Buckland Review of Autism Employment

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Buckland]

If there is tea and cake involved, I am there. I will happily do that. The point that my hon. Friend makes deals straight away with the stereotype that autistic people cannot socialise. That is nonsense. There are myriad types of presentation. The condition will sometimes present itself in that way, but not always. Plenty of autistic people can and do work in the hospitality sector, in an outward-facing, communications-based job that works really well for them.

Exploding some of those myths is important not just in this House but from an employer’s point of view. That is really at the heart of the report: turning risk into opportunity for employers, to get them to think differently. The terms of reference referred to autism, but I reassure people who initially wanted a wider reference to neuro- diversity that that was not forgotten at all. In fact, a lot of the recommendations have direct read-across to a wide range of neurodiverse conditions, from attention deficit disorder to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia and dyspraxia—the whole family of neurodiverse conditions. There is clearly commonality in the challenges that people face with recruitment and retention.

In the time that I have, which I have to use economically, let us start with some of the facts that we uncovered. Only just under three in 10 autistic adults are in full-time or part-time work. It is the lowest rate across all disability classes, at about 30%, as opposed to 50% for those with a disability generally. In late 2012, I led a Backbench Business Committee debate on autism in this Chamber. I think it was the first debate on autism that we had ever had in the main Chamber. Then, fewer than one in seven, maybe about 14% of autistic adults, had full-time employment. There would seem to have been an improvement, but we are not comparing like with like. In the years since, we have seen people in the workforce start to reveal their autism in a way that they would not have before, which is encouraging, but let us not forget that we are still talking about the 700,000 or so who have a diagnosis. A large number of people—probably hundreds of thousands or even more—perhaps do not have a diagnosis, and do not even think of themselves as autistic or neurodiverse in any way. The figures therefore start to get a little unclear.

Progress has been very, very slow. There is no doubt that, as a result of Government action and intervention, there has been improvement, but we are still nowhere near where we need to be. The question is how we start to move the dial. More on that shortly. Autistic people have the largest pay gap of all disability groups. They receive a third less on average than non-disabled people. I am afraid that that is the experience of autistic graduates, too, who experience the worst outcomes of all disability groups. They are the most likely to be overqualified for their job. They are the most likely to be on zero-hours contracts or part time. That leads to under motivation, less pay, unhappiness and a lack of fulfilment. Some 50% of managers expressed discomfort with the idea of having autistic people in their workforce, and only 35% of autistic employees were fully open about being autistic.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making an excellent case. I recently attended a Worcestershire local enterprise partnership presentation, at which an employer talked about finding that his expectations of employing autistic people were completely wrong. When he discovered that one of his employees was autistic, his whole organisation learned and benefited as a result. It strengthened the organisation and increased its productivity. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that many more employers need to engage on this subject?

[Sir Robert Buckland]

Stories like that can open up a whole new way of thinking to employers. That is really the beginning of the recommendations that we make in the report. The power of narrative, and linking that to creating a wave of change, lies at the heart of the recommendations. Let me make a final point about the current situation: about two thirds—61%—of disabled people said that their Access to Work claim took over three months, and 20% said that it took over six months. While Access to Work is a great principle, that is clearly too slow to help change the life of people who face an immediate job offer, or have an interview within days, rather than weeks or months.

What is to be done? I have talked about turning risk into opportunity, but a “universal by design” approach will make the most difference. We have heard a lot over the years about autism-friendly environments, and going out of our way to reach out, understand, and allow people to explain, but that will have only a limited impact, and only on those people who are comfortable talking, and prepared to talk, about their autism. Surely it would be better to have a universal change to the way in which we recruit and retain employees, so that it embraces not just those with a diagnosis, but those who do not want to disclose their diagnosis or do not have one. Suddenly, the number would then be not 700,000, but probably well over a million—and that might be a conservative estimate.

What about the recommendations? There are several groups within our 19 recommendations, but they can be summarised in the following way. The first group of three recommendations relates to initiatives to raise awareness, reduce stigma and capitalise on productivity. We are already working with people, autism organisations and employer-facing organisations to start that national campaign with good news stories like the one that we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker).

