Behaviour of employers and consumers must change to close the disability employment gap, says Localis

To meet the government’s aim of halving the disability employment gap by 2020 policy must change. The behaviour of employers and consumers must change.

The challenges disabled people face when attempting to enter the workplace are significant. As the government’s Improving Lives  green paper makes clear, “there is a lack of practical support to help (disabled) people stay connected to work and get back to work. This has to change.”

There are positive signs too. Whilst wider than in 2010 the disability employment gap has begun to close.1  Studies, many cited in this report, highlight the commercial and social benefits employing a disabled person generates.

Yet despite these affirming signs, there are still major obstacles to overcome. The pay gap between disabled and non-disabled people is widening. Disabled pupils perform worse than their non-disabled peers and are nearly twice as likely to be NEET.3  Consumer markets still too often treat disabled people and the experiences created for them as ‘sub-par’. Government can’t solve these problems on its own, but it can lead the response. Government should be bold and commit to a sector deal for disability  as part of the emerging industrial strategy.

This sector deal should address long standing barriers to the participation of disabled people in the labour market by offering enhanced support and incentives to employers, training providers and individuals.

It should also acknowledge the emerging industry developing around disability. The ‘purple pound’ is worth somewhere between £212 billion and £249 billion a year.4  Scope has estimated the specialist equipment market for disabled people in the UK is worth over £720 million a year.5  Internationally governments are supporting and investing in the assistive care markets. The number of people needing support for living with a disability is set to rise, let alone the huge number living with a disability now but without the benefit of assistive technologies, sometimes as simple as a wheelchair or the right glasses.

A sector deal for disability wouldn’t just be about meeting an abstract employment target, although the many individuals behind that target would benefit immensely. It should be about shifting the perception of disability as a barrier to full participation in our economy. It should encourage investment and confidence in our emerging assistive technology companies so that they might become world leaders in their field. And it should send a message to those people are disabled that government stands ready and willing to support them in meeting their potential.

Recommendation 1

We call on the government to create a ‘sector deal’ for disability as part of the emerging industrial strategy. It should offer measures to increase the participation of disabled people in the labour market and support the development of the industries and businesses growing up around the needs of disabled people.

Recommendation 2

As part of a sector deal for disability we propose employer national insurance contributions (NIC) for disabled workers should be abolished. There is recent precedent for the targeted removal of employer NIC from a particular demographic group. In his 2013 autumn statement then Chancellor George Osborne announced the abolition of employer national insurance contributions for workers under the age of 21. This principle should now be extended to disabled workers.

Recommendation 3

DWP to establish and chair a new working group on skills, access and employability for people with disabilities to support the sharing of best practice amongst councils, CCGs, schools and colleges locally. Preferably this should utilise existing networks, for example, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the Local Enterprise Partnership network.

Recommendation 4

Infrastructure investment should be made ‘disability sensitive’ seeking wherever possible to create clusters of investment. This could in the first place take the form of ‘Invest to Save’ pilots where HS2 investment, DWP’s spend, BEIS priorities are co-located. Also, Crown Commissioners should be mandated by ministers to provide frameworks and guidelines that make all infrastructure procurement ‘disability deal’ senstive.

Recommendation 5

Enterprise investment relief should be enhanced for businesses operating in the disability industry where there is a credible export opportunity. In addition where a new start up is owned, significantly co-owned and/or led by disabled people the SEED scheme should be permitted to apply to a wider range of sectors and business focuses. A particular area of focus should be in unlocking such investment to create a new market in accessible housing for young disabled professionals and in the development of more property based solutions to shared living and holiday and hotel centres with an especial affinity for disabled customers.

Recommendation 6

Therefore we recommend that the Office for Life Sciences (OLS) consider a designated cross government assistive technologies’ unit to specifically champion the investment, both local and global, potential of British tech firms within OLS or as a strategic new initiative built on a ‘disability deal’. We also recommend that as part of an OLS move to recognise assistive technology as ‘more than medical’ by involving DWP, DEFRA, DCLG, Department for International Trade , and DFID as well as BEIS and DH as key, high profile and integrated partners in the development of next steps. This new unit or strategic initiative a national working group be established involving input from disability organisations, assistive technology ventures of varying sizes, government departments and those local authorities with existing clusters or emerging strong commitments to this niche.

Recommendation 7

We recommend the government establish a national working party to explore how more can be done to build the investment community around the disability sector and how more might get done with less by pooling with other sources of finance and the other reliefs that we have elsewhere in the report.

Recommendation 8

We recommend that the National Citizen Service, Uprising, Catalyst and other government backed next generation leadership initiatives should develop a ‘NXG Disability Track’ and to support this locally every metro Mayor should appoint a ‘Next Generation’ Disability Champion.