Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will review the Disability Confident scheme.

DWP is committed to strengthening the Disability Confident Scheme to ensure it remains credible, sufficiently challenging, and continues to support the employment of disabled people. Key to this is the implementation of the recommendations from the review including work to strengthen the criteria for all employers and tailoring the scheme for SMEs. On 9 April 2024 DWP published a revised version of the Disability Confident Line Manager’s Guide, in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), providing a range of guidance to support businesses of all sizes. Further changes to the scheme criteria stemming from these recommendations are well underway and we expect to have fully implemented them by the end of March 2025.

The Department is continuing to work with a wide range of stakeholders, including employers, disability charities, and disabled people’s organisations to develop, and grow the scheme to increase the number of inclusive employers in the UK.