7th Report - Employment support for disabled people: Disability at Work

For too many disabled people, the workplace remains a hostile environment. This manifests itself in two main ways: a reluctance among employers to make reasonable adjustments, and inaccessible workplaces and practices that leave disabled people unnecessarily reliant on reasonable adjustments in the first place. If the government is serious about reducing disability- related economic inactivity and reducing the rate at which welfare spending is increasing, it must urgently address both these issues. (Conclusion, Paragraph 32)

To improve disabled people’s experiences of requesting reasonable adjustments, the government should strengthen the Equality Act 2010 by requiring employers to respond to requests for such adjustments in writing within two weeks. It should also provide in legislation that any written refusal must include the following: • the employer’s assessment of whether the person meets the legal definition of disabled; • the employer’s assessment of whether the person, if they consider them to be a disabled person, is at a substantial disadvantage; • the employer’s reasons, if they consider the disabled person to be at a substantial disadvantage, for concluding that the request is not reasonable; and • what advice or guidance they sought in coming to their conclusions. (Recommendation, Paragraph 33)

To provide a stronger evidence base for future policymaking, the government should commission more research into: • the impact of flexible working, particularly remote working, on productivity; 38 • the costs and benefits of giving disabled people the right to a certain amount of paid time off every year to attend disability-related medical appointments; and • the impact on disability inclusion of using AI during recruitment. (Recommendation,Paragraph 34)

We also recommend that the government provide an update on its plans to improve disabled people’s access to assistive technology, including the proposal to establish an Assistive and Accessible Technology Centre. (Recommendation, Paragraph 35)

To ensure that no disabled person misses out on reasonable adjustments through a lack of awareness or confidence, the government should require employers to provide all new employees, whether they know them to be disabled or not, with information about the rights of disabled people at work, including the right to request reasonable adjustments, and of sources of support and advocacy. It should also run an extensive awareness-raising campaign across radio, social media and television. Finally, it should increase funding to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. If it cannot do this, it should explain how it thinks the EHRC can be expected to carry out its functions properly within its current budget. (Recommendation, Paragraph 36) Keep Britain Working

We wholeheartedly support the ambition in the Keep Britain Working Report to transform the way employers manage the health of their employees and thereby prevent people from falling out of work and into economic inactivity. If it succeeds, disabled people, who leave work at a higher rate than non-disabled people, could be among those who benefit most. It is, though, too early to assess its chances of success, because there is simply not enough clarity around what the Workplace Health Provision will be and, in particular, whether it will involve the provision of occupational health services to small employers. (Conclusion, Paragraph 47)

We urge the Vanguard Taskforce, and ultimately the government, to clarify the nature of the Workplace Health Provision (WHP) by the end of the year and to include within its scope at least some element of occupational health for small employers. The Vanguards should also explore how the Healthy Working Lifecyle and WHP could be used to increase access to, and take up of, disability inclusion training among employers and line managers. (Recommendation, Paragraph 48) 39

We recognise that the focus of the Keep Britain Working Report was on preventing people from falling out of work, but the proposals being trialled by the Vanguards present an opportunity to support more disabled people into work by encouraging employers to adopt more inclusive workplace practices. We lack confidence in even a reformed Disability Confident scheme to make a meaningful difference in this area. (Conclusion, Paragraph 51)

We recommend that encouraging employers to make their workplaces more accessible for disabled people, beyond improving access to reasonable adjustments, be made an explicit aim of the Healthy Working Lifecycle (HWL) and Workplace Health Provision (WHP). The Vanguards should explore how the HWL and WHP could be used to encourage employers in all sectors and of all sizes to adopt the sorts of practices that disabled people value the most, particularly flexible working and inclusive recruitment practices. The government should also set out its intentions for monitoring the performance of the WHP. This should include its impact on the rates at which disabled people move into and fall out of work. (Recommendation, Paragraph 52)

We have concerns about the idea of sharing the burden of funding the Workplace Health Provision (WHP) equally between all employers. While we disagree that smaller employers will not benefit from the WHP, making these employers pay too much, too soon, will place a particular burden on precisely those employers who think they have the least to gain from it. (Conclusion, Paragraph 58)

We recommend that the government explore alternatives to asking small business owners to pay for the WHP, at least until the costs and benefits have started to be clearly defined. Among these alternatives, it should include the possibility of asking larger employers to pay slightly more, for example taking a supply chain approach. To inform future funding decisions, it should also undertake a full cost-benefit assessment of the WHP as compared to other disability employment interventions. (Recommendation, Paragraph 59)

Employers often overestimate the costs and risks of employing disabled people, and underestimate the return on investment and long-term benefits, but employers’ concerns will sometimes be justified. It is right, therefore, that the government explore financial incentives for employers who do the right thing, as it is doing through the Vanguards. (Conclusion, Paragraph 64)

Financial incentives for small employers to engage with the proposals in Keep Britain Working and hire more disabled people should be among the first concrete proposals coming out of the Vanguards. In its response to our report, we ask the government to give a firm commitment to testing and implementing such incentives as soon as possible, and that 40 their development be informed, where appropriate, by evidence of what has worked in comparable economies such as Denmark’s approach to encouraging employers to engage with disability employment. (Recommendation, Paragraph 65)

Mandatory disability reporting has the potential to improve disability employment rates. (Conclusion, Paragraph 69)

We recommend that the government legislate as part of the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill to require businesses with more than 250 employees to report on the number of disabled people they employ. Alongside a commitment to legislate, the government should set out its assessment of how consistently employers are defining disability where they already do report. If needs be, it should then set out its plans for providing guidance to employers on the definition of disability. (Recommendation, Paragraph 70)

We agree with the Keep Britain Working Report that the Workplace Health Provision (WHP) does not need to reinvent the wheel and should instead bring together and expand existing provision. There are already many third sector organisations, including disability charities, working with employers and disabled people, however, and these should also be included among providers of the WHP. (Conclusion, Paragraph 74)

We recommend that the WHP capitalise on the existing support available from third sector organisations by providing a single point of entry to that support for employers and employees. (Recommendation, Paragraph 75)

In the light of evidence set out throughout out report, we recommend that the Workplace Health Intelligence Unit seek to gather data on: • the impact of adjustment passports on disabled people’s access to, and experiencing of requesting, reasonable adjustments; • what adjustments work for different groups of disabled people in different sectors, along with the level of access disabled people have to different types of flexibility as compared to non-disabled people, within different sectors; • the availability of, and employer attitudes to, hybrid and remote working; and • a cost-benefit analysis of employing disabled people, especially for small businesses. (Recommendation, Paragraph 77) 41