It's official - LOCAL employment support works best!
Debra Burnett • August 11, 2021
Work and Pensions Committee report on the Disability Employment Gap
The Work and Pensions Committee has released its report on the disability employment gap and are calling for a radical overhaul and a new ambitious target to break down unacceptable employment barriers faced by disabled people.
The Committee has called on the Government to re-adopt its previous target of halving the gap, which currently stands at an increased 30 percentage points, stating a new more ambitious target of getting an additional 1.2 million disabled people into work by 2027 should also be introduced. Research by disability charity Leonard Cheshire set the scene suggesting that 71% of disabled people have had their work impacted by the pandemic, compared with 61% of non-disabled people.
The report is music to our ears! From our point of view the report makes some very overdue and welcome recommendations advocating for a more local
approach to commissioning employment support.
Committee Chair, Stephen Timms, said "The currently, overly centralised model of support simply isn’t working. We need a radical new localised approach. Support for finding and staying in a job that is much more personalised, flexible and effective should be delivered by groups of local authorities working with the NHS, training providers and charities.”
This is something that we and BASE (the British Association for Supported Employment) have been advocating for, for some time. The outstanding outcomes that supported employment organisations achieve speak for themselves. The Inquiry reported that many charities and organisations were critical of the DWP’s centralised approach to employment support, with its main programme, the Work and Health Programme (WHP) currently commissioned at a national level. The Centre for Social Justice Disability Commission said that only 14% of disabled participants on the Work Programme, the predecessor to WHP, were supported into work.
Building local relationships and partnership working is the way to go. By contrast Ways into Works outcomes are sitting around 60% of our clients in work and 90% retained in long term employment.
In the past many local authorities funded this support for their residents but austerity has meant budget cuts for non-mandatory services. The Committee calls on the DWP to take a new approach, granting more powers and funding to groups of local authorities to set up their own versions of the Work and Health Program. (p25 of the report).
Ways into Work completely supports this - bring it on - we are ready and waiting to Change
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Lives, One Job at a Time! The report made many recommendations in terms of :
- Supporting disabled people into work
- Supporting disabled people in the workplace
- The disability benefits system
- DWP’s engagement with disabled people
You can read the full Work and Pensions Inquiry Report here.
Find out more about how we support Job-Seekers and how we can help Employers
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Our Journey in Changing Lives One Job at a Time continues in our café, Barista & Beyond
An incredible good news story from one of our clients, who explains how the support from us has changed her life and helped her get her dream job!
When Rajpal first became a client at Ways into Work he had been struggling with looking for work and a good job match. Rajpal has a mild learning disability and mental health issues and had not worked for over ten years except to help now and then at his family’s supermarket. He had not worked for such a long time as he was not well enough to think about his career and life choices. When he joined Ways into Work as a Job Seeker and was assigned an Employment Coach who spent a long time getting to know him, doing a vocational profile and job matching. It was decided that the best first step was for Rajpal was to experience what different jobs and roles are like and what they would entail. Ways into Work then supported him in applying for various roles in retail and did mock interviews where he gained lots of practice. He secured a few interviews but was not offered any of the jobs. Rajpal had begun taking an interest in going to the gym and informed his Employment Coach that he would like a job at the gym. After approaching the employer, his Employment Coach secured an interview for him. He was so happy that at the interview when asked why he would like to work at the gym, he pulled out of his pocket a handwritten lengthy list of reasons why he liked the job and the skills he had to offer. This showed the employer his passion for the job and Rajpal was offered the job, working 3 days (24 hours) a week to begin with. As the leisure centre was 7 miles away, his Employment Coach supported him with applying for Access To Work transport to and from work. They also taught him and his parents how to claim his monthly ATW transport and supported him with the change of circumstances in his benefits. When Rajpal first started to work at the Leisure Centre he solely worked in the gym and his role included ensuring that all the equipment was working and clean, as well as dealing with lots of customer enquiries. This was quite a challenge for Rajpal to begin with, as it was a large premise and no two days were the same. With Job Coaching , Ways into Work was able to support Rajpal by helping to create a routine for him and also discussing with his supervisor a way of building new tasks into his days as the weeks progressed.
