Written evidence from Inclusion London (DEG0129)

Inclusion London   

Inclusion London is a London-wide user-led organisation which promotes equality for London’s Deaf and Disabled people and provides capacity-building support for over 70 Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) in London. Through these organisations, our reach extends to over 70,000 Disabled Londoners.   

Sources of Information

This submission is informed by our experience as Deaf and Disabled people. It is also informed by our knowledge of supporting 70 Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations in London which provide front line support to thousands of Deaf and Disabled people in our communities.    

Our submission is further informed by data gathered from our survey which looked into the experiences of Disabled people across the country following the easing of lockdown.

We have also drawn heavily on the findings of the TUC’s report “Disability Pay and Employment Gaps[1]” from 2020, as well as their 2019 report[2] into the issue. Also, in the context of Coronavirus, their report “Job security: Saving the jobs of those who cannot work at home, but who have to stay at home[3]” is particularly important, as is findings from Citizens Advice regarding the rate of Covid related redundancies that show Disabled people and those shielding are at particular risk of being made redundant[4].

Key Recommendations

• The government must bring in legislation to introduce mandatory disability pay gap reporting for all employers with more than 50 employees.
• The legislation must be accompanied by a duty on employers to produce targeted action plans identifying the steps they will take to address any gaps identified.
• The action plans employers produce must also identify and address intersectional issues, for example, how they intend to identify specific barriers faced by Disabled women and ensure pay gap is addressed.
• All actions plans must be produced in consultation with recognised trade unions, in work places where there is a recognised trade union.
• Ensure Access to Work is fully funded, including lifting any caps, so all eligible people can access their full entitlement.  Access to Work needs to be an accessible, easy to use, quick, flexible system which is able to quickly respond to changing needs. 
• Access to Work should be further streamlined, removing bureaucracy from the application, assessment and reassessment process so support can be quickly and consistently put in place.
• There should be more proactive enforcement of reasonable adjustments in the workplace, including the right to work remotely, and the right to re-write job descriptions so this is possible.
• Stop cuts and freezes to social security, and scrap sanctions and conditionality for good.
• Disabled people who are shielding and are not able to work from home, as well as members of their household, should be able to be put an extended furlough scheme if they cannot work from home, with furlough being paid at the current rate of 80%.
• The rate of redundancies, and the particular demographics of workers being made redundant should be monitored, with additional funding going to bodies that enforce workers’ rights.

Key Statistics

• One in four disabled people (27%) were facing redundancy. This rose to 37% of those who said their impairment has a large impact on their day-to-day life[5].
• Half of those who were in the shielded group (48%), as they were extremely clinically vulnerable to coronavirus, were at risk of redundancy[6].
• Two in five parents or carers (39%) faced losing their job[7].
• In 2020, the employment rate for disabled people is 53.7 per cent, compared to 82.0 per cent for non-disabled people. This an employment gap of 28.4 ppt[8]. 
• The employment rate for disabled women is 53.2 per cent, compared to 85.7 per cent for non-disabled men[9].
• Disabled BME workers had an employment rate of 49.2 per cent while white disabled workers had an employment rate of 54.3 per cent.  The employment rate of non-disabled BME people is 71.1 per cent and of white non-disabled people, it is 83.9 per cent[10].
• Disabled workers are more likely to be employed on zero-hours contracts. While 3.1 per cent of non-disabled workers are employed on a zero-hours contract, this rises to 3.8 per cent of disabled workers[11]. 

Disability Employment Gap

Recent research from the Trade Unions Congress has found that the disability employment gap has slightly narrowed between 2019 and 2020[12], however it must be pointed out that 3 of the 4 quarters analysed were before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the fourth quarter was when furlough was in effect. Therefore, the most recent figures available do not reflect the current reality being experienced by Disabled people in the workplace and job seeking. It likely has gotten worse, as the figures from Citizens Advice show in relation to redundancies.

There is also a more severe employment gap experienced by both Disabled women and Disabled BME people. Any recommended solutions to the employment gap must have an intersectional analysis of the issue that takes into account that workers may experience workplace discrimination and discrimination in the recruitment process on multiple grounds.

There are multiple causes to the disability employment gap, some of which we have outlined below.

Pay Gaps

Despite the employment gap reducing between 2019 and 2020, the TUC found that the pay gap had increased from £1.65 per hour to £2.10, a percentage increase of 4% on the previous year[13]. This has resulted in Disability Pay Gap Day (the day which Disabled workers stop being paid each year comparatively to non-Disabled workers) moving to the 30th of October, and a total of a 20% pay gap[14]. In real terms, this means that Disabled workers earn £3800 less than their non-Disabled peers over the course of the year. Again, the pay gap is also highly gendered, with Disabled women being paid 36% less than non-Disabled men[15].

Part of the reason for the pay gap is that Disabled people tend to work in lower paying industries, such as care work and other service sector positions[16][17]. However, the under representation of Disabled people in senior and managerial positions, and their over representation in lower paying positions is also a result of disability discrimination in the workplace and recruitment. Research by the EHRC shows that widespread negative stereotyping by employers means that Disabled people are perceived to be “less productive” and are thus unlikely to be recruited into better paid positions, or experience outright discrimination whereby they are paid less than non-Disabled peers doing similar work[18].

