Disability employment gap Contents

---

2Employment support

DWP’s existing employment support provision

40.In addition to the new programmes that it has introduced in response to the pandemic (see Chapter 4), DWP also commissions and funds longer standing employment provision for unemployed disabled people. They include programmes intended to support disabled people into work, accompanied by targets such as getting at least one million more disabled people into work by 2027. In the long-term, the Department also aspires to address accessibility issues and negative attitudes amongst employers.61

41.Some of the employment support available to disabled people is commissioned by DWP directly, and available largely via Jobcentre Plus:

a)The Work and Health Programme (WHP). The Work and Health Programme is the Department’s main employment support programme. It launched in November 2017, replacing the previous Work Programme and Work Choice. It is delivered by external contractors across six geographical “package areas”. Around 75% of spaces on the Work and Health Programme are reserved for disabled people.62 In two areas—London and Greater Manchester—local authorities have devolved responsibility for commissioning and delivering their own local WHP services.63

b)The Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme (IPES) launched in 2019. It is aimed at disabled people who are at least a year away from being ready to move into work.

c)Partnership working with other organisations: for example, employers, or local colleges to offer apprenticeships, internships or supported internships.64

d)The Personal Support Package, via Jobcentre Plus from April 2017. This includes access to the Flexible Support Fund: a discretionary fund that can be used to pay for services that help claimants get into work, and to cover expenses that might stop them working. This could include help with travel costs or paying for specific training.65

42.Disabled people can also access other types of employment support outside of DWP’s core offer. Some of this is funded or co-funded by DWP and other central government Departments (such. the Department of Health and Social Care or Department for Education), while other provision is outside central government entirely:

a)Individual Placement and Support (IPS) programmes. IPS is a model of employment support aimed at people with severe mental health conditions that limit their ability to work. IPS offers specialist support to help participants find work that matches their skills and interests, and ongoing support once a participant has been placed in a job.66

b)Employment support delivered as part of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. IAPT began in 2008. One of the main areas for service development is “supporting people to find or stay in work”67 since “good work contributes to good mental health”.68

c)European Social Fund programmes (ESF). The ESF funded employment support for people who are not well-served by mainstream provision (for example, people who have additional barriers to work due to their health). Funds were controlled by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), which were given a notional amount to draw down from on a project-by-project basis, depending on the development status of the local area.69 The Government has announced that a “UK Shared Prosperity Fund” (UKSPF) will replace the ESF, but has released limited details on how this fund will work.70

d)Support delivered and funded by local organisations: for example, local authorities or housing associations.71

e)Specialist programmes delivered by third sector and independent private organisations.72

Employment support: a local or national approach?

43.Some witnesses to our inquiry told us that DWP’s current approach to employment support is not working. The Department’s main employment support programme, the Work and Health Programme (WHP), is commissioned at a national level, but delivered across England and Wales by five providers across six areas, known as Contract Package Areas (CPAs). These providers—known as “prime” providers—can then sub-contract to smaller providers. The Department has, however, agreed to “co-design” the programme in some areas, known as Devolved Deal Areas. It has also devolved powers to London and Greater Manchester to deliver their own versions of the WHP.73

44.During our inquiry, we heard evidence from Tom Pollard, an independent policy expert and former policy adviser at DWP. In a report published in 2020, This isn’t working, he recommended that DWP should no longer be responsible for delivering employment support for people facing “complex disadvantage”, including disabled people. He said:

Even during periods of low unemployment, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has a poor record of supporting this group into work—only around four per cent of those on associated benefits move into employment each year. The system DWP oversees has also often made people’s lives more difficult, exacerbating the stress and anxiety many already live with. Without major reform, the financial costs and human impact will continue to mount. It’s time to radically rethink support for this group.74

Instead, he argued that responsibility for providing employment support for people claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and the equivalent groups in Universal Credit should sit with “local ecosystems” made up of health and social care services and the third sector, coordinated by local authorities. Some practices, he says, are already working well at local level: for example, local commissioners and providers of employment support “understand their local communities and ecosystems of support” and local services can work together effectively to meet people’s needs.75 Expanding on the benefits of localised provision, he said:

