Transcript Welfare Reform in Scotland

Disabled People & Employment:
ACCESS DENIED; RIGHTS
DENIED
Disabled people in the workforce
Less than 50% of disabled people in employment
However rates of worklessness rise to over 80%
for disabled people who have –
• Mental health issues
• Learning difficulties
Yet working age members of IS tell us they would
like to work, if they could…
The 14 rights to Independent
Living
Educational Needs
• 58% of Scots disabled people have no formal
qualifications compared to 24% of those with no
disability or long term illness
• Low expectations for attainment and for future.
• Colleges used as alternative to day care
centres. Evidence that disabled students do not
progress
• At age 16 young disabled people are twice as
likely to be NEET as their non-disabled peers,
and three times as likely by the age of 19.
Young Disabled People and
Employment
• Once young people finish their full-time
education and start to move into work, a much
bigger gap between disabled and non-disabled
people emerges. The gap widens to 27.8
percentage points at age 23 and then widens
further to 36.2 percentage points at age 24.
Public/Employer Attitudes
Research commissioned by Scope in Sept 2011
found that -
• two thirds of disabled people had experienced
discrimination on a daily or weekly basis
• nearly half felt that public attitudes towards
them had got worse over the past year
• Employers are part of “the public” and are thus
influenced by and party to these attitudes
Employers’ Attitudes
• Over 7 million disabled people are being prevented from
getting jobs or reaching their full potential by employers
& recruitment providers who are imposing a ‘glass
ceiling’ upon them according to the DWP’s own Disability
Steering Group.
• One in five people who disclosed a mental health
problem to their employers were sacked or forced out of
their job.
• Research by “Time to Change” found that more than half
(56%) of 2000 respondents confessed that they would
not employ someone with a mental illness even if they
knew they were the best candidate for the job.
Supported Employment?
Disability Movement would prefer disabled
workers to be fully integrated into ALL employers’
workforces. But –
• Supported Businesses exist
• Recession
• Continuing high - and likely to increase - levels
of worklessness amongst disabled people.
Bottom line we do not want to see any disabled
workers thrown on the scrapheap.
Welfare Reform & Employability
• Contributory Employment Support Allowance now restricted to
one year
• End of ILF & threat to Motability scheme
• Restrictions on use of Access to Work funding for meant
numbers of people getting fell dramatically
• Personal Independence Payment (PIP) replacing Disability
Living Allowance (DLA)
• No Lower Rate Care and fewer qualifying for Mobility
component
The Public Sector Equality Duty
• The Public Sector Equality Duty in the Equality Act
(2010)
• Puts onus on public bodies, rather than individuals
• General Duty from April 2011 for all those carrying out
public functions
• Specific Duties on listed public bodies listed public
bodies
• Covers ‘protected’ characteristics: disability, race,
religion & belief, gender, age, pregnancy, sexual
orientation, marriage and civil partnership.
General Duty
Public bodies must have due regard to the need to:
1) Eliminate discrimination
2) Advance equality of opportunity by –
• removing or minimising disadvantage
• meeting the needs of particular groups that are different
from the needs of others
• encouraging participation in public life
3) Foster good relations
The Specific duties (in Scotland)
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Equality outcomes
Mainstreaming equality
Assessment and review
Employment information
Gender pay gap information
Equal pay statement
Procurement
Scottish Ministers duty
Publication duty
Equality Duties
Specific Equality Outcomes -
• Scottish Regulations
• Gives power to Scottish Ministers to set specific duties
for Scotland
• Must publish a set of outcomes and repeat at least every
4 years
• First set published by 30 April 2013
Preparing Outcomes
Public Bodies must -
1) Take steps to involve disabled people and those who
represent their interests – i.e. Trade Unions, DPOs
2) Collect and consider relevant evidence – including firsthand evidence from disabled people.
3) If the eventual published set of outcomes does not
further the 3 aims of the Public Sector Duty in relation
to any protected characteristic (e.g. disabled people)
they must publish their reasons for not doing so.
Co-production
• Equality outcomes
• Policies
• Service design
• Via DPO’s/ individual service users
• Process: Strategy/ EOS/ organisational
→ Review/ refine/ recycle
ILIS co-production toolkit
What the independent living
movement wants as outcomes
• Better recruitment & retention of disabled people
• Better career & promotion pathways
• More disabled people in promoted posts
• Services/workplaces that are more accessible to
disabled people
• Disabled people’s involvement in planning
• Information/websites that are more accessible
• Disabled people on the Boards of the Public Bodies that
understand the needs of disabled employees and
service users