DISABILITY SUB-GROUP OF THE YOUTH EMPLOYMENT GROUP (YEG) – WRITTEN EVIDENCE (YUN0056)

Youth Unemployment Committee inquiry

Creating and protecting jobs for disabled young people

Information on the YEG Disability Sub-group

The YEG Disability Sub-group exists to ensure disabled young people[1] fully benefit from government training and employment programmes, and secure jobs. Our members consist of charities, local authorities, employers and experts working across the youth employment sector, in partnership with the Westminster Foundation. We are part of the wider Youth Employment Group [2], which focuses on the immediate and longer-term impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on the employment prospects of young people. This document has been put together from within the subgroup and its messages do not necessarily reflect the views of the YEG secretariat or the wider YEG membership.

Background – disabled young people are disproportionately affected by economic downturns

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequences of lockdown we are seeing a significant increase in unemployment, particularly amongst young people[3]. Unemployment can put a young person’s health, well-being and security at risk. It can also scar their employment and pay for years ahead.

Disabled people experience significantly higher rates of unemployment and economic inactivity compared to non-disabled people[4]. In a challenging job market, past research suggests disabled people are more likely to be adversely affected[5]. This is reflected within Office for National Statistics data which shows that disabled people’s chances of returning to work after losing a job is 7.4% lower on average compared to non-disabled people[6].

Disabled young people[7] face a double barrier of much greater competition for jobs for young people and ongoing disability discrimination. DWP data shows there was 19% gap between the employment rates of disabled young people compared with non-disabled young people in 2019[8] and we believe there is a significant risk of the gap widening. Action is needed to prevent this from happening.

Evidence of impact of the pandemic on disabled young people

Polling from Savanta ComRes of over 1,000 disabled people shows that 84% of disabled young people ( aged 18-24) have had their work impacted by the pandemic including via furlough, redundancy, reduction of working hours, reduction of pay, with disabled young people more likely to have had their hours reduced or have been made redundant than those aged 25 plus[9].

Some disabled young people have reported being affected by social distancing measures. For example, deaf young people face barriers to communication through lipreading where face masks are widely used. The National Deaf Children’s Society has in the past few months supported young people who have been dismissed from healthcare roles where medical-grade face masks have been mandatory. (A group of young people from the National Deaf Children’s Society have submitted their own evidence to this inquiry, separately to this submission).

Limited support through the Plan for Jobs

On 8 July 2020 the Chancellor unveiled a Plan for Jobs which included a number of initiatives to deliver support to young job seekers which we welcome. However, there were no interventions announced that were specifically targeted towards disabled young people. We believe as a consequence, the Plan for Jobs will not offer sufficient support for a group that is particularly at risk of long-term unemployment.

Lessons have been learnt from apprenticeships in the past decade - until the Maynard taskforce of 2017, there was low representation of disabled people taking apprenticeships despite the Access to Work scheme being available[10]. Targeted initiatives implemented following the Maynard review helped increase apprenticeship participation amongst disabled people.

Supported internships programmes have been successful for disabled young people requiring more intensive support alongside training to move into work. However, programmes have been badly disrupted by the pandemic. We fear that employers may be less likely to offer supported internships due to the demand to offer Kickstart placements.

Below are 5 key recommendations that we believe need to be implemented as soon as possible as part of the Plan for Jobs in order to help prevent disabled young people being further disadvantaged by the current crisis:

For the Department for Work and Pensions:

1. The Kickstart scheme is made open to a wider group than just those claiming Universal Credit (e.g. those who held Education, Health and Care plans or received SEN support in education and young people on Employment Support Allowance). If Kickstart cannot be extended to more disabled young people, we believe an alternative specialist employment support programme needs to be put in place.
2. Doubling the number of Disability Employment Advisors in line with the doubling of work coaches to ensure sufficient capacity to provide effective support.
3. Collect and publish data on the numbers of disabled participants in Kickstart with a breakdown by type of disability.

