Hansard

I am glad that I had the opportunity to participate in the work on the report, which was thorough, wide ranging and in the best traditions of the Parliament and how it works. The direct involvement of disabled people and their validation of the report strengthen the report's recommendations. I hope that what we have done together will result in better appreciation of the issues and greater willingness to tackle them.

I will focus on access to work; it will be difficult to condense everything that I want to say into a few minutes, but what I refer to necessarily briefly is covered in the report in much more detail. Work is important for many reasons. It brings in the money to pay the bills and fund leisure pursuits. Work is often what defines us in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. Work is where we interact with other people; the people with whom we work are often the people with whom we socialise. Work is where we satisfy our need to feel useful and effective. Whether we are old, young, black, white, able bodied or not, all of that applies. Paid work is the main route out of poverty and dependence for many disabled people, but too many of them find it difficult to obtain and/or sustain employment. Why is that the case, when a great deal of money is spent by Government trying to get people into work through myriad public, private and voluntary sector schemes? What the Institute of Directors described as "clutter" may be part of the problem. I shall return to that. What came out of the committee's discussions, however, was that there are a number of problems with the schemes, how they are funded and their limitations. Those problems can be condensed into lack of information; lack of support; and lack of flexibility.

Those on both sides of the work equation—workers and employers—suffer from lack of information, or lack of access to information. Disabled people often do not know what their rights are or where to find the support that they need. Employers are sometimes hazy about their rights and responsibilities, which can inhibit them from seeking information and support to help them employ people with disabilities. We found evidence that employers may be reluctant to contact potential sources of information in case they found their recruitment and employment practice being investigated and found to be at fault. It might be useful to highlight to any potential employers who are listening that helpline advice can be sought anonymously. There is also a lack of readily accessible information about good practice to help employers overcome their fear factor and their lack of confidence about employing disabled people.

I turn to lack of support. More could be done to fund adaptations to enable disabled people to hold down a job and to encourage employers to take them on. Some equipment is very expensive, but quite minor aids and adaptations can often make all the difference. Funding is available, but there is not enough of it and it is not sufficiently publicised. There is a need for more people to be employed to work with the disabled person, the employer and the disabled person's workmates. Such advocacy can be extremely effective in getting people into work, helping them to stay in work and helping people to advance in work. Too often, disabled people can be left in entry-level jobs when they could and should make progress in the same way as anyone else, as their experience, skills and confidence develop. Training is another type of information. There is a lack of good-quality training for agencies and employers.

The third area of concern is lack of flexibility. There is a lack of flexibility—or, to be fair, in some cases a perceived lack of flexibility—in the benefits system. People are restricted in the number of hours or rate of pay that they can take on, because it affects their benefits. People are terrified of coming out of the benefits system in case they cannot get back into it if their employment does not work out. Lack of flexibility in recruitment practice can be a barrier. It is ironic that the very mechanisms that have been put in place to protect equality of opportunity can be a barrier to people who, for example, find it difficult to do themselves justice in a half-hour interview but could prove their abilities if they were allowed to demonstrate them in a trial working period. This is perhaps the appropriate point at which to mention that the committee found concerns about the two ticks scheme, which was seen as too often being no more than a tick-box effort by employers. Lack of flexibility in working hours is a barrier to people who, for a variety of reasons—physical, mental or family—have what I will loosely describe as good days and bad days. For many people—not all disabled—flexible working hours to accommodate good days and bad days are essential, or at least enormously helpful.

Another area in which many good schemes fall down is lack of flexibility in the time that can be spent with an individual. Some people need more support, or support over a longer period, than others, and most schemes cannot cope with delivering that. Concerns about the schemes that exist revolve around the fragmented nature of the sector; short-term funding; disparities in quality; the postcode lottery; and lack of knowledge among potential clients on the side of the worker and the employer about who the service providers are, where they are and how to access them. A fundamental concern was the lack of co-ordination and partnership working among all the many agencies and organisations. All those concerns must be addressed; if the recommendations in the report are taken on board, they will be.

I was impressed by what the committee found in Norway, where what was being done was characterised by co-ordination and continuity. It is perhaps easier when one Government controls all aspects, but there seemed to be much more stability there; the main official bodies carried on their work adapting as they went, in contrast to the piecemeal landscape in Scotland of different bodies and a succession of pilots. We could learn a lot from the Norwegians.

The importance of work is well recognised, and both the UK Government and the Scottish Executive are doing a great deal to get people, including disabled people, into work. The information and recommendations in the committee's report can make that work more effective. I commend the report not only to the Parliament and the minister, but to all agencies and organisations that have a role to play.