advisers have been a good resource, and they should be expanded, as envisaged in the Green Paper. Action Team for Jobs have brought improved out-reach, but may be at risk if mainstreamed. The outreach contracts for independent services for Black and Minority Ethnic customers are a promising step forward—given the limited previous efforts—but are at a very early stage. Evidence submitted to the LGA has confirmed that Jobcentre Plus is going through a transition and cultural change, that the role of Disability Employment Advisors (DEAs) is also changing and consequently, it can be hard for partners and customers to understand the position.

  10.  In addition, local authorities have argued that initiatives such as Workstep would be improved if the 16 hour minimum work/week where reduced to eight hours as many people with disabilities wanting to access the world of work are either caught in the benefits trap or due to the nature of their disability are unable to actually work 16 hours or more. It has been suggested that people with degenerative disabilities or retention cases should not be included in progression figures as it is highly unlikely they will progress to unsupported employment due to the nature of their disability although they would benefit from the support offered through the Workstep initiative.

  11.  A clear view of local authorities active in this area is that a system whereby the same provider operates across a range of schemes: Work preparation, New Deal for Disabled People and Workstep is likely to be the most efficient. Disabled people are then able to receive an expert assessment which ensures that the right programme is identified for them at the outset.

  12.  Access to Work is seen as a programme with great potential but with crucial limitations eg it can only be used when you have a job and not at the crucial time you are trying to demonstrate to employers you would be able to do a job. Also, consideration could be given to putting the administration of the Access to Work programme with Workstep providers as this would provide a more streamlined service. When addressing the needs of people who want to work more than four hours bur less than 16 assistance via Access to work should be provided.

THE NEW DEAL FOR DISABLED PEOPLE PROGRAMME: HAVE THE LESSONS BEEN LEARNED FROM THE EARLIER PILOTS? HOW MIGHT IT BE MADE MORE EFFECTIVE?

  13.  Several of the local authorities responding to the inquiry have clients who have tried the New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) programme with varying degrees of success. NDDP has tended to work for clients with a very mild learning disability, but has worked much less well for people with a more complex need or moderate to severe learning disability due to the lack of intensive support in the workplace. These issues may also apply to people with mental health problems, a sensory impairment or a physical disability.

  14.  Some people take several months of intensive support to learn a new job and then may only be able to work for two-four hours a week either due to their complexity of need or other issues such as their housing situation. Working over 16 hours as NDDP intends would at the moment make clients ineligible for their main benefits. Financially they may be in a similar situation, but losing these benefits would lose them their entitlement to live in a residential home or supported living. Whilst a few people may be capable of doing over 16 hours a week at work in an appropriate job, these same people may not be capable of living independently and managing all their everyday affairs such as shopping, household bills etc. Working over 16 hours could severely affect their quality of health and lead to them getting into many problems with their everyday life. Therefore the experience of the local authorities responding to the inquiry indicates that a large proportion of people with a learning disability are excluded from the New Deal Schemes because of the emphasis is towards 16+ hours.

  15.  There is still also work to do with the relationship and partnership management with regard to who does what for the client in the New Deal programme. The model where a client has an NDDP advisor, a DEA and a Provider requires careful management to avoid confusion for the customer. The New Deal for Disabled People has a system of Job Brokers. However, referral arrangements and outreach efforts need to be improved.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN DELIVERING EMPLOYMENT SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND HEALTH PROBLEMS?

