Official Report 308KB pdf
Item 2 is the committee's disability inquiry. This will be the first of our formal evidence-taking sessions on the theme of work. I am pleased to welcome Morag Gillespie and Gareth Mulvey, who are two of the authors of the report "Transitions to Employment: Advising Disadvantaged Groups". I am also pleased to welcome Sheila Riddell, who is the author of "Disability and Employment in Scotland: A Review of the Evidence Base". A very warm welcome to you. We have many questions to ask and I hope that we will have enough time.
Our research has highlighted inconsistencies. The most significant finding is perhaps quite an obvious one: the issues that people needed advice on were closely linked to the barriers to work that they faced. That seems terribly obvious in retrospect, but it is very useful to take it into account, because many other issues follow on from it.
There is a need for better communication and for knowledge of programmes that are specific to Scotland—the ones that are run by Scottish Enterprise, by local authorities, by further education colleges and so on. There is also a need for knowledge of initiatives that come out of Jobcentre Plus—to do with access to work, the new deal for disabled people, work preparation and so on. Sometimes people are doing pretty much the same thing, but it is labelled differently, so there is duplication of effort. There is a huge number of programmes and there is an awful lot of overlap. There could probably be a radical stripping out.
Both the reports that I mentioned suggest that the current system of monitoring and evaluating schemes that assist disabled people to get into work could be improved. Our inquiry has found that, too. How should monitoring be done? People say to us that they are doing this, that and the next thing, but how do we know?
The most important thing to know is the proportion of disabled people in employment. In Scotland, the proportion is low; it is less than 40 per cent, which is lower than the figure in England and Wales. If someone lives in a workless household, they are probably living in poverty, so if we want disabled people not to be living in poverty, we have to improve their employment rate. That is the most important thing and it is fairly easy to monitor. There has been a small improvement, but we need much more improvement.
I agree that it is critical to monitor that, but I suspect that a developmental issue arises, especially in the advice services. Those services may be less used to the regimes of European social funding. Those regimes have for a long time required that monitoring take place, so the services that have dealt with European social funding are more familiar with monitoring. The advice services are less familiar with it because they have a much narrower funding base. Monitoring could be improved.
So the monitoring should be kept fairly simple but consistent, so that appropriate information can be gathered.
Yes. Monitoring is one of the processes that should be led from the top, as it is not helpful if 20 different routes of funding are looking for 20 different types of monitoring—there is a plethora of quality standards and you start to scream inside your head when you look at them all.
There is a tension between whether employment or employability is seen as being the outcome. There are arguments in both directions. It will be difficult for some disabled people to get employment as they face huge barriers. It is important to improve people's employability, but unless people move into paid work at some point, the fundamental problem of poverty has not been addressed. Even the best programmes get only about 20 per cent of people into some sort of work and that might be very part-time work in very supported employment. I do not want to rubbish that and say that it does not matter, but we need to boost the success of the schemes that are being delivered and raise expectations. Most disabled people want to work and do not want endlessly to increase their employability. Many people say, "I feel trained enough. Please just give me a job."
Yes, but is that to do with outcomes? We heard from one organisation that sometimes it has nine weeks in which to get people job ready. For some people, that is not long enough. There may be a positive outcome in respect of the skills and confidence that the person gains, but it might not be realistic to say that they can become job ready in nine weeks. Is there an issue with the expectation that is placed on organisations, given the timescale within which they operate? Is there an overemphasis on outcomes?
I am not sure that there is an overemphasis on outcomes. For economic reasons, Jobcentre Plus has tended to focus on the people who are closest to the labour market. The big target has been and will continue to be—particularly with the UK Government green paper that is due to come out—people on incapacity benefit, because they are seen as costing a lot of money. In fact, those people may not be the keenest to get a job because some of them have put quite a lot of energy into securing a benefits package. Often people who are the most disabled—the most severely impaired—are desperate to find work, but it will cost a lot of money to place them and maintain them in employment. There is a big tension between what the Treasury might want and what disabled people might want.