For the Department for Education:

4. Provide £2,000 incentive payments to employers that offer supported internships in order to provide parity with apprenticeships.
5. Create a specialist division within the National Careers Service to enable disabled young people to receive tailored online advice and information.

The response of the Government so far:

Following a meeting between our group and the Minister for Disabled People in March, the Department for Work and Pensions announced that there would a significant increase in the number of Disability Employment Advisors (DEAs) to support work coaches. We welcome this as it ensures that work coaches supporting young people onto Kickstart placements have better access to more specialist advice on best meeting the needs of disabled clients. However, the ratio of work coaches to disability employment advisors will still be worse than before the pandemic because the number of DEAs has not increased by the same proportion as work coaches.

At the date of the publication of this briefing, despite the Kickstart scheme being well underway, the Government has not yet released an Equality Impact Assessment of the scheme. It missed its own March deadline for publishing it. More concerning, the DWP has informed us that there is no plan to record the numbers of disabled young people accessing Kickstart placements. This means there is no way of measuring the effectiveness of Kickstart in meeting the needs of disabled young people.

We understand that the above recommendation on the National Careers Service under consideration. The potential ways to strengthen supported internships, are being looked as part of DfE’s Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) Review. However, there is no confirmed publication date for the review yet and it is vital that the Government’s proposals include the improvements we recommend.

We see the Government’s forthcoming Disability Strategy as an opportunity to support more disabled young people to make a successful transition from education to employment. We would like the strategy to:

1. Join up policy and programmes between the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions, to enable young people to seamlessly transition from education and work. Both departments should commit to a ‘no wrong door approach’, ensuring that disabled young people accessing support at the Jobcentre receive information and guidance to apply for DfE programmes like Apprenticeships, Traineeships and Supported Internships, and schools and colleges actively promote employment support programmes like Intensive Personalised Employment Support (IPES) to disabled young people. DWP’s new Youth Hubs provide an opportunity to trial this joined up approach to disabled young people.

2. Encourage local authorities to invest into actively promoting the local offer to disabled young people, parents and schools from year seven, so that disabled young people know how to access the employment pathways and training opportunities locally available to them.

3. Create opportunities for disabled young people to be able to participate in work tasters from year nine, and work experience in years ten and eleven, whilst simultaneously receiving comprehensive careers advice at school. A clear employment pathway plan should then be developed, so that disabled young people can develop the skills and experience needed to pursue a career in their chosen vocation.

4. Commit to the Maynard reforms of Apprenticeships to ensure that the eligibility criteria does not restrict access to disabled young people. The Department for Education should also invest in promoting Inclusive Apprenticeships to disabled young people and employers, to ensure that more young people are able to access these training opportunities.

5. New careers advisors within the National Careers Service should receive disability awareness training to enable them to provide improved support for disabled young people.

The DWP plans to publish a Green Paper on disability and health shortly which will include proposals on supporting disabled people into work. We see this as another opportunity where the Government could improve support for disabled young people to move into work. We believe:

1. DWP needs to work with local authorities and radically increase investment in specialist, personalised employment support programmes for disabled young people, available in local communities. This support is urgently needed to tackle the rising unemployment rates amongst disabled young people during the pandemic, to prevent them from becoming a lost generation.

2. New employment and training programmes from the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions should have an Equality Impact Assessment published prior to launch, outlining how they will be inclusive and accessible to disabled young people.

3. Access to Work needs to be reformed to ensure that the support, training and equipment the scheme funds is in place from day one of a young person’s employment. Failure to provide instant access to Access to Work could result in disabled young people quickly falling out of work.

This submission is supported by the following organisations:

British Association for Supported Employment (BASE)

Disability Rights UK

Employment Related Services Association (ERSA)

Leonard Cheshire

My-AfK

National Deaf Children’s Society

Shaw Trust

TRACK

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