Results tagged “employment”

Benefits and Work are reporting that the "linking rules" for disabled people, which provides some security for those who take up employment but are unsure what the impact may be on their health/impairment, are being stopped:

Linking rules which allow incapacity benefit (IB) claimants to return to their previous rate of benefits if they try work and have to stop again on health grounds are to be scrapped from 31 January.

From that date onwards any former IB claimant who stops work will no longer be able to take advantage of the 104 week linking rules and will, instead, have to make a fresh claim for employment and support allowance. They will be eligible only for the assessment rate for the first 13 weeks of their claim, a lower amount than they would have been entitled to if they had been covered by the linking rules, as they were promised they would be at the time they started work.

This information came via this blog post from Social Worker To-Be (itself via a tweet from ).

More on this when I have it.

The Office for Disability Issues last week published the fascinating Life Opportunities Survey.

The purpose of the survey is to compare how disabled and non-disabled people participate in a number of areas, including work, education, transport and use of public services.

There is a huge amount of incredibly valuable information in this survey across a very wide range of areas. I don't think I could do it justice without a week in a quiet room and no distractions, so here are just a few employment "highlights".

• Half of disabled adults of working age were in work, compared to 76% of non-disabled adults of working age. This gap (26%) actually represents the smallest gap there has been for some time, mainly on account of the fact it represents the lowest employment rate for non-disabled people for some time (and certainly since 2002)
• 56% of disabled people experienced restrictions in the type of amount of paid work they do, compared to 26% of non-disabled people
• 29% of disabled adults identified family responsibilities as a reason for being economically inactive (compared to 42% for non-disabled adults). Lack of confidence accounted for 19%, transport difficulties for 11% and employer attituides for 6%
• 19% of disabled people said some sort of equipment or adaptation would be an enabler of work

For those interested, here are the employment rates for disabled and non-disabled people since 2002 (plus the employment gap):

• 2002: Disabled employment rate: 44.5%; Non-disabled employment rate: 80.1%; (Gap: 35.6%)
• 2003: 45.4% - 80.2% (34.8%)
• 2004: 46.8% - 80.0% (33.2%)
• 2005: 47.0% - 79.9% (32.9%)
• 2006: 47.5% - 79.7% (32.2%)
• 2007: 47.2% - 79.5% (32.3%)
• 2008: 48.4% - 79.6% (31.2%)
• 2009: 57.4% - 77.3% (29.9%)

For anyone with any interest in disability, equality or research/stats, you could do much worse than check out the full research report on the ONS website. It's 269 pages, but nearly every page is a treasure trove of information.

Just catching up on RADAR's report on what disabled people need to support sustainable careers (report here, pdf).

As ever, the report provides an excellent overview of the issues affecting disabled people in the area of employment, and brings a useful and progressive focus on what can practically be done to address these issues, in the form of 10 propositions.

There are two messages that particularly stand out for me from the report.

The first is that "open" employment is far more preferable than "closed" (or "special") employment, i.e. those roles specifically designed for disabled people. This is a relatively brave message for RADAR to promote, but it's one I support since it sets expectations far higher, on both employers and disabled employees.

The second is the idea not of simply securing jobs for disabled people, but ensuring that careers are equally available. Linked to this is the idea of achieving not the ‘job security’ of a job for life, but ‘career security’ through acquiring marketable skills and experience.

Time and time again I am reminded that the aspirations of disabled people for employment are exactly the same as non-disabled people (decent pay, status, security, feeling respected and valued, social interaction). RADAR's report is a welcome addition to the vast literature on employment for disabled people, with a noticeably practical edge to its findings.