It's time to act on the disability employment gap
Last month, I made the keynote speech at a conference on closing the disability employment gap, beginning by explaining the origins of my personal interest in disability issues.
In November 1917, a young man aged 28, a dentist from Liverpool, was drafted in to fight in the fields of Flanders during the First World War. He went ‘over the top’ with his rifle and with his bayonet fixed to attack the German positions. Soon afterwards, there was a deafening explosion, much fire and smoke, and he was tossed into the air.
When he came round, some hours later, he was alone in “no man’s land”, his body was full of shrapnel, his left leg was severely damaged. He lay there for thirty-six hours, believing that he would bleed to death. Fortunately, he was picked up by German stretcher-bearers and taken to a field hospital, underwent many operations, and his shattered left leg was removed.
When the Germans sent him back to England, he spent a long time in hospital; he was fitted with an artificial leg, and he began to work as a dentist again. He was my father. Despite his injuries in 1917, I was born in 1960 when he was 71, and my younger brother was born when he was 73. He had a good life, but only survived thanks to insulin which was developed in the 1920s, the same decade in which he was diagnosed with diabetes.
The development of insulin saved his life, enabled mine to take place, and now I control my diabetes with it as well. Before I left Primary School in Liverpool, my mother, by then a widow, developed severe and very painful rheumatoid arthritis. She needed to use a wheelchair to leave the house.
As I became a teenager, I had to help her with basic things that she couldn’t do, like getting out of the bath, or climbing the stairs. I grew up in an era when there was much less provision for people with disabilities and Alf Morris’s Chronically Sick and Disabled Act was just beginning to take effect. It was more often expected then that disabilities would mean that you couldn’t work or progress in a career.
Too often today, people are still condemned to living in poverty because of disabilities rather than be helped to progress in employment. The recent report, “Unpacking the Disability Employment Gap” from the University of Sheffield shows that whilst 81% of the working age population in the UK is currently in employment, only 53% of disabled people have that status. The level of employment can be as high as 72% amongst those with less severe conditions, but as low as 30% for those with more severe physical conditions.
The employment rate for disabled people with no qualifications is 40% lower than that for non-disabled people with no qualifications. By contrast, the employment rate of disabled people with a degree or equivalent is just 14% below the employment rate of similarly qualified non-disabled people.
The Government is making efforts to address the Disability Employment Gap, but much more needs to be done. The Chartered Institute for People Development (CIPD) has identified key areas for public policy reform.
We need better careers advice and guidance. Cultural and societal attitudes around health and disability do not begin with employment and attitudinal change needs to start at the earliest opportunity to have an impact on the expectations of young people entering the labour market, as well as those of their peers. We need to have national and organisational disability data reporting (e.g., pay gap reporting). Government and employers, and business/professional bodies, need to do much more to publicise, educate, and engage with employers around the existing voluntary reporting framework, with the aim of building on this to introduce a mandatory approach. There must also be greater availability and promotion of flexible working opportunities. Flexible working, including at home, would make work more accessible and sustainable for all, particularly for people with some disabilities and health concerns.
We must achieve cultural change and good practice within the workplace. This means real commitment from senior leaders and managers, with employers needing to develop a working environment that fosters diversity and does not tolerate bias towards people with a disability, even if it is unconscious. This needs to provide the bedrock for encouraging a positive and open culture; employers should understand their legal obligations under the Equality Act in managing disability and making reasonable adjustments when necessary. Closing the disability employment gap will make for a better society for us all.
Lord Rennard is a British life peer in the House of Lords, known for being the Director of Campaigns & Elections for the Liberal Democrats from 1989 to 2003, and Chief Executive of the party from 2003 to 2009.
