APPENDIX 37
Memorandum submitted by the Employers'
Forum on Disability (EDP 48)
1a The Employers' Forum on Disability welcomes
this opportunity to contribute to your important enquiry regarding
how best to significantly increase the employment rate of disabled
people—and by so doing bring substantial benefit to employers,
disabled people and society at large.
1b The Employers' Forum was established
by the UK business community some 15 years ago in response to
a system which makes it unnecessarily difficult for the well intentioned
employer to recruit disabled people and to retain and to retain
employees who became disabled in work.
1c Our vision is a society in which private
and public sector organisations actively promote the economic
and social inclusion of people with disabilities. Our way of working
is to make it easier for the employer to employ disabled people
and serve disabled customers.
1d
— we provide employers with networking
events and technical seminars;
— we broker partnerships and joint
initiatives both business to business, and between employers and
Jobcentre Plus and other service providers;
— we commission research and publish
widely used technical briefings, training materials, campaign
literature and newsletters;
— we offer a highly regarded helpline
which specialises in helping employers find practical, cost effective
solutions in the workplace; and
— we help organisations to work to
best practice standards building on the Forum's reputation as
the authoritative employers voice on the DDA, as it effects business.
1e We bring members together in various
sub groups, such as the Broadcasters' Disability Network which
promotes the positive portrayal of disabled people and their employment
in broadcasting and the Police Disability Network.
1f Our Customer Advisory Group brings members
together to develop best practice in removing barriers for disabled
customers—our experience shows that removing barriers for
customers, be they attitudinal or physical has a positive knock-on
effect when it comes to removing barriers to the employment of
disabled people.
1g We have a network of members committed
to Recruitment That Works—that is, committed to working
in structured partnership with Jobcentre Plus in an effort to
bring substantial numbers of disabled people into work. Already
hundreds of disabled and other disadvantaged job seekers have
found work via this process.
1h Our membership now stands at some 375
organisations who between them employ circa 20% of the UK workforce.
As the world's leading publisher on disability as it affects business,
we have nearly two million publications sold to employers, who
use them to raise awareness. This guidance sets a new standard
for the way in which the issue should be positioned and managed
in the business.
1i We are funded entirely by the membership.
1j Our way of working is unique. We tackle
the barriers faced by disabled people by focussing on the needs
and expectations of the people with the jobs. We have learned
that making it easier for the employer to recruit and retain disabled
employees must inevitably make it easier for disabled people to
find and keep jobs.
1k Our experience also shows that a system
which enables significantly more disabled people to be economically
active must be more efficient in supporting all those who experience
significant disadvantage in the labour market.
1l Yes—the numbers of people on incapacity
benefit who say they want to work represents a substantial unnecessary
and cost to society and is indeed "hidden unemployment".
1m A desired outcome of our work is that
both employers and Government equate the costs associated with
enabling disabled people to work with investment in potential.
2. BARRIERS TO
EMPLOYMENT
2a The barriers disabled people experience
in the labour market are complex and multi-layered and permeate
society at large.
2b Policy makers and service providers involved
in the medical, education, training and employment rehabilitation
process for disabled people tend to share deep-rooted, often unspoken
assumptions which disadvantage disabled individuals in the labour
market. While we see considerable progress in some areas eg Jobcentre
Plus' commitment to consulting employers when evaluating their
services, the following factors continue to characterise the system.
2c A blame culture has developed which diverts
service providers from the need to improve their own services
by justifying their poor performance solely in terms of employer
prejudice. This attitude towards employers reinforces a highly
counterproductive cycle which further distances the very employers
they seek to influence. All too often advisors working with disabled
job seekers have little direct experience of the private sector
and are ill at ease dealing with supervisors and senior executives.
2d Historically services for disabled people
have not valued the employer as a user or client—nor have
they been rewarded for meeting employer needs and expectations.
For example the system values and measures placement targets but
has not rewarded providers for the quality of those retention
related services which employers rate highly. It is significant
that the Government's Green Paper again fails to address the needs
and expectations of the employer as key to bringing people off
incapacity benefit into jobs.
2e We need services which position the employer
not as a target, as is currently often the case, but first as
a valued customer and only then as a partner.
2f Employers continue to find it difficult
to attract qualified disabled applicants and have trouble finding
relevant and appealing services. As a result, well intentioned
and enlightened employers find it difficult to justify the time,
cost and effort required to effect change; not so-enlightened
employers have their reluctance to change more than justified
by the unreasonable obstacles created by the maze of uncoordinated
services.