  16.  We encourage the role of good public services and not-for-profit specialist employment, advice and support agencies. The particular Local Authority contribution includes improved attention to welfare-to work for disabled people within Local Strategic Plans, Social Services and joint provision, regeneration efforts, welfare rights services, welfare-to-work advice initiatives and linkworker advice services for Black and Ethnic Minority community and refugee communities. Proper funding streams, empathetic services, participation and consultation with disabled people and building on best practice are key. Finances are a key issue for people considering moves into work. Benefit advice services are an essential part of this. Claimants often prefer independent services, as they recognise that independent services do not put their existing benefits at risk and have the experience to give comprehensive, sensitive advice on all benefits issues. The issue is also about providing disabled people with a proper range of choices about whether they prefer a specific disability specialist service, a general disability specialist service, or a mainstream service with proper awareness and access. However, thought will need to be given to how funding is structured to ensure that referral processes do not allow "cherry picking" and further exclusion for those who are harder to help. In engaging agencies an approach that favours increased "throughput" will lead to pressure to maximise the flow of clients. For example, people with milder learning disabilities will be seen as more likely to get the outcomes needed for funding. Whilst outcomes are based on figures provided by the organisations wanting funding, organisations are still aware of numbers and throughput so recognise that if they concentrate on more severe learning disabilities and therefore keep their numbers of new starts low because existing referrals need an intensive service for a long period of time, then they will not look as appealing as a service that processes many new starts with a high number of eight hours + outcomes due to working with more able people. Following the approach above, should agencies be engaged to move those closer to the labour market into work quickly, then recognition and increased funding support will need to be given to those in local authorities who will be left to work with more challenging disability issues.

  17.  One way in which the private sector could be encouraged to get more involved is through the work of private recruitment agencies. These agencies have significant exposure to a range of employers and could be given greater encouragement to spread the word on the benefits of employing disabled people and the support available to do so. It is important that this approach is encouraged in order that brokerage work becomes mainstreamed rather than being viewed by employers as a minority or specialist issue.

ARE THE NEEDS OF PARTICULAR GROUPS OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND HEALTH PROBLEMS ADEQUATELY CARED FOR? SHOULD EMPLOYMENT PROJECTS BE MORE INCLUSIVE AND ADAPT TO INDIVIDUAL NEED RATHER THAN BE AIMED AT PEOPLE WITH SPECIFIC DISABILITIES?

  18.  Programmes of support should definitely focus on the individual needs rather than the disability—looking at ability and potential ability first—however, organisations providing support need to ensure they have staff that understand a wide range of disabilities and continually invest in staff development.

  19.  The requirements of people with complex needs and a moderate to severe learning disability are not adequately catered for by either the under-resourced public sector or the projects promoted by the government such as New Deal as already stated throughout these answers.

  20.  Employment projects should be more inclusive to a specific disability. Different client groups vary hugely so if a project supports people with a specific disability it can focus on the needs of its client group. However they should be inclusive to all people within that client group—people are discriminated against and pigeon-holed enough already without projects for a specific client group adding further criteria so that a client finds that they do not fit in there. Everyone has something to offer, and it is necessary to challenge preconceived ideas regarding what having a job actually means—is someone holding down a job for 37 hours a week any more worthy than someone else with a moderate to severe learning disability and complex needs holding down a voluntary or paid job for two-four hours a week? It may have taken just as much effort, motivation and determination for that individual to get there.


THE TAX CREDIT AND BENEFITS SYSTEM: IS IT TOO COMPLEX FOR THE CIRCUMSTANCES FACED BY PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES? SHOULD IT BE REFORMED TO REDUCE FINANCIAL DISINCENTIVES TO FIND WORK?

  21.  Assistance for disabled people moving into work includes addressing complicated benefit issues and the need for specialised, high quality employment advice, guidance and support. As well as looking at incentives to move into full-time work, strategy must also provide advice on how benefits are affected by steps or pathways towards work, such as part-time work, training, study or voluntary work. Current benefit laws and practices can penalise or under-reward people who take steps towards work, or who take up full-time work. The benefit barriers include financial disincentives, the pressures of income disruption and delays and risks placed on existing benefits, such as possible review of Disability Living Allowance. The local authorities responding to the inquiry agree that the system is very complicated and made a number of suggestions as to ways it could be made simpler. Clearly those ideas would need to be costed but are broadly aimed at joining up existing incentives in a simpler format. However it needs to be stated that although the benefits system is very complex, disabled clients have very differing needs and circumstances of care, support and living so in some senses a degree of complexity may be unavoidable.