The challenge of supporting more disabled people into work needs to be fundamentally reframed from being something for DWP, Jobcentres and the benefits system to address, to being something that is embedded across the range of services disabled people engage with locally. Local areas need the power and resources to properly coordinate and fund these services. Efforts being made by DWP to move this group into employment have been directly undermined by insufficient funding and coordination of this wider local ecosystem of support over many years. Meanwhile, the efforts of these local ecosystems are often undermined by having to deal with the impact that interactions with DWP have on people they support. DWP should be repositioned as a catalyst for better support for this group, that is designed and delivered locally in collaboration with communities, rather than trying to directly intervene to achieve outcomes from Whitehall, at which it has consistently proven ineffective.76

45.Other witnesses to our inquiry said that delivering employment support at a local rather than national level has advantages. Clare Gray of the Shaw Trust, a provider of the Work and Health Programme, told us that localised provision can offer support that is more specialised and flexible to a disabled person’s needs.77 Mat Ainsworth, Assistant Director for Employment at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, also said that locally commissioned programmes can provide more personalised support to disabled people than national programmes.78

46.Similar criticisms of DWP’s current approach to employment support came from charities and disabled people’s organisations. The MS Society, which supports people with multiple sclerosis, described the Department’s approach to employment support as “centralised” and “one-size fits all” and said that a local approach would deliver better outcomes for disabled people:

Low level of movements from benefits to work experience by disabled people indicate that a centralised, one-size fits all approach, which is linked to benefits, is not working. A local approach, designed by and for local people, which looks holistically at tackling the complex barriers to employment, would be better equipped to support disabled people to find and retain employment. A network of local agents, such as local authorities, charities and disabled people’s organisations, would be better able to source personalised local support, understand the local area, and forge relationships with local employers.79

The British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) agreed that specialist employment support should be “embedded in local communities”. It recognised that, while there is a role for national programmes such as the Work and Health Programme, individual support under these schemes can be minimal. BASE also said that national schemes have been associated with the practice of “cherry-picking (or creaming) and parking”, where providers are incentivised to support people who are most likely to find work, while neglecting people who are further from the labour market.80

47.Some witnesses, however, suggested that there are benefits to national programmes such as the WHP. Clare Gray said that the WHP works well for people with some health conditions and disabilities: for example, people who only require “light touch” employment support. She also said that there are “scale and capacity” issues which may constrain the delivery of employment support at local levels.81 Mat Ainsworth said that the “jury is still out” on whether a local approach to employment support results in better outcomes.82

48.We asked the Minister about the evidence we had heard when he gave evidence in May. He told us that he had a “huge amount of sympathy” for arguments in favour of locally-commissioned employment support, telling us that the “greater the personalisation and tailoring of the support for an individual, the more likely the outcomes will be positive”.83 The Minister also said that the Department would explore, in its Green Paper, how to incorporate smaller, local providers into its “menu” of support.84 In its Green Paper, the Department recognised that “one size does not fit all” and set out how it intends to improve the provision of tailored, personalised employment support.85 It also said:

We want to provide more support in local services that disabled people and people with health conditions trust and use regularly. In addition, we want to continue to build on the experience of local providers, including the voluntary sector.86

The Department also said that it would continue to embed employment support within health services, “to provide more integrated and holistic support”.87 Its consultation, launched alongside the Green Paper, has also invited views on how the Department can “work with other organisations and service providers, local authorities, health systems and the devolved administrations to provide employment support in health settings and join up local support”.88

49.When asked whether the Department would consider devolving more powers to local areas to commission and deliver employment support, the Minister said that this work had “potential”, but referred to data which suggest that devolved versions of the WHP have not led to better results than the national programme.89 In a letter sent after the evidence session, the Minister shared the following table which compares outcome rates for disabled people on the national programme to those on the devolved versions:

Table 1: WHP disabled participant starts and outcomes to February 2021

	Starts  (Contract to date (Feb 21))	Nov 17-Sep 19  Starts with a Job Outcome	Nov 17-Sep 19 Starts (% with a Job Outcome after 18 mths)
National 1–6	77,000	10,000	22%
London LGPs (4x contracts)	25,000	2,000	17%
Greater Manchester Combined Authority	11,000	1,000	21%

Source: Letter from the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, dated 30 June 2021

