Asked by
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to continue
the work programme set out in the Buckland Review of Autism
Employment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work
and Pensions () (Lab)
My Lords, we believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to
work. In Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay, we committed to raising
awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace. The Buckland review
was independently led and explored the specific barriers that
people with autism face when seeking employment and remaining in
work, and it made some helpful recommendations to remove those
barriers. We are exploring how to expand this to meet our
commitment to provide the right support for all neurodiverse
people to enter, remain in or return to employment.
(Lab)
My Lords, just three in 10 autistic people are in employment. A
report for Autistica found that doubling the employment rate of
autistic people could boost the economy by £1.5 billion. I am
sure that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, whose
key mission is to kick-start economic growth, would welcome that.
The Buckland report showed us a way forward, but recruitment of
the task force to put forward the recommendations of the report
was put on hold when the general election was called. Can the
Government confirm that they will now go ahead and commence the
recruitment?
(Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right about the
shockingly low level of employment of autistic people. It is
shocking to find that only about 35% of autistic employees feel
able to be really open in work about being autistic—how can they
develop, and how can the employers learn? We very much welcome
the report from Sir . The process had begun, in
the sense that informal expressions of interest had been made
about the task force, but the process was stopped by the general
election. Ministers are meeting with Sir next month to discuss the
report's recommendations and to look at expanding the scope to
cover neurodiversity in general and not just autism. Recruitment
for the task force is paused for the moment, but my department is
working with colleagues across government to look at each of the
recommendations under the five themes and to find ways in which
we can apply that learning to neurodiversity in general.
(PC)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the work that Sir has undertaken in this
sphere over many years. Can the Minister give any indication of
how long the Government are likely to take to come to some
positive conclusions regarding the report?
(Lab)
My Lords, obviously, having only just come into government, we
have only just begun to look at this, but there are things in the
report that the department was already doing that we can
therefore develop. For example, the review pointed to the need to
develop a digital service we have that is aimed at employers and
supports employee health and disability. We are looking at other
ways to make that more visible and easier to reach, because
employers often want to engage people but need help in
understanding the barriers so they can work out how to get better
at this. We can start learning from that already, but we will
move on to this as fast as we can.
(LD)
My Lords, what are the Government doing about passporting when
those identified in the education sector and training go into
employment? If you have to reapply for support and help at any
point, that puts on a further brake and, as this is not generally
handled easily and quickly, it means the employer has extra
costs. What are the Government doing in practical terms to
address this? I remind the House of my declared interests.
(Lab)
My Lords, I confess that I have learned a lot about this in the
last week. There is a huge range of schemes and support out
there. For example, DWP has specialist coaches—people who can
support our work coaches and work with people with autism who
want to move into jobs or develop them. We have schemes of all
kinds, such as internship schemes for young people with autism
and other disabilities. We have ways of working directly with
people and supporting them. We have schemes with employers, and
there is Access to Work, through which people can apply for
support directly. DWP is trying to make all the work we do as
tailored as possible to individuals, so that we can give people
the support they need to get them into a job, keep it, progress
in it and stay there.
(Con)
My Lords, the previous Government saw it as a vital priority, on
the back of the key recommendation from the Buckland review, to
work with employers to encourage more employment of autistic
people, which has been mentioned. How will the Government's
recent decision to change the PIP and WCA assessments under the
new Health Assessment Advisory Service affect such progress,
particularly as the Minister's letter of 6 September states that
there will be “an impact on service levels”?
(Lab)
My Lords, as I took over as Minister from the noble Viscount, I
am sure that he is quite aware of the contracting issues that led
to the decisions that were made in the department.
Probably the single most important thing when dealing with
somebody with autism or another disability coming forward is that
the person who assesses the health condition is properly trained
and has the resources needed to make an appropriate assessment.
As of yesterday, we have brought the educational material for all
our healthcare assessors in-house, so that we can control the
quality, make sure we train people well and support them well, so
that when they are making these important decisions about whether
someone is entitled to support or not, they are able to
understand what they are hearing, and the person can come forward
and get the best possible support at the next stage. We are
committed to supporting disabled people of all kinds into work,
and we will make that a reality.
(CB)
My Lords, I appreciate that I may be expanding the Question into
the remit of her noble friend sat alongside her. Work experience
is a vital window into the world of work for people with learning
disabilities and autism, yet I am not sure we can be convinced
that young people with such disabilities have the same experience
of work through work experience programmes. What will this
Government do to help employers provide work experience
placements and to encourage them to offer this opportunity to all
children, regardless of neurodiverse conditions?
(Lab)
My Lords, I confess that I do not have the details about what is
being done about work experience, but we are developing the
availability of supported employment, including for autistic
people and those with other neurodivergent conditions, and across
other disabilities. We are trying to tackle the problem of hidden
worklessness. The idea is that we will start progressing towards
the goal of a more collaborative, locally led approach to help
people into work. Once it is fully rolled out, the aim is to
support up to 100,000 disabled people, including people with
health conditions and quite complex barriers. Eligible and
suitable participants will get one-to-one support for up to 12
months, which will help them identify what they want to do, find
a job that might be suitable, and get wraparound support. If we
can get this right first time, we can support people to stay in
work for a long time. That is a real benefit to the individual,
and to the employer. I am hopeful that we can improve in this
area over the months ahead.
of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, over many years I and many others have said that when
people are being trained to teach, we also need them to be
trained to know what a meltdown is about and how to handle it.
There are still not enough people who truly understand SEND and
what really happens. I am more than interested in this because I
have a grandson who is autistic, and I have followed this through
many times. We need at least 2,000 educational psychologists to
identify people at an early enough stage that they have an
opportunity to put something back into society. The whole thing
must be sped up. I know many people who are disabled—through
Motability, which I co-founded many years ago—who would be
delighted to be able to put something back into society after
having been helped for so many years.
(Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that question, and I pay tribute to
his many years of work with Motability, a scheme which has helped
many people. He makes an important point. I sometimes think that
our system has had trouble, in that what looks like bad behaviour
is in fact something quite different. One of the challenges for
public sector professionals in all areas is to get the kind of
training to understand what they see in front of them. If we do
not have the experience or understanding, it is not unreasonable
to misinterpret a pattern of behaviour we see. That is why DWP
has put so much effort into trying to improve and develop the
training. In any organisation, if we take the time to ask, we
will find that many of our staff have relevant experience to
bring and to share with their colleagues. I have no doubt that
similar work is being done elsewhere. I know that my colleagues
at the Department for Education are looking carefully at how the
Government can better support SEND and children who are in that
position.
I thank the noble Lord for that question—it is an important
opportunity to highlight something about which there is too much
misunderstanding. Many of the conditions we have talked about
today are highly stigmatised. It is hard enough for people to
deal with the consequences of a complex condition, without a
total failure of the society around them to understand it.
(CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the transition from school
to employment is critical in the lives of many of these young
people; that there are some outstanding examples of how that
transition is being managed, but, unfortunately, they are few in
number; and that the real challenge is to make sure that what is
exceptional becomes general across the whole country?
(Lab)
My Lords, it is typical of the extent of the noble Lord's
strategic experience that he puts his finger on the question: how
do we take best practice and turn it into something the entire
system can learn from? We have some really good practice out
there. For example, I know that autistic young people on their
transition to employment can benefit specifically from supported
internships, which are aimed at young people with a learning
disability or autism who have an education, health and care plan.
One of the things we could do is look at what works from that and
how we can learn from it, and transfer it not just to other young
people with autism but to a broader category of disabled young
people trying to make those transitions. I thank the noble Lord
for that very wise suggestion.