In certain jobs, autistic staff can be way more productive than neurotypical staff; statistics show productivity improvements ranging from 45% to 145%. I am grateful to Autistica for its work promoting its new neurodiversity employers index, which will allow employers to measure themselves against best practice; it has an annual awards programme. That is the sort of approach that we have seen really make a difference in other walks of life. The index, with the support and approval of my hon. Friend the Minister, would give employers a degree of certainty, and a uniform framework within which we could see the dial start to move. By developing such small pilots and good practices, we are again using a “show and tell” method, and larger national and multinational organisations and representative bodies can then start to spread this work out.

The second bucket of recommendations, 4 to 8, relates to the support needed for autistic people to begin or return to a career. That is all about making sure that new programmes, such as the universal support programme, are designed in a way that meets the varying needs of autistic people, so that there are supported employment programmes available, as well as supported internships, which the evidence shows are a wonderful route through which autistic young people can develop the skills that they need. I am glad that the Department for Education is piloting an entry route into supported internships for disabled people without an education, health and care plan; that again embraces the “universal by design” approach.

[Mr Walker]

As Chairman of the Education Committee, I completely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend on the value of supported internships. Does he agree that more broadly we need to look at the issue of people without an EHCP? We know that many autistic people do not require or have not had one. We should be looking to make supported internships, or extra support for apprenticeships, as accessible as possible, so that people can progress into work and training.

[Sir Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right about that. He might have noted the very interesting findings of the Nuffield Trust a few weeks ago, which makes the point that although we have to have a system of diagnosis, the EHCP system, which I was proud to support as a Back Bencher when we brought in the Children and Families Act 2014, is a very narrow funnel. It takes a long time to get children and people in. Instead of concentrating on the funnel, we need a more universal approach that can embrace many people who will not need an EHCP, but who have particular needs. That is why promoting cross-industry autism support groups and opportunities for work shadowing and volunteering has to be part of the solution. As recommendation 7 says, apprenticeships are key.

Finally, recommendation 8 is that the Government work with autism charities and other groups to ensure that more people know about Access to Work and improvements to the speed of that programme. If the adjustment passport and the Access to Work Plus pilots being run by Department for Work and Pensions produce positive results, then I say to the Minister: let us roll them out nationally as soon as possible.

The next group of recommendations, 9 to 13, are all about changing recruitment practices to support autistic applicants appropriately. We need to start with careers advisers in schools and colleges and the National Careers Service in England and its equivalents in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so that there is a better understanding of autism, autistic customers can be better supported, and more properly tailored advice can be given. We also need to increase the rigour of the Disability Confident work and develop higher levels; we need more assessments under Disability Confident and we need to build in a link to the new neurodiversity employers index, so that Disability Confident organisations themselves will be, in the eyes of autistic jobseekers, much better placed to help them. Online support with the employee health and disability service can also link employees to appropriate advice on best practice when it comes to recruitment.

The representative bodies have a role here. The Recruitment & Employment Confederation has a key role to play, because it can advise not only individual businesses, but recruitment consulting agencies. There are myriad agencies up and down our high streets that do the heavy lifting of recruitment for small and medium-sized enterprises, so we have to get into those agencies. It will be good for them, as it means they will have more success in placing autistic employees, and it will of course be good for wider business. Let us face it, these SMEs do not have big human resources departments and they will not be able to do that themselves. That is why getting into the agencies will be important. We must also not forget the self-employed, and ensure that we identify sources of information and support for people who want to get on with things on their own and set up their own business.

In the few minutes I have left, I will mention two more groups of recommendations—I will be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I want to finish covering this important report. Supporting autistic people already in the workforce is covered in recommendations 14 to 17; working with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development to make sure that the 2018 “Neurodiversity at Work” guidance is published and accessible is at the heart of that. Finally, on career progression, we need to promote the value of employee resource groups and support networks within larger organisations and work with autism charities and the representative bodies to develop the training packages to allow autistic staff to progress.

