Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600
- 609)
TUESDAY 30 MARCH 2004
MS ROWENA
DAW, MR
LEE SMITH,
MR GERALD
JONES, DR
JED BOARDMAN
AND MR
PAUL FARMER
Q600 Tom Levitt: You may have seen
the brief question but I have changed it and split it into two
parts. I will start again. Mind, in their evidence, say that an
expanded definition will inevitably bring more people within the
scope of the Act. We will come on to the numbers in a minute.
When you say that it is going to bring more people within the
scope of the Act, you are clearly talking about either people
with mental health problems or people who suffer discrimination
or do you believe that those two groups are one and the same group
of people and that all people with mental health problems suffer
discrimination?
Ms Daw: No. It will certainly
bring more people with mental health problems within the definition.
Not all of those will be found to have suffered discrimination
because of course it is possible in some circumstances—Obviously
the main thing that has to happen under the Act is that discrimination
has occurred. Merely because you come within the Act does not
mean that you can prove that you have suffered discrimination.
Is that an answer to what you are saying or have I missed the
point?
Q601 Tom Levitt: It is possibly an
answer in terms of employment and my experience of the DDA to
date but clearly the DDA is going to be expanded to goods and
services as well and there is the possibility of discrimination
in that field.
Ms Daw: Yes.
Q602 Tom Levitt: Perhaps I could
go on to the second part of the question. You went on to say,
". . . although it is hard to estimate how many." It
might be hard but I am inviting you to try to estimate how many
and again perhaps in the context of both the employment and the
goods and services aspects.
Ms Daw: The aspect that is hard
to predict, I think, is that a major reason why people do not
take cases is the uncertainty in the law. So, there are some people
who are already covered with mental health problems who are not
taking cases for the reasons I have said before and I think it
is hard to predict exactly what the impact will be. Apart from
that, yes, we have found some figures and we have looked at the
figures.
Mr Farmer: Perhaps I could start
by filling some context into this. The Government's own statistics
on those people who are applying to employment tribunals in respect
of the DDA found that 58 per cent of people who were going down
the physical health route were meeting the definition of disability
compared to only 15 per cent of applicants who were citing the
mental health problem issue. So, I suppose what that is trying
to illustrate is that we have an inequality in terms of the people
who are reaching the criteria. Now, obviously there are lots of
reasons that one might want to go into to try and understand why
that might be but, on the basic level, there seems to be clearly
some inequality. In terms of the workforce issue first and then
the wider issue secondly, to give you a sense of this, the national
workforce survey has identified 519,000 people who are identified
as long-term disabled by mental health problems, of which 18 per
cent, so something like 95,000 people, are in employment. So,
if you like 95,000 is the largest possible number. As Rowena has
already explained, I think it is very clear that quite a large
proportion of those people will already be covered by the basis
of the current DDA. So, it is impossible for us to give you a
precise figure on that but it cannot be more than 95,000 people
since that is the number who are in employment. On the wider scale,
I think our estimate particularly around the question of the depression
group, is that our best estimate of the people who would qualify
under this would be around 200,000 people. So, there are 200,000
additional people who may be affected by the goods and services
issue as well.
Q603 Tom Levitt: You mentioned 95,000
people in employment could only be the ones covered by that aspect
of the legislation but of course those who are outside employment
but trying to get into it could also be covered by the employment
side.
Mr Farmer: Yes.
Q604 Tom Levitt: Just springing another
question out of the blue on you, one of the things that this proposed
bill is looking at is discrimination in advertisements for employment.
Do you have any evidence of that happening in respect of people
with mental health problems?
Mr Farmer: In the sense of advertising?
Q605 Tom Levitt: A discriminating
advertisement.
Ms Daw: It is certainly not an
issue that has come particularly to the attention of the legal
unit that I am aware of but we can certainly get back to you on
that. We could go back to them and ask them and speak to Rethink
as well. It is not a major issue, as far as I understand.
Mr Farmer: Not so much in respect
of employment but I think there are wider issues around depiction
and discriminatory images within advertising more widely. Within
employment, I am not sure it is so much a specific issue.
Q606 Miss Begg: Just to carry on
the questions about the effect of expanding the definition, what
problems do you foresee that expansion might raise for employers
and service providers?
Mr Smith: We wanted to begin responding
to this one with a word of optimism really, that evidence that
has been put to us suggests that practice attitudes are improving,
that is evidence from the CBI suggest that is the case. We actually
see some advantages in our proposals in that currently there is
a great deal of inadequate clarity and we suggest that our proposals
will make things clearer where people are disabled.
Mr Farmer: Just to add to that,
Rethink employs around 1,500 staff and, by our nature as a mental
health charity, we employ quite a lot of people with mental health
problems.
Q607 Chairman: What sort of proportion
would that be of the staff?
