Press Release - Gaining and retaining a job: The Department for
Work and Pensions’ Support for Disabled People
13 October 2005
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, reported
today that the Department for Work and Pensions provides an
effective range of support that helps thousands of disabled people
find employment each year. However more needs to be done to
increase the number of people assisted into work and to help many
of those disabled people already in the workplace retain their
jobs. The Department should also review its contracts with training
providers to achieve better quality and prices, and simplify the
range of programmes and schemes in order to make it easier to
communicate what is available to potential clients.
Almost 10 million people in Great Britain are disabled - around
one in six of the population. In 2004, of the 6.7 million disabled
people of working age 50 [Source calculation based on the formula
from the 2002 Spending Review. This includes people with
conditions consistent with the Disability Discrimination Act and/or
those with a work limiting condition] per cent were in employment
compared with 75 per cent of the working age population as a whole.
Benefit payments to people with disabilities or health related
problems cost £12 billion in 2003-04. There are 2.6 million
incapacity benefit recipients who are either sick or disabled. Some
disabled people will not be able to work but for those who can,
having a job can have significant positive impacts including
developing skills and confidence and providing a higher income.
Around 125,000 people are involved in the Department’s specialist
employment focused programmes for disabled people. The current
annual expenditure on these programmes and schemes is approximately
£300 million.
Advisers within Jobcentre Plus play a key role in assessing the
level of support a disabled person needs and are responsible for
guiding them to the most suitable support. Assistance ranges from
help with confidence building, developing skills such as how to
search for jobs and interview techniques, to covering the costs of
adaptations to the workplace and extensive in-work support.
The report identifies what is working well. This includes that
the Department has made good progress in helping many disabled
people and is on course to meet its target for increasing the
employment rate for disabled people. Jobcentre Plus has many
committed and experienced staff to advise disabled people about
which programme best suits their needs; and many of the clients
participating in its programmes are positive about their
impact.
At the same time there are areas where more progress is needed,
including that the programmes support only a small number of the
people who could potentially benefit, the Department needs better
management information, and many Remploy factory businesses are
currently not value-for-money.
The report recommends that the Department and programme
providers should work together to implement recommendations which
include:
- the Department should rationalise its suite of
individual programmes to provide a more flexible modular
approach that can be more easily tailored to individual
needs. The Department’s specialist programmes and schemes
have evolved over more than 60 years and support a broad spectrum
of needs. Rationalisation would make it easier to explain to
potential clients what is available.
- the Department needs to improve the quality of its
management systems for programmes and schemes. The
Department’s knowledge of what providers deliver is poor, largely
because of the quality of management information collected. The
Department has undertaken extensive analysis for New Deal for
Disabled People but the analysis for the other programmes is at a
very early stage More information, especially for Work
Preparation and Workstep, would allow the Department to identify
gaps in provision and helps ensure the support needed reaches this
disparate client group.
- the Department should focus more resources on helping
people stay in work and build upon the findings from current
pilots. There is limited support available – except for
Access to Work – to help disabled people in work to retain it where
their conditions make this difficult. Greater support could
reduce future demand on existing programmes and keep down
expenditure on disability benefits;
- the Department should re-engineer the profile of
Remploy businesses to improve overall value for money and ensure
support is in place to help those individuals affected find
alternative employment if necessary. Under current
arrangements Remploy Ltd receives £115 million in block grant
funding, of which £95 million is spent on its businesses, many of
which are not currently sustainable in economic terms and are often
in industries that are in decline. Remploy Interwork, the
recruitment division of Remploy Ltd, offers better value for money
than Remploy factories. Recent attempts by Remploy to develop newer
employment opportunities such as CCTV operations are proving more
successful and are more likely to be sustainable in the long
term.
- the Department should achieve enhanced efficiency
through better contracting. The National Audit Office
suggest that the Department could improve the quality and price of
the services it purchases through proper benchmarking, open
competition and appropriate use of its power as a bulk purchaser.
Currently, there is considerable variation in prices for similar
activities or equipment across the country. The Department should
do even more to improve the performance of its contractors and
reduce the variations in prices for common items.
Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General,
said today:
"Whilst not everyone with a disability is able to work,
with the right support at the right time many disabled people can –
and they deserve the opportunity to do so. The Department offers
effective packages of support that enable people to overcome the
barriers to employment and which are greatly appreciated by the
people who participate in them.
“In order to reach more people, the Department needs to adopt a
more flexible, cost-conscious, quality driven approach to enable
the Department to make more progress towards its target for
improving the employment rates of disabled people. Placing greater
emphasis on helping people retain existing employment, could help
individuals avoid distress and financial hardship while reducing
the impact on public spending."
Notes for Editors:
- There are 9.8 million disabled people in Great Britain. This is
the latest DWP estimate, based on data from the Family Resources
Survey, using the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) definition of
disability to define a disabled person.
- The key programmes and schemes that are covered by this report
are as follows:
- Work Preparation - Helps people with health
conditions or a disability prepare to return to work by building
their confidence, identifying suitable types of work for them,
offering work experience and providing support. Often used as a
stepping stone into Workstep.
- Workstep (including Remploy) - Provides
tailored support to find and retain work for disabled people with
complex barriers to finding and keeping work. Offers ongoing
support with the aim of ultimately enabling permanent employment in
the open job market.
- New Deal for Disabled People - Offers access
to a network of job brokers who provide support and advice to help
disabled people and people with health conditions find work. Often
for disabled people who need minimal levels of support to find
work.
- Access to Work - Provides financial assistance
towards the extra costs of employing someone with a disability,
such as contributing towards the cost of specialist IT equipment,
work adaptations to the workplace, some travel costs and the cost
of having a support worker.
- The Job Introduction Scheme - Supports
disabled people looking for work or about to start a job and
provides an initial weekly grant for employers to cover any
additional costs.
- Disability Symbol - Used by employers who want
to demonstrate their commitment to good practice around employing
and retaining disabled people. The symbol is displayed on job
advertisements.
- Press notices and reports are available from the date of
publication on the NAO website at www.nao.org.uk. Hard copies can
be obtained from The Stationery Office on 0845 702 3474.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, is the
head of the National Audit Office which employs some 800 staff. He
and the NAO are totally independent of Government. He certifies the
accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other
public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to
Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which
departments and other bodies have used their resources.
Press Notice 52/05
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