A new task group will be set up in the weeks ahead— I say weeks, because I am working with colleagues in the DWP to identify an independent chair and suitably qualified members. We need to monitor progress, hold Government to account and audit the progress we are making. I want to see, certainly by the end of this decade, that number of one in three up to the disability average at least, and—who knows?—beyond that.

Let us be ambitious here. I call upon my hon. Friend the Minister to respond positively to the report and its recommendations with all the power that she can muster on behalf of herself and her Government colleagues. They are not the end; they are not even the beginning of the end; but they are the end of the beginning. Let us make progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that intervention. Perhaps he could use his influence with the task group—I do not know whether he is a member of it; I am not sure how that will work out, but I am sure he will have influence with it—to urge it to adopt the target that he set out a few minutes ago, which I think could make a substantial difference.

I welcome the call in the report for

“processes and support mechanisms that enable autistic staff to be recruited and to succeed.”

In that context, I want to draw attention to a concept that is not mentioned in the report—I am a bit disappointed that it was not—but which has been referred to elsewhere, not least in our Select Committee report.

The concept of job carving means assessing a person’s skills and then tailoring an employee role to those skills. Catherine Hale, director of the Chronic Illness Inclusion project, told our 2021 inquiry that job carving was particularly effective in supporting people with learning disabilities; given the big overlap between autism and learning disability, I think that job carving could certainly help. The charity Mind says that job carving roles for people with learning disabilities can benefit employers by removing tasks from other employees and freeing up time. In its “Working Better” report, the Equality and Human Rights Commission described job carving as a

“a flexible way of managing a workforce, which allows employers to utilise their staff skills in the most productive way whilst enabling disabled people to make a valuable contribution to the world of work.”

Our 2021 report called on the Government as part of their then forthcoming national disability strategy to provide detailed guidance to employers and providers of employment support on how they could job carve roles for disabled people, and called on Jobcentre Plus to encourage local employers in their area to job carve. The Government’s response to our report did not pick up the concept of job carving, but Ministers could still pick it up in responding to the report we are debating this afternoon. I wonder whether the Minister, who I know takes a very close interest in this area, recognises that job carving could make a significant difference to the employment prospects of many autistic people.

One thing the Government response to our 2021 inquiry did refer to was the plan at that time to increase the number of places on the intensive personalised employment support scheme. IPES provides voluntary employment support to people with disabilities and complex barriers to employment. As we noted in our report, the guidance to IPES providers explicitly mentions job carving as an intervention that can help disabled people to find and stay in work. IPES is referred to in paragraph 2.11 of the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s report, which rightly points out that referrals to IPES have now ended, as our Select Committee heard in a one-off evidence session last week on the Government’s back to work plan. There will be no more IPES referrals.

We were told by providers at our evidence session last week that the work and health programme, also referred to in paragraph 2.11 of the report, is also coming to an end. Those are two programmes that the report rightly identifies as providing valuable help for people with autism to move into employment which are being shut down. The Minister may want to comment on this in due course, but, as far as I can tell, it does not appear that any of the newer employment support programmes, such as WorkWell and universal support, will provide support comparable to that which is being closed down, and which the report has rightly identified as very helpful. The fear is that, despite the laudable aims set out in the report, which I know the Minister will endorse, we are in reality going backwards. The provision at the moment, which has been there for some time, is being removed. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us why IPES and the work and health programme are being closed down, and where the new initiatives are to close what looks like an emerging gap in provision for people with autism.

Employers are struggling at the moment to fill vacancies. The right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon is absolutely right that there is a big opportunity here to boost disability employment if we can just find a way to enable employers to tap into it. The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) is absolutely right that employers are willing to do so, if only they knew how—it is a bit of a closed book to them. I do not think there is a lack of willingness on the part of employers, but there is a lack of information.

It was very interesting to read in the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s review about Auticon, which I had not heard of before. It is an IT consultancy in which 80% of the workforce are autistic, highly talented IT consultants. The founders—I think they were in Scandinavia —recognised that many autistic adults have extraordinary abilities, such as pattern recognition, sustained concentration and attention to detail, which are valuable qualities in many employment contexts. However, autistic people need support to secure and maintain those jobs, and Auticon specifically provides that support, understanding the needs of its employees, and has built a successful business on that basis.