2g Many who aim to help disabled people,
be they career advisers, teachers trainers, assessors, doctors,
rehabilitation providers, have low expectations of disabled people
and their potential to work. These "practitioners" find
it difficult to promote the business case to employers because
they themselves doubt that employing people with disabilities
truly brings genuine mutual benefit. Instead, the tone of their
communication to employers stresses a moral and perhaps legal
obligation, and tends to position disabled people as benefit recipients
who are needy, vulnerable and different, rather than as people
with talent, skills and potential.
3. DISABLED PEOPLE
ARE NATURALLY
EXCLUDED
3a Employers receive very little information
which helps them to understand how disability affects their organisation,
or the economy. It was the Forum—a business led organisation—which
researched and articulated the "Business and Ethical Case"
as presented in Unlocking Potential.
3b Nor do they see Government position disability
as a mainstream political and economic priority. They assume disability,
while important is best left in the hands of experts such as doctors,
social workers and charities. It is in this context that our members
have called for visible top level Government support, ideally
led by the Prime Minister, to communicate:
— why the DDA was needed;
— the disability dimension to mainstream
economic issues;
— the benefits which flow on all sides
from bringing disabled people into the labour market.
4. DOCTORS ARE
STILL ASSUMED
TO BE
EXPERT
4a Both employers and people with disabilities
experience the health service as a barrier. The medical profession
does not generally understand disability to be an equal opportunities
or discrimination issue and is unfamiliar with the DDA. Doctors
tend to overestimate the risk to the company associated with hiring
someone with a disability or health condition, and underestimate
the potential of the employer to make the necessary adjustments.
Millions of people in work have no access to occupational health
specialist physicians; instead, general practitioners are consulted
at recruitment and in retention cases. GPs tend to have a very
limited understanding of the realities of work and the nature
of possible adjustments and have little time in which to consider
work related adjustments.
4b We welcome the Green Paper's proposal
to engage the Health Service more effectively and would hope the
Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus will find
a way to help the Health Service respond to the needs of employers
and adopt a much more work focussed orientation to NHS interventions
in the lives of working age individuals.
4c The Forum has issued guidance to its
members on how to commission medical assessments and medical advice
in the hope that clarifying the employers' information needs and
stating the employers willingness to consider reasonable adjustments
may encourage more helpful medical interventions.
5. RECIPIENTS
OF INCAPACITY
BENEFIT ARE
NOW MAINSTREAM?
5a Now that the majority (circa 60% minimum)
of Jobcentre Plus clients are people with disabilities. We shall
inevitably see disability move into "the mainstream".
Such positioning has huge potential to shift attitudes and behaviour
both inside the system and across the employer community.
5b Now that disabled people are in "the
mainstream" that is, at the heart of the Government's Welfare
to Work strategy, anyone dealing with employers on behalf of disadvantaged
job seekers must be confident in the business case for employing
disabled people and be fully au fait with the range of services,
supports and interventions which make it easier for employers
to offer disabled people jobs. Jobcentre Plus with its historical
disability expertise invested in the Disability Employment Service
will be well placed to ensure that expertise permeates throughout
the organisation.
5c In addition given Jobcentre Plus' public
commitment—much welcomed by the employer community—to
also placing employers at the heart of their business (given it
is after all employers who have the jobs)—the organisation
will need to demonstrate specific competencies relating to meeting
the needs of employers as clients or customers and engaging employers
as potential partners.
6. RETENTION
OF PEOPLE
WHO BECOME
DISABLED IN
WORK
6a It is obviously in the interests of both
employers and Government that we retain employees who become disabled
in work wherever possible. Quality retention services responsive
to the needs of both employers and disabled employees will also/disability
related minimise the risks employers associate with hiring people
who because they bring the disability "label" are assumed
to be liable to health problems in the future.
6b 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.
6c The Employers' Forum on Disability with
support from the Post Office, BT and the Shaw Trust is now drafting
guidance for employers in the retention of employees who develop
disabilities and health related difficulties at work. We would
welcome a partnership initiative with Department for Work and
Pensions and Jobcentre Plus helping us to set a new standard for
the way in which both service providers (health and work related)
and employers manage this complex issue.
7. THE SYSTEM
WHICH DOESN'T
LEARN FROM
EXPERIENCE
7a The system which assists disabled people
to find training, jobs and to retain work is complex, multi-layered,
fragmented, and incoherent, even to the professionals/practitioners
who live in it. Few have the "big picture"—most
see only a small component and are not able to describe how other
components connect or operate. It is revealing that it should
be an employers' organisation, the Forum, which first attempted
a basic map and which first charted the first detailed journey
of a disabled job-seeker through a particular innovative scheme.
7b Innovation is hampered by a widespread
tendency to only tinker with component bits, rather than aiming
to affect significant reforms to the journeys disabled people
take through and across the system. The complex interplay between
the "human" elements of the system—the deep-rooted
stereotypes, assumptions and reward systems: and the "technical"
elements—the programmes, funding mechanisms, policies and
procedures—is not adequately understood.