Access to Work

Access to Work is a government funded scheme which provides money, equipment and support to Disabled workers so that they can remain in employment. Inclusion London has campaigned extensively around Access to Work, alongside other organisations, in order so that it is improved for Disabled workers. Our 2016 report, “Barriers to Work” found that only 15% of respondents found Access to Work easy to use or apply for with respondents feeling like they were “jumping through hoops[19]”. Furthermore, almost half of the respondents had had their packages changed, with the majority not knowing why this had been the case. Evidence of rationing was found with the respondents often being told that cuts had been made to ensure value for money for the taxpayer[20].

Access to Work was found to be plagued with administrative issues that meant Disabled people found themselves unable to perform their job or even take up a new job due to delays in assessment and needing to dispute their needs with Access to Work staff. Where support was in place, Disabled workers were often left in debt as lost paper work and delays in processing payments meant they were out of pocket[21].

Disabled-led organisation, Diversity and Ability, have also raised concerns around the low numbers of Disabled workers that apply for Access to Work – with only 0.76% of the Disabled workforce applying[22]. The reasons for the lack of applications range from not knowing Access to Work exists, to fear of discrimination, to the bureaucracy of the application process.

The introduction of a cap on the amount that a user of Access to Work can claim was introduced in 2015, and later loosened (though not scrapped) in 2018, with users only being able to be awarded £57,200. The cap is currently at £60,700[23]. The result of this has particularly detrimentally affected Deaf BSL users and Disabled people with complex needs, with Deaf and Disabled organisations and activists pointing out how the cap was discriminatory and stopped Deaf and Disabled people being able to remain in and progress their careers[24]. 

Inclusion London research during the easing of the first lockdown found that many Disabled workers were having issues with their Access to Work packages, particularly now they were working from home. Respondents described Access to Work as slow and resistant to help with new or changed needs as many workers were now remotely working. Furthermore, the need for hand signed and posted documentation of provided support posed many issues for workers working from home or who were shielding, and although the DWP changed their policy to accept electronic signatures and scanned copies, many people only were able to access this after challenging DWP staff members and asserting their rights under the Equality Act.

Social Security

Inclusion London has written and campaigned extensively on welfare reform and social security, both before[25] and during[26] the pandemic. Our position is that sanctions and conditionality should be permanently ended, as research has found that there is no evidence that they help claimants into sustainable, long term work. Rather, they are more likely to trigger profoundly negative personal, financial, health and behavioural outcomes and push some people away from collectivised welfare provisions[27].

Furthermore, multiple APPGs and Parliamentary Committees have also found that sanctions do not work. The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee reported, in relation to Disabled people and sanctions, “No evidence the Committee received was “more compelling than that against the imposition of conditionality and sanctions on people with a disability or health condition. It does not work. Worse, it is harmful and counterproductive.[28]”  However it is not exclusively Disabled people that sanctions are harmful and ineffective for, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee saying, “It is an article of faith for the Department for Work & Pensions that sanctions encourage people into work.  The reality is far more complex and the potential consequences severe… Suspending people’s benefit payments can lead them into debt, rent arrears and homelessness, which can undermine their efforts to find work[29].”

Coronavirus

Disabled people have been severely affected by Covid-19 and the government’s response to it, with nearly 60% of deaths being those of Disabled people[30], the lack of support given to Disabled children in accessing education and easements to social care in the Coronavirus Act resulting in many Disabled people being left without essential social care support[31]. In the workplace too, Disabled people have been extremely negatively affected. Citizens Advice research found that of people at risk of being made redundant, 27% were Disabled people, 37% were Disabled people who’s impairment had a significant impact on their day to day life and 48% were people who were extremely clinically vulnerable to Coronavirus[32].

The TUC report, “Job security: Saving the jobs of those who cannot work at home, but who have to stay at home,” discusses the risk of targeted redundancies of those who are extremely clinically vulnerable and having to shield, yet have jobs which mean they cannot work from home[33]. Taken in the light of the Citizens Advice figures, their fears of targeted redundancies seem to have come to fruition. This risk also extends to people living in the same household as someone who is considered to be extremely clinically vulnerable, and again, Citizens Advice figures show that 39% of carers and parents risk losing their jobs[34]. There must be an extended furlough scheme for shielding workers and members of their households who cannot work from home, and it should be enforced that employers use this furlough scheme rather than forcing workers to use sick leave, annual leave or take statutory sick pay.

Even for Disabled people who are able to work from home, in many cases their home is not suitably set up to work from[35]. In our lockdown easing survey, Inclusion London collected responses that demonstrated that the jobs of Disabled remote workers are also at risk. We found cases where employers refused to allow reasonable adjustments so that Disabled workers could adapt their job descriptions in order so they could continue working because “My employer was originally going to give me alternative tasks as a reasonable adjustment, but then decided they couldn't be bothered.” We also found other evidence of clear disability discrimination and a failure to implement reasonable adjustments by employers, with the Disabled respondents unable to carry out their job roles due to a lack of support or necessary equipment, leaving them fearful that they were going to lose their jobs.

December 2020