[Mr Robin Walker]

I am glad that the report also highlights in that respect the good work of GCHQ, which is a big employer in my neck of the woods. Another example along those lines is an IT security company in Worcester called Titania. Its chief executive is an autistic woman, and it has tailored its recruitment process specifically to address some of the challenges that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) has identified in his report, so that it can recruit more autistic people, who it finds are such valuable and productive employees.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

That sounds like a wonderful model. The more of that kind of initiative around the country, the better.

The report makes the point that a line manager in a mainstream business may well not know that somebody they are managing is autistic. Whether the employer can agree reasonable adjustments for the employee, as is their right under the Equality Act, will depend on them self-disclosing their diagnosis to their line manager. As the review notes, whatever the level of understanding among company directors or senior staff, if the line manager is unable or unwilling to provide support, the employee will struggle to stay in their job.

The review is right to point out that at the moment there is no easily accessible guidance for employers and line managers on how to support autistic staff. Evidence to our inquiry so far suggests that, as the hon. Member for Worcester rightly said, employers want to do the right thing but often simply do not know how. When they are pointed in the right direction and try it, it turns out to be a positive experience. What can the Government do to give employers confidence in this area?

The review calls on the Department to

“Continue to develop Disability Confident, increasing the rigour of developmental work needed to achieve the higher Disability Confident levels”.

I think that is a very kind way of expressing the point. The noble Lord Shinkwin, who sits on the Government Benches in the other place and chaired the disability commission for the Centre for Social Justice, spoke for many of our witnesses when he said that Disability Confident

“is not making a measurable impact”

at the moment. Employers can, as things stand, achieve the highest level of Disability Confident accreditation without employing a single disabled person.

In response to our predecessor Select Committee six years ago, the Department said that it was developing proposals for an evaluation of Disability Confident. That commitment, first expressed six years ago, was announced again in response to our report almost three years ago in November 2021. However, I have still seen no sign of anything happening. Perhaps the Minister can update us. Is that evaluation of Disability Confident now complete, and when can we expect Disability Confident finally to be reformed?

The review is absolutely right to highlight the importance of Access to Work and to call for improvements there. It makes the point—I think the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon referred to this in his speech—that almost two thirds of disabled people stated that it took over three months for their application to be processed, and 20% said that it took over six months. He is absolutely right that that is far too slow. I agree that, as the review suggests, if the adjustment passport produces positive results, it should be rolled out nationally as soon as possible. However, in response to our Committee’s report three years ago in November 2021, we were promised that the adjustment passport would be piloted from November 2021 and, if successful, would be expanded to support all Access to Work customers. As far as I can tell, we seem to be no further forward in 2024 than we were in November 2021. When are these long-promised improvements actually going to materialise?

One other policy lever the Government could pull is mandatory disability workforce reporting, which was recommended unanimously, on a cross-party basis, in our 2021 report. There is a voluntary framework through which employers can choose to report, but in late 2021 the Government launched a consultation on whether to require large employers to report the number of disabled people they were employing. That work was then paused, but I understand that it has now been resumed, and that the Government plan to publish their findings and next steps in the course of this year. I wonder whether the Minister can update us on when we can expect to see that work. Does she agree that requiring employers to report on the number of disabled people they employ and, within that, perhaps the number of autistic people, could be effective in encouraging the employment of people with autism and other health impairments?

I very much welcome the report, which has highlighted important issues, and the opportunity to debate it today. I also welcome the positive approach that the right hon. and learned Gentleman took, when introducing the report earlier, in seeing the scale of opportunity if we get this right. However, laudable aspirations in this area are just not enough if delivery is delayed for years. We need an ambitious target to increase the rate of employment among people with autism and other disabled people. We need worked-up plans and timescales to deliver them. I very much hope that—perhaps as a result of the work of the task group that he mentioned—we will finally see some of that when the Government respond formally to this very welcome report.