7c We continue to see laissez-faire pilots
and initiatives driven by short-term objectives linked to getting
people into jobs at the lowest cost. We should see pilots carefully
designed to address specific articulated deficits in the system.
7d An innovative project may have a very
high cost per placement but be immensely worthwhile (a bargain!)
if the learning from that project results in a transformation
across the entire system. The question should not just be "what
did it cost?"; but also "what assumptions about why
and how the system usually fails have been tested?" and "which
innovative interventions have proved so powerful they should be
replicated?".
7e We need a consistent "meta-analysis"—combining
action research with process re-engineering across all the innovative
schemes and zones and projects scattered around the country. This
should address the same set of critical factors, as well as taking
into account issues specific to each locale. A key theme must
be: what has each scheme done which makes the client's journey
to the employer—and the employer journey to the client—as
streamlined, quick and efficient as possible?
8. MENTAL HEALTH
DIFFICULTIES AT
WORK
8a It has proven extremely difficult to
find expert advisors willing or able to work with us to enhance
the employment prospects of users of mental health services. The
"field" is extraordinarily confusing, with organisational
roles and responsibilities related to employment particularly
hard to decipher. Who should employers turn to for advice on the
impact of the DDA as it applies to managing chronic absenteeism
linked to depression? Who should train mental health service providers
in how to support people with mental health difficulties at work?
8b Employers and disabled people alike confront
a confusing mental health system which:
— fails to help people with mental
health difficulties to find or retain employment;
— fails to provide employers with appropriate
advice and support; and
— fails to position employment as a
priority in the eyes of mental health service providers and employers
alike.
8c We need a fundamental shift, not just
in the attitudes of employers, but in the attitudes and assumptions
of those responsible for the planning and delivery of community
care and mental health services and indeed work related disability
services more generally. Users and employers need services grounded
in a firm understanding of the needs, expectations and potential
of both people with mental health difficulties and of those who
provide the jobs.
8d For too long the employment aspirations
of people with mental health difficulties have been ignored. Only
21% of people identified as having mental health problems are
economically active. (ref: The Labour Force Survey).
8e "Unemployment is demoralising, poverty
is humiliating, and the consequences in terms of deprivation and
poor physical mental health are well known. Rising mental health
problems and suicides in young men are a striking example of the
inter-connectiveness of employment and good mental health".
(ref: "Making Progress in Mental Health: A National Framework
for Local Action" Dr Edward Peck and Ms Ingrid Barker; Kings
College London December 1997).
8f We must do everything we can as employers
to ensure people with mental health difficulties are assessed
fairly in terms of their capacity to do the particular job; that
we add wherever possible to the quality of training and work experience
available; that we make the necessary adjustments; and that we
create a work environment which in itself promotes mental health.
8g While obviously not everyone will be
able to work or will want to work: practitioners should define
their professionalism by the extent to which they have enabled
the individual to either find work, or to reject employment on
the strength of accurate and routinely updated information about
their work related skills, aptitudes and options
8h The mental health system itself should
be measured by the numbers of users enabled to work.
9. THE DDA: IS
MENTAL ILLNESS
A DISABILITY?
9a There is a debate regarding whether or
not users of health services should or would want to be described
as "disabled" a debate of considerable significance
in the light of the DDA and the numbers on incapacity benefit.
Many mental health practitioners apparently question whether or
not the DDA, given the stigma attached to disability, should protect
individuals with mental health difficulties. Yet from the employers
perspective, our obligations to consider adjustments for people
who experience mental health difficulties—and to ensure
people with a history of mental health difficulties are not treated
less favourably—must surely only enhance this group's employment
prospects.
10. OPPORTUNITIES
10a It is heartening to see the growing
numbers of mental health organisations expressing an interest
in the work of the Forum and in employment activity. We are particularly
grateful to The Institute of Applied Health and Social Policy,
Kings College for their support.
10b The DDA has created a new environment.
Employers are now actively seeking advice on, for example, the
mental health dimension to:—
— fair recruitment practices;
— managing fair absenteeism policies;
— modifying supervisory techniques;
— the use of job coaches;
— sources of training and crisis intervention;
and
— adjustments in the workplace.
10c Service Providers face new challenges.
— How will mental health services work
with employers to ensure they know how to make re-adjustments
for people with mental health difficulties and understand the
DDA implications?
— How will people with mental health
difficulties be made aware of their new rights and responsibilities?
— How do we persuade policy makers
that people with mental health difficulties would benefit if employment
were a priority?
— Who should provide leadership in
this area?
