Employment: Disability

(asked on 12th November 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of reintroducing a disability employment target that measures progress against employment levels of non-disabled people.


Answered by
Sarah Newton Portrait
Sarah Newton
This question was answered on 20th November 2018

We set out our continued commitment to improving employment rates for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions in Improving Lives: the Future of Work, Health and Disability. We believe people should get the support they need whatever their health condition or disability, whether that’s from their employer, from the health system or from the welfare system.

Too many people are missing the opportunity to develop their talents and connect with the world of work, which is why Improving Lives also set out our ambitious, specific and time-bound goal to see 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027.

However, no single measure can capture everything that we want to achieve. Improving Lives made it clear that “alongside monitoring the number of disabled people in work, we will also consider other useful statistical indicators which give more information about how disability and employment change over this time period, and inform our actions”.

For example, the ad hoc statistical update released on 1 November 2018, by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health and Social Care, included estimates of the number of disabled people in employment, their employment rate, and the gap between the employment rates of disabled and non-disabled people.

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