Absolutely.
One of the key points behind that was that the people to whom we talked do not distinguish well between the type of advice needs that might be met by traditional advice services and other support that they might need to prepare them for work, such as help to prepare a curriculum vitae and all the different kinds of support that might be linked more to employability than to welfare rights advice. We noted people's lack of clarity about that and, on some occasions, about whom they get what services from. People saw themselves as a whole person with a whole set of needs, which often included money issues—money was an issue for all the people to whom we spoke. They did not compartmentalise themselves in a way that was convenient for the service delivery model. That is where a difference could be made.
One of the aims of bringing together the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service in Jobcentre Plus, which was radical, was that people who gave employment advice could also give benefits advice. In the past, somebody in a Government office who gave advice on employment would not give advice on benefits and vice versa. The intention was to knit those two services together.
That takes me to my next question. Both reports highlighted the training of staff who assist disabled people into employment as crucial to ensuring the success and effectiveness of the service. Indeed, training for staff was part of the research for Sheila Riddell's report, "Transitions to Employment: Advising Disadvantaged Groups", in which she mentions that disability employment advisers are not always adequately trained. Why is that and how should staff training be improved?
The professional status of disability employment advisers is an issue. There is no career route and they come from all sorts of backgrounds. There is no training, which is surprising, given the importance of the job and the amount of knowledge and skills that advisers need. In other countries, such as Canada, the US and other parts of Europe, there is much better, more professional training for people who give employment advice. The bodies that work in the area have been pleading for ages for proper training schemes to be put in place, for which there is a strong argument. Of course, that is difficult for Scotland, because I suppose that schemes would have to be UK-wide.
The witnesses have spoken clearly about the need for partnership working and for an holistic approach to all advice provision and service delivery. Are we making a success of partnership working? In my constituency we have opportunity centres, where many different agencies, such as Jobcentre Plus and colleges, work from the same building and give advice. Do such operations work? Are there examples of best practice that we could consider as a model?
We need to look at the situation on two different levels—from a national and a local perspective. Local authorities have an important co-ordinating role to play.
An interesting point here is that much of the support has been privatised for many years. In the 1980s, the Employment Service stopped doing a lot of training and service delivery and the money went to private and voluntary-sector organisations such as Enable and Capability Scotland, which do a huge amount of work in the area.
Morag Gillespie spoke about local and national perspectives. When you spoke about the national level, did you mean the relationship between the UK and Scottish Government departments? If so, what needs to be improved?
That is part of it. Before I address that point, I will comment on a service that is a good model for the improvement of access to services for disadvantaged groups. The lone parent helpline is a well-badged service that targets a group of people who are disadvantaged in a number of areas, including access to services. It does not deliver a detailed, in-depth service but it seems to be effective in giving people initial advice and directing them to suitable local services. That is a useful model for targeting some—although not all—groups of people who do not access support to the extent that we would like. That is an issue for both Scotland and the UK.
I agree. If we are to crack the problem of large numbers of people being on incapacity benefit, we will need to consider the broad issue of the types of work that people can move into. After all, for most of us, there has to be an incentive to get out of bed and go to work. People like us have quite nice jobs and, generally, we like going to work in the morning, but many disabled people who are on incapacity benefit are offered jobs that are at the margins of employment. Those jobs are often hard and insecure—they are not good jobs, basically. That is a huge issue for society to address, but improving life for people in low-paid, insecure jobs is fundamental.
You mentioned jobs that are at the margins of employment. I presume that you are also talking about the quality of earnings. Is that a disincentive to disabled people?
I think so. If there is not a great difference between being on incapacity benefit and earning a wage by working extremely hard, it is not surprising that many people choose to stay on incapacity benefit. We need to consider the situation of people who earn very little money. It is true that households are better off if people are in work. The statistics show that, by and large, workless households are households in which there is poverty and often children who are living in poverty. As a general rule of thumb, it is better for people to be in work. On the other hand, it is obvious that the reason why people are reluctant to take jobs is that the jobs on offer are not very good. We have to tackle that as well as the disincentives and incentives—the sticks and carrots—if we are to get people into employment, so I hope that the green paper on incapacity benefit will address that aspect as well as the simplification of the benefits system and so on.
