Ministers should rethink the expensive support given to disabled people to find paid work as flagship employment schemes are failing the most vulnerable in society, according to a government adviser on disability.
Liz Sayce, the head of Disability Rights UK, says schemes such as the Work Programme, which cost hundreds of millions of pounds each year, are failing disabled people. Sayce argues that they should be replaced by more bespoke approaches “shaped by disabled people and employers, to achieve better career outcomes”.
According to the data released last month, more than 93% of disabled people on the Work Programme are failing to find long-term work. Just 6.8% of those referred to the programme in the latest three months have found long-term work.
Sayce, author of a key report to ministers that controversially advocated the closure of Remploy factories, which provided work for disabled people, described the Work Programme as “a non-work programme – at best it is heading for an 88% failure rate with people on out-of-work disability benefits. Some providers do very good work, but perverse incentives stop them spreading it. Disabled people want to play a more central role, working with employers, to secure job and career opportunities and use their talents, to the benefit of everyone.”
The charity also produced a report which surveyed 500 disabled people and found a gap between disabled people’s needs and the response from the Work Programme. For example, having a mentor who faces similar barriers can be invaluable but only 12% had been offered this, while 46% of respondents would like it.
The report, entitled Taking Control of Employment Support, calls for disabled people to have far more opportunities to gain experience and skills through work, “rather than endless ‘work preparation’. This could include work trials, work placements, traineeships, internships and apprenticeships”. The charity says placements could be paid for through personalised budgets – in essence taking disabled claimants out of the Work Programme and using the cash to fund disability employment advisers, employers and disabled people planning the support needed for the individual to get and keep the job.
“The Work Programme is projected to cost £3-5bn over five years, yet is not working for a core group: people living with disability or long-term health conditions. It is time to cut out the middleman, releasing the money that is presently being wasted and transferring control of employment support to those who know how it can be used best – disabled people and employers.”
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “Previous schemes didn’t do enough for disabled people and those on sickness benefits, which is why we introduced the Work Programme to give tailored support to address individual barriers to work. Thousands of the hardest to help people have already found lasting work through the scheme.
“More generally we have protected the budget for disability employment services and recently kickstarted a two-year advertising campaign to support business to become more confident at recruiting disabled people as sometimes employer attitudes can be a barrier to work.”
Same Difference 
Can you really take someone seriously who advocated the closure of Remploy which was not only one of the surviving furniture manufacturers in the UK, a feat in itself, but also employed hundreds of disabled individuals with productive work. It was a role model not something to be discarded so all those individuals are forced from work onto benefits. I weep at this governments insane policies that cost far more, often fail, than the money they are trying to save! I wouldn’t put them in the over privileged school tuck shop they are the heartless product of. It is not just profit before people know it has gone further into an actual culling of the vunerable and disabled even if it doesn’t make profit. This despicable government show no respect for disabled peoples achievements and human rights. Their Para Olympics PR stunt was a smoke screen for the thousand of deaths from their austerity programme. Ethnic cleansing is the correct term I believe. But those who have money they can underwrite 95% of their mortgage! Oh I am so proud of my free, fair, democratic, country – only it is not!
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It is very saddening and sickening.
I know a small number of Deaf people, now in their mid-30s, still seeking work after 18 months in spite of good basic skills and willingness to be trained. Their parents contacted me for support, but the ‘support’ I referred those young adults to has been restricted by funding – ring-fenced by boroughs, benefit status and / or age.
Yes there is also a need for quality ‘Remploy’ type provision – to have more proactive Deaf&Disabled management with safe work communications and ethos for many who could only do part-time work due to their conditions needing NHS monitoring. I know some who are both Deaf and disabled, frustrated at being stuck in a ‘care plan’ rut instead of feeling part of society by actually doing work for a few hours a week.
It is crazy that taxpayers’ money are swallowed up by able-bodied people in bureaucratic roles, even worse that those people may not have the essential knowledge and understanding of our social model thinking, and worse still, not employing professionally trained Deaf& Disabled people in the process.
It would be a huge scandal if it was a Black issue and the people controlling the issue are all white – there is a need for genuine Inclusion principle in incentives like the Work Programme,
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