  22.  Tight rules on incapacity for work often run counter to the support, flexibility and encouragement needed to move towards or into work. For example, very many disabled people who have been through the Personal Capability Assessment procedures speak of it as a deeply stressful experience, because of the nature of the process coupled with the effect the outcome will have on their income. It has many negative effects on work plans. It discourages permitted work, voluntary work or study, even though these are possible under the rules, because people fear triggering another test. The Personal Capability Assessment is particularly poorly received by people with mental health problems. The new "permitted work" rules are a huge new barrier to taking the first step into paid work. Most claimants are limited to gaining £20 a week because they are on income-based benefits. The rules do not help people to step up their hours gradually—unrealistically, they expect people top leap up to 16+ hours a week. Many claimants are also restricted to six or 12 months assistance. This is inadequate, as it often will take much longer to build up skills and confidence and to find appropriate work at each stage. Indeed, the new rules have diminished the prospects and availability of appropriate work. As an illustrative example a local authority respondent stated that that they had come across two people with what seems to be a very similar level of learning disability, yet one is on Income Support benefits so can only earn £20 a week before they lose pound for pound to Income Support, yet the other is on Incapacity Benefit so they can earn right up to £67.50 a week. Feedback received by local authorities from parents indicates that they find the benefits system very worrying and confusing and therefore are sometimes reluctant to let their son/daughter/ward take on paid work for fear of the effect on their eligibility for benefits. This presents yet another barrier to work.

  23.  More work could be done on making information regarding the benefits system more accessible and available for people with a learning disability—making sure things are written in simple language including letters to people. Responding local authorities stated that they have received many phone calls from concerned clients and their carers because they haven't understood letters they have been sent and are terrified that all their benefits are about to cease. Important information should be sent by letter but a named contact and a telephone number should also be included so that if people are worried they can ring and talk to someone who knows about their case. Some sort of drop-in advice centre for people with learning disabilities and their parents/carers to get benefits advice might also be useful. Although the Job Centres Plus offices are available for people to go along to or phone, some sort of benefits "clinic" with people specially trained to deal with people with learning disabilities may be more suitable. Many people find talking on the phone quite stressful and may not be able to quote some of the facts and figures they might need over, but may be able to bring a heap of documents along to a meeting. People need an informed choice and someone being available to do better-off calculations. Many local authorities provide this service for their clients but there are many out there who do not have access to this and includes the ability to make simple calculations of what peoples income would be if they did four hrs, eight hrs, 12 hrs and +16 hrs work. This would then give them a better idea of what kind of work to aim for.

  24.  Disabled Person's Tax Credit is heavily under claimed and its eligibility rules are too limited. It has had very little publicity. The basic entitlement is to be replicated in the new Working Tax Credit from April 2003. We are disappointed that the opportunity has not been taken to expand the eligibility criteria. We would like to see explicit targeted efforts to ensure that the new Working Tax Credit is promoted to disabled customers, together with improved official targets and partnership-based take-up work. We welcome the new top-up proposed in the Green Paper, as well as the separation of Child Tax Credit and new entitlement for childless people aged 25+ in Working Tax Credit. The system of benefits run-ons, bonuses and linking rules is receiving welcome attention in the Green Paper, with some beneficial expansions in coverage proposed, such as Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit for people on Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance. However, further steps are needed to make the run-ons simple and automatic, as awareness and take-up have been poor. However the proposed switch to the Job Grant is less favorable for many claimants and excludes those aged under 25. Jobcentre Plus often poorly administers linking rules and accordingly claimants are unable to avail themselves of potentially reassuring support.

HOW DOES DISCRIMINATION HINDER THE EMPLOYMENT OF DISABLED PEOPLE?

  25.  The submissions from local authorities support the view that many employers will not consider employing people with disabilities through ignorance and fear and that discrimination at the recruitment stage will affect the chances of many people with disabilities.

  26.  There is concern that employers have little understanding of the Disability Discrimination Act and its implications, which often this puts them off supporting disabled staff in employment. Employers are often not aware of the help that is available through programmes like Access to Work. Many employers hold onto rigid work requirements. Their inflexibility and anxieties mean that they will not fairly consider taking on disabled applicants. There is a strong need to support the development of social firms and Intermediate Labour Markets. These also contribute to local economies and regeneration.