The Minister added, however, that simple comparisons of the number of job outcomes needed to be treated “extremely cautiously” because, he explained, “claimant composition, labour market and differing job outcome definitions may all lead to different results and therefore should not be interpreted as a proxy for overall effectiveness”.90

50.Some organisations have said, however, that national programmes have not led to improved outcomes for disabled people. Spinal Muscular Atrophy UK highlighted that while, on average, 20% of disabled participants on the Work and Health Programme have been supported into work, 80% have not.91 The Centre for Social Justice Disability Commission said that only 14% of disabled participants on the Work Programme, the predecessor to the Work and Health Programme, were supported into work. DWP’s own evaluation of the Work Programme, published in 2014, found that only 30% of disabled people reported that their Work Programme provider had offered them support related to their disability or health condition. It said:

Participants who did not get this kind of support often described complex health conditions, and did not yet feel ready to make progress towards work. In these situations, they often indicated that there was little their adviser would be able to do about their health conditions in any case, perceiving this was the remit of their medical practitioner.92

51.There is evidence that localised support, which is often delivered by small, specialist providers, helps disabled people get into and stay in work. All too often, however, disabled people are reliant on large, national programmes, or on discretionary, ad hoc support provided by Jobcentre Plus. Neither is ideal: large programmes have tended to perform badly for disabled people, and access to JCP support (for example, via the Flexible Support Fund) is, by design, not consistent. Current programmes aimed at supporting disabled people into work have not produced the desired improvements in the disability employment gap. It is time for DWP to take a new approach. We welcome the Department’s recognition, in the recently published Green Paper, that local services and providers have an important part to play, and look forward to seeing how it develops its work in this area.

52.DWP should reimagine fundamentally how it provides employment support to disabled people. We recommend that DWP should carry out a significant expansion of the number of Devolved Deal Areas, granting more powers to local authorities to set up their own localised version of the Work and Health Programme. Any devolution should be underpinned by a clear framework including benchmarks and minimum requirements that local authorities must use when commissioning support.

53.The default position should be that groups of local authorities, perhaps based on the recently-defined NHS integrated care system boundaries, where they have the will and capacity to do so, are responsible for delivering employment support for disabled people. DWP should provide funding and support to enable them to do this. This approach will not work for everyone: some local authorities may not have the capacity to commission or deliver employment support services, so there will still be a role for national programmes such as the Work and Health Programme. For some areas, however, such as areas with a Metro Mayor, this approach could work well, as we have already seen with London and Manchester. Where they want to and can, local authorities should have the power to commission their own employment support programmes. They should work closely with the Department for Health and Social Care (or devolved administrations as appropriate), the NHS, the third sector, and education and training providers to achieve this.

54.In February this year, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) published a White Paper, Integration and Innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all, which sets out proposals for a new Health and Care Bill.93 This includes proposals to expand the role of Integrated care systems (ICSs) and put them on a statutory footing. NHS England describes ICSs as “new partnerships between the organisations that meet health and care needs across an area, to coordinate services and to plan in a way that improves population health and reduces inequalities between different groups”. It also says that ICSs can “[deepen] the relationship in many areas between the NHS, local councils and other important strategic partners such as the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector”.94 In its White Paper, the DHSC said that it wants to legislate for “every part of England to be covered by an integrated care system”.95

55.Locally-commissioned employment support will require close working between local government and a variety of partners, including the NHS. Integrated care systems (ICSs) have an important role to play in strengthening these partnerships. The Government’s ambition is for every area in England to be covered by an ICS. ICSs already bring together providers and commissioners of NHS services with local authorities to plan and deliver health and care services. We recommend that the role of ICSs be expanded to include collaboration with local government on the commissioning and delivery of localised employment support to disabled people, with equivalent work by devolved administrations also being supported.

