Call for submissions – inquiry launched into employment support for disabled people | Politics and Insights
Disability Employment Gap 2015. Source: UK Parliament.
The Work and Pensions Committee has launched an inquiry into the Government’s commitment to halve the “disability employment gap.” According to the most recent data, 46.7% of disabled people were in work at the end of 2015 compared to 80.3% of non-disabled people. In order to close this gap, the Committee says an extra 1.2 million disabled people would need to be supported into work.
The Committee’s welfare to work report, published in October 2015, raised concerns about the lack of success of existing employment programmes in supporting disabled people into sustained employment.
Source: Politics and Insights
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Maybe should make it more obvious that the ‘Call for submissions’ is found in the first link…?
How ridiculous! Plucking another figure out their arses!
Don’t they think that most disabled people would like to work, but can’t find a like-minded employer?
The problem is with the employers who want feck to do all to do with disabled employees. With so few reasonable jobs available they must have at least one hundred able-bodied people applying for each half-decent vacancy!
Work-place disability regulations are easily ignored without penalty. Why would employers be arsed to employ a disabled person?
I have a feeling that this is just another excuse to intimidate the vulnerable.
How about asking the employers to be more disability-friendly rather than harassing the disabled?
The Work and Pensions Committee’s “disability employment gap” inquiry does not make clear whether its terms of reference address the health impacts of the ESA (WRAG) cuts—it only refers to “unintended consequences” or “adverse consequences”. The cuts (£30 a week loss of benefit, starting in April 2017) render this benefit below subsistence levels and will leave claimants struggling to sufficiently eat and heat their homes.
Being disabled is increasingly a trigger for poverty and hunger, and the 2017 ESA (WRAG) benefit won’t be sufficient enough to cover basic necessities, forcing vulnerable people to increasingly rely on food banks for their survival.
It is said that an army marches on its stomach. In 2017, a different army (cancer, Parkinson’s, and MS patients) will be death-marched to Jobcentres on empty stomachs. And, who will hire them?
I will write Frank Field, MP, Chair of the Committee, seeking clarification and expressing my concerns.
statistics are the focus of governments focus and how they can be fixed to appear positive. Fairness is an alien concept to tories.
hmm fo they really really mean stacking shelves at the salvation army or similar poverty pimp jeff3
Got a sneaky feeling that a treadmill may be making a re-appearence in the job market. Anyone for human power energy?
From personal experience, the only support provided was a Jobcentre Disabilty Employment Advisor who referred you to a workfare/ Jobclub run by Maximus (Remploy).
Upon arrival you are told that they do not have an dedicated Disability Access Officer and expect you to “muck in” with the non-disabled JSA clients.
No allowances are made and no appropriate advice given and this can lead to either sanctions or “parking” as you are a difficult client unlikely to make them a profit.
Profit chasing private providers work on a minimum outlay/maximum profit basis. Disabled clients are a lucrative source of income but also an inconvenience.
Even without a job income they are still worth around £80 per interview + costs incurred through “support”.
I hope something constructive comes out of this but I’m not holding my breath…
Even if (and it’s a big if) there were jobs for these people to go to, has anyone actually looked at the non-working ESA claimants, to see if those numbers exist who are fit enough to work at all? Because that’s the problem isn’t it? Most if not all the Support Group will have illnesses that prevent them from working in the currently accepted sense, of 35 hours a week or less, in a standard working environment outside the home in an office or factory.
We are currently looking at, for example, a surge in numbers of women aged over 60 who are simply too ill to work, but are being denied their pension and pushed onto the DWP ESA treadmill of conditionality.
It’s 6 months since I lost my job after not passing the probation period, after years of enduring different back to work ‘support’ programmes (I got the job without the support of the provider I’ve now had to go back to – who gave me no support while in the job). I was surprised I even passed the medical when I got the job – my Work Programme provider had told me to lie about my health conditions and I refused – and this is the real issue: getting employers to give jobs to people with disabilities and to support them when in work, in order to keep the job if you do manage to succeed at getting it and passing the medical….