Source · Select Committees · Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 12
12
Rejected
Introduce banded thresholds for disabled employment to attain higher Disability Confident accreditation levels.
Conclusion
18,400 employers now have Disability Confident accreditation, helping to encourage employers to recognise the importance of making the workplace accessible for disabled people. However, this scheme focuses on processes rather than outcomes. It does not do enough to ensure that impactful change is being made to the working lives of disabled employees or to increase the number of disabled employees that accredited employers hire. DWP should strengthen the requirement for employers to recruit disabled people before being awarded a higher level of accreditation in the Disability Confident Scheme. DWP should introduce banded thresholds for the percentage of disabled people that an employer must employ in order to attain levels 2 and 3 of the Disability Confident accreditation. (Paragraph 84) 82 Plan for Jobs and employment support
Government Response Summary
The government rejected the introduction of banded thresholds for the percentage of disabled people employers must employ for Disability Confident accreditation, arguing they don't necessarily lead to fulfilling employment. It did state that it will be improving scheme guidance following a review to ensure employers are aware of requirements.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
We agree that there is a need for Disability Confident to focus on outcomes. Employers across all three levels of the scheme are required to undertake activities that provide work-opportunities for disabled people. When joining the scheme employers make commitments which include attracting disabled people and ensuring that their recruitment processes are fully inclusive and accessible; communicating and promoting vacancies to attract disabled people; offering an interview to disabled people that meet the minimum criteria for the job; anticipating and providing reasonable adjustments as required; and supporting existing disabled employees to retain employment. The current Disability Confident scheme guidance includes a requirement that employers at level 3 of the scheme must employ disabled people. The Disability Confident scheme review considered ways in which levels 2 and 3 might be strengthened. Now that we can proceed with the review, we will be improving the scheme guidance, incorporating stakeholder feedback received, to ensure employers are fully aware of the scheme requirements. Disability Confident is a voluntary, employer-led scheme that takes employers through a learning journey, which seeks to promote a cultural change and encourage businesses to recruit and retain disabled people. The scheme aims to support disabled people into genuine, long-term, meaningful work and does not currently utilise banded thresholds, which do not necessarily lead to fulfilling employment for disabled people or cultural changes within organisations. While the scheme supports employers to create inclusive workplace cultures, we recognise that not all employees will wish to disclose whether they have a disability and disclosure should be entirely voluntary. The Equality Act 2010, which replaced the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, provides the legislation that protects against discrimination of disabled people.