Individual Placement and Support (IPS)

56.Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is a model of employment support targeted at people with severe mental health conditions. It involves intensive, individual support and a rapid job search, followed by a placement in paid employment, with in-work support for both the employee and employer. In England, IPS is delivered through the NHS, where it is “closely integrated within community health teams”.96

57.Several organisations that gave evidence to our inquiry said that IPS is a highly effective model of employment support. Mind, a mental health charity, said that evidence now shows that IPS is more effective than traditional approaches to employment support, and recommended that DWP should invest in IPS to support people with severe mental health problems into employment.97 The Centre for Social Justice Disability Commission described IPS as “the most effective example of supported employment”; it also cited research suggesting that there are economic benefits to models such as IPS, which embed employment support within mental health services.98 Clare Gray of the Shaw Trust said that research into IPS shows that “for every £1 invested into IPS, there is a return of £1.41”.99

58.Dr Jed Boardman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists described IPS as “very personalised and […] very person-centred”.100 He referred to studies which suggest that IPS has been effective at supporting people with severe mental health conditions into work:

The second thing that is important is that it is evidence-based. I think there are 27 RCTs [randomised control trials] on IPS, and nearly all of those are working with people with psychoses—it is predominantly people with schizophrenia—and that is a difficult group of people to place in open employment. All those studies are successful—that is, the people randomised to the IPS were more likely to find a job than those people who were given business as usual, which is basically the older schemes of vocational rehabilitation.101

59.During our engagement event, we heard from a member of the public, Manon Lewis, who after experiencing serious mental illness had received employment support under the IPS model. She described finding work after undergoing support through IPS as “transformative” and “life changing”. She told us:

I sought assistance from my hospital team and was advised to seek IPS (Individual Placement and Support) from the Richmond Fellowship. I began working with Mariana Law and this became a significant turning point. Within days she came to the hospital to see me. Her enthusiasm, passion and dedication gave me hope. She immediately set about job searches in the local area, helped me write a relevant and up to date CV and prepared me for any potential interviews. My confidence blossomed and I secured part time employment. There followed unlimited and intensive individual support that continues to this day.102

60.In written evidence to our inquiry, DWP acknowledged the evidence in support of IPS. The Department said that the Work and Health Unit, a joint unit of DWP and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), is supporting the expansion of IPS services in England by funding an initiative called IPS Grow, working with NHS England.103 The Work and Health Unit has also invested in trials of IPS, aimed at assessing whether IPS has a positive impact on employment outcomes, in the Sheffield City Region and the West Midlands Combined Authority, both of which concluded in October 2020.104 Angus Gray, Director for Employers, Health and Inclusive Employment at DWP, told us that there is a “massive body of international evidence that IPS works” for people with severe mental health conditions, and that the Department is assessing whether it could be as effective for people with moderate mental health problems or physical conditions.105 He said that the Department plans to publish an impact evaluation of the trials “later this year”.106

61.The evidence we heard in favour of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) as a model of employment support is overwhelmingly positive. We welcome the fact that the Department has invested in trials of IPS. We urge the Department to bring forward publication of its analysis of data from these trials and to adopt IPS as a model for its employment support offer. We welcome the work that the joint Work and Health Unit has done so far on expanding the use of IPS, and DWP should continue to work with DHSC and NHS England on this.

Support from Jobcentre Plus

62.Most of DWP’s employment support offer is available through Jobcentre Plus. Throughout our inquiry, we heard that many disabled people have had a negative experience of Jobcentre Plus: common issues include not being able to access Jobcentre Plus services or not receiving support that is tailored to their needs. Matthew Oakley, Director of WPI Economics, told us that some disabled people who seek employment support through Jobcentre Plus are directed towards work opportunities that are not suitable for them. He said:

We have recently done some work speaking with disabled people about their experience of Jobcentre Plus, showing that a general feeling is that quite a lot of the support is too generic. It is not tailored to their needs and often is pushing them towards work that they suggest is unsuitable for them. One example is of a lady who was in a wheelchair who was asked whether she could do manual care work. I think her exact quote was, “I sometimes struggle to look after myself, let alone somebody else.” There are some real challenges here, and this is not to point the finger at individual work coaches or individual Jobcentres. It is just saying that within a large system it is very difficult to produce the tailored support that we need.107

63.In its Green Paper on health and disability support, DWP has set out how it intends to “[build] trust and engagement” through its Jobcentres.108 This includes the introduction of new “Health Model Offices” in 11 Jobcentres across the country with the aim of testing new initiatives, such as more intensive support for disabled people and people with health conditions, improving the link between Jobcentre Plus and health services, and adapting the “physical environment” of the Jobcentre to better suit disabled people’s needs.109 DWP also says that it has provided additional support to its staff, such as new training, to help improve the service it offers through Jobcentre Plus.110

