Recommendation 3

We recommend that the Government adopt a target with two elements: closing the disability employment gap and increasing the number of disabled people in work. It should re-adopt its previous target of halving the disability employment gap. Alongside this, it should adopt a new, more ambitious absolute target aimed at increasing the number of disabled people in work, as its current target is not sufficiently stretching. At today’s employment levels, halving the disability employment gap would mean that around 1.2 million more disabled people need to be in work (assuming that the number of non-disabled people in work stays roughly the same). The Government should adopt this as its absolute target, which it should aim to achieve by 2027. We were disappointed to find that the Green Paper on health and disability support does not make any reference to a new target. The Government must use its National Strategy for Disabled People to set out its plans to adopt—and achieve—a more ambitious target instead. (Paragraph 23) Disability employment gap 71