  27.  Often discrimination is based on people with a learning disability not in the past being actively encouraged to work. The implication of this is that lots of people—employers, people with learning disability, the public, parents and carers and professionals—often lack an awareness of people's potential to work and hold down a job—be that paid or voluntary. This is echoed further up the chain as mentioned with funding being primarily related paid employment of eight hours plus, which in turn encourages projects to look exclusively at more able clients. Measuring success solely as getting someone into employment for eight hours plus per week effectively downgrades all the people with learning disabilities who have put considerable effort into getting two hours work per week.

  28.  Local authority respondents have commented that whilst people can learn new skills for work, where one is looking at individuals with complex needs and a dual mental health diagnosis, the situation is unlikely to suddenly resolve itself. If one waits for a time when these individuals are ready to work for three hours a week every Monday morning, then these enthusiastic, committed individuals may not get the chance to work in their whole lifetimes. Local authorities state that many of the employers engaged in the process and colleagues within their places of employment are impressed and enlightened by how much people facing such disabilities can do. The best way to challenge prejudice and misconception may be to actually place disabled people alongside the existing workers and show what they can do.

WHAT EFFECT DOES THE DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT HAVE?

  29.  The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) has had varying effects on the employment of disabled people. Lots of the bigger employers are very aware of it and have taken steps to bring their company in line with it. Some of the smaller companies are aware of it and have responded very proactively while some are aware of it and may not have done anything about it. For these it is often real life experiences that make the difference. Having a positive experience of someone on a work placement through careful job matching and intensive support can open people's eyes and change their perceptions. Equally having a badly planned and poorly supported placement can effect how they feel about offering that whole client group an opportunity in the future. A campaign to promote the DDA might help to reduce the ignorance surrounding it.

  30.  However, lack of knowledge is only one problem as there is evidence that fear of opening up a company to charges of discrimination once a disabled person has been employed may itself be discouraging employers from taking on disabled people (or of adequately addressing the issues of competencies of disabled people for fear of falling foul of the legislation). A 2001 survey of the top 300 FTSE companies identified that fear as a major reason for the low employment rate of disabled people.

  31.  Clearer guidance on the DDA could help eradicate employers' fears. Further guidance supported by adequate training, monitoring and regular review, will enhance the effectiveness of the DDA. Finally the DDA needs to be marketed and policed more proactively if people are to take it seriously, recognise diversity and acknowledge and act upon the requirements of the Act. There is also a sense that even for people wishing to take tribunal action there can be difficulties in finding appropriate representation. Reasonable adjustments are often inexpensive. The Disability Rights Commission has called for some time-limited tax breaks to further ease the transition. Some larger employers, including many local authorities and the NHS, are also showing greater willingness to take on disabled staff, with improved codes of good practice.

WHAT EXPERIENCE DO OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE IN TACKLING THE GROWTH IN THE NUMBERS CLAIMING INCAPACITY-RELATED BENEFITS?

  32.  In terms of useful experience from abroad, one LGA member authority referred to the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service in Australia which is a multi-disciplinary rehabilitation team of case managers engaged in assessing rehabilitation needs and providing programmes (via the commissioning of services) to promote independence and/or access employment. To this end, physiotherapists undertake functional assessments, occupational therapists look at aids/adaptations issues and psychologists might undertake vocational assessments, etc. The organisation also has funding to arrange work trials with employers. Individuals receive a training "wage"—with no cost to the employer—and approaches an employer for a placement. In some cases employers subsequently will offer people permanent contracts but at the least, individuals can gain skills and confidence and recent work experience for their CVs. When work-ready they are then able to join job clubs run by the employment services to support them with job seeking. The service is open to people facing all disabilities whether congenital or acquired including sensory and psychiatric. The service works closely with the social security and employment agencies who often refer people. The employment service also reviews people claiming incapacity benefit and both the employment and rehab agency was invited to these meetings with the individuals consent to offer information and support re rehabilitation needs. See the IPPR report (Workplace Support, Retention and Rehabilitation: An Australian Perspective, Terese Rein, IPPR, November 2002).

  33.  In many other countries including the USA, Germany, Italy France tax incentives are given to employers to take on disabled staff thus reducing their tax and encouraging them to take on and include disabled people into their workforce.

Tony Rich

Programme Manager

Economic and Environmental Policy Division

10 January 2003


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