UK Plans To Get More Disabled People In To Work

In the UK today, there are an estimated thirty two million people of working age in employment. This includes six hundred thousand more disabled people in employment in the last four years alone. Although this may seem like a large figure, there are still significant numbers of people who may have a disability who are unable to gain access to the world of employment. This could be down to a number of reasons, many of which include them not receiving enough adequate provisions and support in order to gain the education, training and support they need in order to gain access to the work place and start doing work related tasks.

The Conservative government has developed a ten year plan which is aimed at breaking down barriers that people may face when training for work or accessing different kinds of work place. The programme will be delivered through a number of in work modules which will help illustrate how different companies can deliver the support and facilities that disabled people may need in order to access the work place and start earning a living. Personalised financial and employment support as well as specialist healthcare services will be included to help ensure that disabled people can go as far as possible with their talents, all the time being treated fairly and being given equal opportunities with people who are able bodied.

The government is not only committed to helping people access employment, but also help them progress through the job and reap the rewards which will come from being promoted through out the company and achieving a higher status with the experience and qualifications they will gain through out the training and the different jobs that they may do through out their life.

The government has published a paper in which it laid out it's future plans on how it hopes to help more disabled people gain access to the employment industry. This follows them carrying out a consultation which discovered that 4.6 million disabled people and people with long term health conditions are out of work. Less than half (48%) of disabled people are in employment, compared to 80% of the non-disabled population.

Topics in this consultation include the role of employers and work coaches, improvements to the welfare system, investing in innovative services, occupational health support and changing the culture around work and health.

The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health are keen to hear views from all interested parties, especially disabled people and disability organisations.

In order to help more disabled people gain access to the work place, a number of other schemes have been put in place to help them gain the support they need in the work place. This includes the Access To Work scheme which is a government grant that helps support disabled people in work. The grant can pay for things such as:

a British Sign Language interpreter

specialist equipment

extra transport costs, such as a taxi where no public transport is available

They can also provide other forms of support which can help disabled people manage in the work place such as providing the funding which is needed to help employ a support worker or personal assistant who will help them complete all work related tasks that they may have to complete and need support with.

The equipment that they may be able to provide disabled people with will help them adapt and manage in different locations where they may have to work, e.g.:

If they do a job which requires them to attend seminars or watch presentations in order to complete a piece of work, they may find it difficult to watch the demonstration and take notes at the same time so Access To Work may be able to provide them with a dictaphone which enable to focus their full attention on the presentation or demonstration while the dictaphone takes the notes for them. They can then refer back to them if they need it.

If the schemes are run successfully, they will help make society a fairer place which will provide more opportunities for people who are disabled. This will help promote equal opportunities with in society for disabled people and help ensure that they are not ignored for any opportunity which they may be eligible for.