Accessibility of Jobcentre Plus services

64.Many disabled people still struggle to access Jobcentre Plus services because their accessibility needs are not being met. Although DWP says that it is taking steps to rectify this, the evidence we heard suggests that the problems have not gone away. For example, the Royal Association for Deaf People told us that Jobcentres frequently fail to provide BSL interpreters for meetings with deaf clients.111 Sense, a charity that supports people with complex disabilities, also told us that disabled people often find the support offered by DWP inaccessible because of a lack of alternative formats.112 Martin Sigsworth of the Thomas Pocklington Trust said that many visually impaired people find Jobcentres inaccessible:

A lot of people that access our service describe having problems getting to Jobcentre Plus, getting around Jobcentre Plus, people not really knowing how to guide them properly or the support that they might need. You might arrive at the Jobcentre and you clearly need support to get to where you need to go, but they might be left standing outside or might be left standing inside.113

65.The RNID told us that Jobcentre Plus needs to improve the way in which a disabled claimant’s communication preferences are recorded. It recommended that DWP should follow the example of the Accessible Information Standard in the NHS, which stipulates that bodies under the standard’s remit must ask about a person’s needs, record them, ensure that those needs are met and then share the information with others who need it.114

66.We asked the Minister about how the Department plans to make Jobcentre Plus more accessible. He told us that the Department works “very closely” with stakeholders to understand disabled people’s needs and improve the accessibility of its services, and that the Department has already taken steps to achieve this, such as introducing a video relay service, which enables British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation for telephone calls. He also told us that hearing loop systems, sound systems which are designed for people with hearing aids, are available in Jobcentres.115 In the consultation accompanying the Green Paper, the Department has invited views on what more it can do to improve the provision of reasonable adjustments so that disabled people can access its services.116

67.It is unacceptable that some disabled people still face barriers when trying to access services through Jobcentre Plus. It is particularly shocking that services provided by the Department for Work and Pensions, whose ministerial team includes the Minister for Disabled People and which is responsible for a significant proportion of the Government’s work on disability, remain inaccessible to some disabled people. We welcome the fact that the Department is now consulting on what improvements it can make to its provision of reasonable adjustments and alternative formats, but it should act as a beacon of best practice on accessibility for the rest of government. To achieve this, it must ensure that both its premises and services are wholly accessible to disabled people. The Department should invest in and expand its provision of alternative formats for its communications with disabled people. It should ensure that BSL interpreters are provided at all meetings with Deaf clients who need one and that other accessible formats—such as large print, Braille and Easy Read—are readily available for people that need them.

68.We heard that more needs to be done to improve the way a disabled person’s communication preferences are recorded by Jobcentre Plus. DWP should take inspiration from the Accessible Information Standard model used in the NHS and create an automated process which can record a disabled person’s preferred communication method and provide the correct support accordingly.

Disability Employment Advisers

69.As well as generalist Work Coaches, who support a caseload of claimants with mixed needs, DWP also provides specialist support for disabled people in JCP. Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) work alongside Work Coaches to provide specialist support to disabled people. The Department has also introduced a new “Disability Employment Advisor Leader” role, whose job is to manage DEAs and to take on various functions of the previous “Community Partner” role, which the Department abolished in 2018.117 This echoes a recommendation made by our predecessor Committee in its Report on The Future of Jobcentre Plus.118 As a result of these changes, the Department says that it now has 800 staff dedicated to supporting disabled claimants.

70.In April 2021, DWP announced that it will increase the number of DEAs in Jobcentres by 315, bringing the total to 1,115. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, Justin Tomlinson MP, said on announcing the increase that:

We are committed to seeing 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027 and as we recover from the pandemic we are redoubling our efforts to boost the support for disabled jobseekers.

