Future of Specialist Disability Employment

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I thank my noble friend for that point. As I said, I will outline exactly how we will report back and timings. The more important point is the level of support we are providing in this case, where we have the personal help and support package, which is considerably tailored with consultation at every stage with, most interestingly, a specific caseworker per person, so people’s individual requirements are analysed and taken into account, plus a fund to help people in. In this case, there is a lot of tailored support. One lesson may well be how important individual caseworkers are in helping people.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

I have been following the development of this policy area, and it is very difficult. I understand the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about timing, but I disagree with him. I also disagree with him on his interpretation of the Sayce report. Liz Sayce, who did sterling service to this House and others by writing her report, is looking much more long term and I think that her long-term principles are absolutely correct. We have to get the implementation right to look after the individuals who will be directly and, in some cases, starkly affected by this change. I want an assurance from my noble friend that there will be a comprehensive package of support for the individuals affected.

In particular, as it affects these workers that we are all so concerned about this afternoon, transport access through the Access to Work programme is vital, because a lot of these factories and establishments are in very hard labour market areas. They may have to look further afield to find employment opportunities that are appropriate for their special circumstances.

I am reassured to hear my noble friend mention the individual personalised package. I am also reassured by his undertaking to report back. It seems strange to me that we spend £320 million or £330 million on disability specialist employment services but £7,000 million on disability unemployment services. As the architect of the famous DEL-AME switch I will be looking to him in the longer term—and I hope that these short-term problems are sorted out—to use his ingenuity to try to lever some of the money out of disability unemployment support to employment support in the future.

I support what is being suggested. I just hope we get the individual support packages correct.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend, who understands this area as well as anyone in the House.

This is not easy—it is a change in direction. However, it does reflect a world which is moving on, away from the physical disability area, into the mental health disability area. There is a lot of work to be done there. We need the money to be used very efficiently. In terms of efficiency, roughly half of the money spent on Access to Work is in achieving things that would not have happened otherwise. In other words, there is, in the jargon, not too much dead weight. Clearly one of the objectives of any Government must be to ramp up the level of efficiency and reduce the level of dead weight as we direct the money to help people who particularly need it. As noble Lords will know, that is something I am trying to push hard, in every direction that I possibly can.