Mr Farmer: Probably upwards of
15 per cent heading up towards 20 per cent at the moment. Extraordinarily,
often people do not disclose their mental health problem in their
initial application even though they are applying for a mental
health charity and I think that says quite a lot about the over-arching
stigma that Gerald referred to. People just instinctively feel
that they should not disclose this and of course that creates
issues further down the line. I think what we do say as an employer
is that putting in place some quite straightforward reasonable
adjustments that can be put in place for people with mental health
problems are not that difficult to do. So, flexible working is
perhaps the best example of that where a core house system or
some form of flexible working system enables somebody who does
have a mental health problem to be engaged with their work in
an appropriate way. The other thing we find as a provider of services
for people with mental health problems where we are helping people
get back into work is that we see from a number of employers,
as Lee has mentioned, a shift, perhaps possibly related to the
fact that we now have a fuller labour market than we have had
for some time, so people will want to hang on to staff who are
good and will try and do their best and, in some areas where there
are very high levels of employment, people are looking much more
constructively at the ways of helping supporting people. If I
can just give you a quick example of this. One of our Rethink
employment services in Essex works very closely with the local
branch of Marks & Spencer. Somebody wanted to come into a
job with M&S and our employment support worker was taken on
as a buddy/mentor, if you like, for the first few weeks that that
person was working for M&S. The great thing about that was
the kind of confidence that people often need in trying to get
back into the workplace was really helped and supported by having
somebody whom they trusted right next to them helping stack the
shelves, working the checkouts, the whole thing, and that person
is now in full-time employment doing really well on his own and
has been in the job now for well over a year. It is a simple reasonable
adjustment that is not always necessarily a very long-term time-limited
thing. I think these types of good practice are, if anything,
almost being hindered by the lack of clarity and the lack of certainty
around issues like the definition within the legislation itself.
Q608 Miss Begg: Have you not highlighted
a catch 22 situation there yourself in that, because of the stigma
of mental health, people do not admit, when they apply for a job
or when they are going for a service, that they have a mental
health problem? Therefore, how does the employer or the service
provider know whether to make the reasonable adjustments? If they
do not, they then may find themselves falling foul of the Act
through no fault of their own because they did not actually realise
in the first place. How do you overcome that and how will what
you propose overcome that?
Mr Farmer: You are right because
the stigma is clearly an overriding issue and I think Gerald wants
to come in and make a comment from his perspective on this. By
clarifying the nature of the legislation, that, if you like, encourages
people to have more confidence about disclosing and, if they recognise
that they are being protected under the legislation, as opposed
to feeling threatened by punitive action, if you like, then I
think that will help people overcome their lack of confidence
in disclosure. It clearly comes back to the initial question we
had about how legislation can affect attitudes but I think that,
in a particular way, this can make a significant difference to
changing because, if it changes employers' attitudes, then it
changes employees' attitudes. If people find themselves supported
and helped in that process, other people will have more confidence
to come forward.
Mr Jones: When you are in a position
of looking for employment from the mental health perspective,
the key issue is to try and keep your mental health problems under
wraps to actually gain an interview and then reveal it to the
employer. Most of the better employers to whom I have spoken are
very understanding but there is a significant majority who are
not understanding and, if you reveal your illness too early on,
then you are really at the mercy of the individual manager or
representative of that company as to whether you get an interview
or not. I used the word carefully when I said "company"
because, many times, you have to go through a recruitment agency
and going through a recruitment agency is really like going through
a brick wall. They are the single biggest obstacle of the lot.
It is worse as well because many companies will actually contract
out the initial selection to a recruitment agency, so you actually
do not get any access to the company at all.
Ms Daw: Could I just come in here
briefly because you were talking also about this problem of how
people can know what to do if they do not disclose. The Work Foundation
is doing very good work with employers, putting out packs and
advice and guidance and there needs to be a lot more than that
because mental health problems in the workforce are there and
whether or not people are covered by the legislation, in a sense,
good practice has to be developed and is being developed. That
is the first thing. The second thing is that it is up to individuals
to decide whether or not to disclose and they have to be aware
that if they do not disclose they are not entitled to get a reasonable
adjustment and that is simply the way it is. As far as knowledge
of disability is concerned, obviously there are many circumstances
in which it will not be possible for an employer to be found `guilty'
of discrimination if they have no knowledge of the person's disability.
In some cases it will be possible.
Q609 Lord Addington: Have you seen
any studies where it is the case that the expansion of the definition,
for instance the six months off with depression, will mean that
people will find themselves having to address the whole idea of
what it is based on for the first time? Most forms of discrimination
are based on ignorance and that is probably the best definition.
Do you feel that having this on the face of the bill, based on
your own experience and from talking to people, is a very good
way to address it?
Ms Daw: Absolutely. We find that
attitudes are a key issue in the workforce and people having to
address those attitude helps retention, it means you do not lose
a member of staff, it helps recovery of the person with the illness
and it helps employment relations. I am afraid we do see this
as a very positive way forward and inevitable.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
If there is anything else that you would like to write to us about,
we would be extremely happy to receive it. The evidence will be
sent to you and on the website. If you would like to look back
at the evidence from other witnesses and if you wish to comment
on that, that is fine. Thank you for your help. It has been a
very helpful session.
| 