I know this is a challenging time, but we will be building on the record disability employment we have seen by protecting, supporting and creating jobs for disabled people.119

71.We heard from witnesses that the increase in the number of DEAs was very welcome. Despite this, Disability Rights UK, a disability charity, reported that the number of DEAs “fell sharply” during the pandemic. It says that there were 447 full time equivalent (FTE) DEAs at the start of 2021, compared to 661 in February 2020, although the number of generalist work coaches increased over the same period.120 Several witnesses called for the number of DEAs to increase further, reflecting likely increases in demand due to the pandemic and existing demand in JCP.121 Catherine Hale, Founder and Director of the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project, said that the number of disability employment advisors is still “too small” in proportion to the number of work coaches. She argued that the Department should recruit more DEAs who have impairment-specific knowledge so they can “apply solutions that are not one-size-fits-all but according to people’s support needs”.122

72.Some organisations also recommended that DWP should provide more impairment-specific training to Jobcentre Plus staff. The National Autistic Society, for example, said that some Jobcentre Plus staff have a poor understanding of autism, which can be a barrier to autistic people finding work. It recommends that all JCP staff should undergo mandatory training on autism.123 The Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) said that there is “a lack of deaf awareness amongst work coaches” and that better deaf awareness training is “urgently needed” for Jobcentre Plus staff.124

73.We welcome the fact that the Department has increased the number of Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) in Jobcentres. DEAs can provide specialist support to disabled people in a way that generalist Work Coaches do not, and the increase in numbers will go some way to addressing the fall in the number of DEAs during the pandemic. It is vital that all Jobcentre Plus staff, however, have a good understanding of disability, including specific conditions, and how best to support disabled people. DWP should keep the number of DEAs under review and commit to recruiting additional DEAs if demand rises. It should also ensure that any training that Jobcentre Plus staff receive on supporting disabled people is not just generic but covers the needs of specific impairment groups, including people with invisible disabilities.

Job carving

74.We heard that the Government should do more to encourage employers to “job carve” roles for disabled people. Job carving is a technique used to create a role that best matches the skills of the employee.125 During our engagement event, one participant spoke highly of job carving and called on the Government to do more to encourage large organisations to carve out roles for disabled people. They said:

One of the initiatives that I use is job carving; carving out positions for people. Mainly the people I work with have a learning disability. If there was something, the government could ask larger companies to carve out jobs specifically for people with disabilities. We have companies looking for specific people to do specific jobs, who are maybe higher up in the market, but actually for those jobs that are reasonably straightforward for people and depending on their disabilities it would be really nice to carve something out specifically for those people.126

75.In its report, Working Better: The perfect partnership - workplace solutions for disabled people and business, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) identified job carving as a method which could improve disabled peoples’ employment outcomes. The EHRC said:

It is a concept that can benefit both employers and employees through increasing productivity by realigning workers tasks. It is a flexible way of managing a workforce, which allows employers to utilise their staff skills in the most productive way whilst enabling disabled people to make a valuable contribution to the world of work. For some employees job carving may be more akin to organising flexible working hours so that a person who has a disability and is only able to work 6 hours per week can fill the gap left by the working mother who can only work 30 hours of a full-time post. For some people, job carving can be part of a package of supported employment where the employer and employee will receive ‘just enough help from a support organisation to ensure success’.127

76.Catherine Hale, Director and Founder of the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project, told us that job carving “works effectively” at supporting people with learning disabilities into work, and that it could also be an effective strategy for supporting people with energy limiting conditions. She said:

In the same way as job carving is a strategy used with learning disabilities, we think it is a really important strategy to use for people with chronic illness. We need to look at the job offers that are available in the labour market and how they can be tailored, adapted and redesigned so they are more suitable for people who can only work reduced hours, who need particularly flexible hours, who need high levels of autonomy in the workplace and who need provision to work from home.128

77.The Department has already taken steps to promote job carving. In its guidance for the Intensive Personalised Employment Support Scheme, a programme that provides one-to-one support and training to help disabled people enter into employment, DWP encourages providers to build relationships with employers and encourage them to job carve roles for participants.129 Some disability organisations, however, have called on the Government to do more. Disability organisations including Unity Works, the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project, Volition, and Forum Central have called on the Government to include job carving initiatives as part of its National Strategy for Disabled People.130

78.We welcome the fact that DWP already encourages providers of some of its disability support schemes to adopt job carving as part of their support to participants. The Department, however, should do more to support and encourage employers to adopt job carving practices when recruiting a person with a disability. As part of its National Strategy for Disabled People, DWP should provide detailed guidance to both providers and employers on how they can job carve roles for disabled people. It should also ensure that Jobcentre Plus engages with local employers to encourage them to carve out roles for disabled people.