Written evidence from Name Withheld (DEG0048)

I am responding to your call for evidence through Scope, the disability equality charity. I want to share my experiences of the barriers I've faced in work and what can be improved to help disabled people in the future.

I've answered two questions below as part of your call for evidence.

What extra support would you benefit from in work? Or what would you change about existing support on offer?

Current support systems are built to get disabled people a foot in the door but do very little to support their long term well being at the workplace. There is no formal structure in place where disabled people can raise issues of discrimination at work.

There is also a lack of visibility on positive role models available to disabled people to look upto and emulate. I would have benefited immensely early up in my career, had I been able to to connect with people with disability in senior leadership positions. Apart from formal learning that can happen through mentoring and coaching, successful disabled people can also help other disabled people navigate through work places. There is a desperate need to formalise a structure in place that can enable this support network.

Access to work scheme currently supports reasonable adjustments to the workplace as well as support for travel to and from work. There is enough evidence to suggest that issues disabled people face are more basic - try searching for wheelchair accessible places to rent anywhere in London or just the number of non-functioning lifts at train stations on any given day. It is issues like this, that massively inhibit job and employment opportunities for people with disability. This proves that finding a job for a disabled person is just the first step in an ecosystem that is not ready to support people with disability at the workplace. Access to work needs to help iron out such issues to make other existing supports relevant and useful.

Looking to the future, what does the Government need to improve on to help disabled people get into, stay and progress in work?

There is an urgent need for widespread reforms to reduce everyday barriers that people with disability face in getting and staying in employment. Having been in full time employment for the past 8 years now, my experience demonstrates that the following few measures are the immediate need of the hour.

Tax incentives to disabled employees - Scope research demonstrates that disabled people incur extra costs of £583 a month on average - spending more on essential goods and services like; heating, insurance, equipment and therapies. The result is that disabled people are more likely to have a lower standard of living, even when they earn the same. Tax breaks and tax incentives on income tax can substantially help people with disability in competing on an equal footing in the workplace.

Ease pension requirements for disabled employees - It is statistically proven that people with some pre-existing medical conditions have substantially lower life expectancy. I have cerebral palsy and people like me will find it increasingly difficult to continue working until the  state pension age. People with similar conditions should have substantially lower pension age, while private pensions contribution should be allowed to release pension at a lower age.

Tax incentives to employers - Small and medium scale enterprises as well as start ups need to be given tax incentives for employing people with a disability. This not only encourages such companies to hire people with disability, it also ensures that technologies of tomorrow developed by these companies prioritize accessibility at the centre of their products and services.

Mandatory disclosure of disability pay gap for publicly listed companies - Gender pay gap reporting requirements have brought in substantial benefits of reducing gender pay gap across the industry. Currently companies do not measure disability pay gaps and hence they turn a blind eye to the widespread disabled pay gap that exists across industry. Responsibility of companies does not end by hiring people with disability - it actually begins there. Ensuring equal pay for similar work needs to be at the centre of any policy designed for people with disability. And we will address it only when we measure it.

Hire more disabled people in public sector roles - The government needs to be at the centre of demonstrating that hiring, retaining and progressing people with disability in the civil services and other public institutions is a sustainable way forward. It needs to walk the talk by setting aggressive annual targets for the number of disabled people hired by different public agencies, ministerial departments and public bodies.

The disability employment gap has been stuck close to 30 percent for over a decade, and the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has seen disabled people falling out of work faster than non-disabled people. 

Scope wants the Government to deliver on its pledge to tackle the disability employment gap. The Government must use the opportunity of the forthcoming National Strategy for Disabled People to set out plans to close the gap.

I hope that the evidence I have provided, alongside research from Scope will prove useful to the committee.

December 2020