— What is the potential role of Jobcentre
Plus?
10d Our partnership with the Autistic Society
and Jobcentre Plus has broken new ground. Members of the Forum
adapted their recruitment procedures on the understanding that
job coaches funded by Jobcentre Plus would support both the person
and the line manager. More than 90 people with Asperger Syndrome,
many previously long-term unemployed are in work so far. How do
we spread the learning?
10e The South West London and St George's
Mental Health NHS Trust, the first mental health trust to join
the Forum, has begun pioneering work. The Trust set out to employ
in the Trust itself, significant numbers of service users and
former users—some 10% of the workforce. Already they have
achieved more than 20%. Imagine the number of people who could
find work were every mental health trust to do the same. . .
11. IMPLICATIONS
FOR POLICY
MAKERS
11a In order to significantly improve the
employment prospects of people with mental health difficulties
we need:—
— a national campaign which persuades
policy makers and practitioners—in NHS, Jobcentre Plus,
Social Services, the voluntary sector and across Government—that
"employment" is achievable for people with mental health
difficulties and is a priority;
— to develop a national training strategy
to equip mental health practitioners with skills related to work
related assessment, to job matching, to job coaching, to meeting
the needs and expectations of both job seeker and employer;
— to develop performance measures for
the mental health system which relate to placing people into work
and to helping employers to retain employees who develop mental
health difficulties;
— to implement carefully planned action
research programmes and systems reform so as to streamline the
individuals' pathways into work; and
— to develop structured partnerships
with employers backed by expert services and support, building
on the proven track record of Recruitment That Works.
11b The new climate, and the new emphasis
on helping the long term unemployed more from dependence to self-sufficiency
would seem propitious.
11c We shall certainly do what we can to
move "mental health and employment" up the agenda for
employers and other stakeholders, and would welcome proposals
for how we could further assist.
12. BALANCING
SUPPLY AND
DEMAND: RECRUITMENT
THAT WORKS
12a We shall not see a substantial reduction
in the numbers of unemployed disabled people if the system continues
to fail to meet the needs of employers.
12b It is very exciting to see Jobcentre
Plus publicly acknowledging the need to meet this challenge and
to working with the Forum and its members to find a fresh approach,
based largely on what we learned piloting Recruitment That Works
in Centrica, Co-operative Insurance Society, Barclays, Guy's and
St Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust and other companies.
12c Centrica was the only private sector
employer to receive funding under New Deal for Disabled People,
to pilot and to evaluate with the Forum a way of bringing employer
and recruitment agency together so as to bring significant numbers
of disabled people into jobs.
12d The Forum published "Recruitment
That Works"—launched by the Secretary of State at Department
for Work and Pensions Alistair Darling some 18 months ago. This
document—the only manual on how to translate learning from
a New Deal pilot into action—serves as a blueprint helping
an employer and Jobcentre Plus to generate a Service Level Agreement.
This agreement spells out clearly what the employer will do differently—and
what Jobcentre Plus will do differently—in order to fill
a target number of vacancies within a particular timetable.
12e I would stress the potential of the
Recruitment That Works process lies in the way it defines a structured
relationship between the employer and the job placement agency.
Success is linked to the understanding that it is not just the
employer that needs to change policies, procedures, attitudes;
Jobcentre Plus and/or the voluntary sector partners also to need
to change their assumptions and the way they work. Recruitment
That Works expects that the agency will seek out all and any disabled
people with the skills needed to do the jobs on offer and not
be confined to any particular case load or benefit category. In
addition the agency will send its advisers/staff into the business
to that they are better able to describe the employer, its culture
and expectations to job seekers and then help the employer to
screen in suitable candidates.
12f The Forum acts as a neutral broker of
the process, helping employer and Jobcentre Plus to design the
projects and we troubleshoot—troubleshooting made necessary
by deeply entrenched assumptions on both sides as to the way things
get done.
12g We are delighted by the very positive
response inside Jobcentre Plus to the potential Recruitment That
Works presents as a method for bringing supply and demand together
more effectively. We now hope to see strong Government and Departmental
investment in building the systems capacity—and indeed building
the Forum's capacity—to move this initiative from the margins
into the heart of the way we all do business.
13. PARTNERSHIP
BETWEEN EMPLOYERS
AND GOVERNMENT
13a The UK business community has demonstrated
through its sustained and growing support of the Employers' Forum
on Disability that it has the will and the potential to engage
in innovative partnerships, which in turn have the potential to
make it easier for all disadvantaged to find work. We would hope
to be able to put in place a much more structured relationship
with Government as we endeavour with their limited resources to
reinforce partnership and action research across the UK.
Susan Scott-Parker
Chief Executive
27 January 2003
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