Recommendation 14

People with a learning disability and autistic people can and want to work and thrive when they get the opportunities to do so. However, they face the widest employment gap of all people with disabilities and find it difficult to get their foot in the door. The Government should: • publish a new disability employment goal based on relative measures and set out how it plans to achieve it; that goal should include a specific target for people with a learning disability and autistic people; • ensure that work to improve Disability Confident and Access to Work includes reviewing the extent to which those policies are helping employers to recruit and support people with a learning disability and autistic people; • simplify the Access to Work scheme for people with a learning disability and autistic people and tackle the delays in processing applications to that scheme; • extend the Work and Health programme for a further 12 months; • exempt people with a learning disability and autistic people who do not have an Education, Health and Care Plan from the Maths and English skills requirement for apprenticeships; • implement the recommendations of its Review of Autism Employment including, as a priority, the appointment of a task group to be chaired by someone independent of government who represents autistic people and their needs; • roll out the autism accreditation scheme in all Jobcentres; and • ensure all Jobcentre work coaches are trained in learning disability so they can effectively refer people to suitable employment support programmes.