One of the interesting things that we found in our research was the incredible difference between the range of jobs that people had done previously and the jobs that they were doing or were being offered now. On the possibility of progression, which you mentioned, the real problem with some of the programmes that we have come across is that there seems to be an inclination to conduct a bums-on-seats exercise. There is no notion that disabled people might want to progress within an organisation or to a job with better pay, prospects and conditions as much as anybody else would.
A point that is worth bearing in mind for the future relates to the question of low wage rates. Sheila Riddell is right that employment is the route out of employment for many, but not all, people. The New Policy Institute says that people in paid work are the fastest growing group of people living in poverty. Although employment is a route out of poverty, people in paid employment are starting to account for a bigger and bigger chunk of people living in poverty. That is an issue to watch.
Thank you for your answers. When we took evidence about people being job ready, we heard from young people and adults alike about their lack of confidence. Sheila Riddell talked quite a bit about people falling through gaps because there is no overarching support. One of the other interesting pieces of evidence is that people feel that when they get into further education they are on a treadmill and go from one course to another; they want to get into work, but find it hard to get to the job-ready stage. You have partly answered this, but what should we be doing to ensure that people get off the treadmill and on to the ladder?
We need to think more creatively about the sort of long-term support that people need. It is one thing to get somebody into a job, but quite another to retain them. The access to work scheme is really good—it gives people the sort of support that they need in many different forms, such as transport to work, a personal assistant at work to help them do certain things and adaptations to the work environment—but the money is capped. There is only a certain amount of money in the pot and when that is spent, that is it.
We have touched a little on the idea of a Scotland-wide scheme. We heard evidence about inconsistencies in services, and one of the suggestions that the committee has heard is that there could be a centrally funded scheme to support disabled people into employment and to sustain them in that employment. As you said, that sort of scheme could also help people to maintain employment if they acquire a disability or if their impairment or condition worsens. The purpose of such a scheme would be to bring together through permanent funding all the services that are currently provided. What are your views on that?
Do you mean a Scotland-wide scheme of employment support?
Yes.
There are pros and cons to that suggestion. Most voluntary sector organisations in the field would probably say that such a scheme would be a good thing, and the Government wants flexibility so that new ideas can be trialled. The Government looked to New Zealand, for example, for the job-brokerage idea, which was hailed as being something that was going to work really well. Although the scheme has had some modest success, it is probably not the panacea that was envisaged. There is a need for more continuity of funding, but also for flexible funding that can be used to try new ideas.
I agree. In researching advice on transitions to work, and in the work that I am currently doing for the Scottish Executive on evaluating money advice services, it has struck me that there is a role for different levels of national provision. There is huge scope for economies of scale with, for example, preparation and development of training, information and so on and—as I said earlier—some basic levels of support in signposting.
Interestingly enough and almost counter-intuitively, there is a higher employment rate among disabled people in rural areas than in the big urban centres. Although there are fewer support services in rural areas—fewer employment and advice services—a higher proportion of people are in employment and a lower proportion of people are on incapacity benefit. That is partly cultural; people in rural areas are quite good at wheeling and dealing to get little bits of work here and there. That definitely happens in the Highlands and Islands. There is less of that culture in the big urban centres, such as Glasgow.
Some useful insights were contained in those replies. I am interested in your analysis of the difference between dispersed and urban communities.
A person who has a serious learning disability is likely to leave school with some qualifications, although obviously their qualifications will not be same as those of somebody who does not have a learning disability. We have always to bear that in mind.
We were aware when we were doing our research that Careers Scotland is trying to work towards holistic advice and support. It is one of the few organisations that we came across that provides staff training on access to service needs as well as training on particular impairments. It has considered access to service needs, and has not looked at disability just as a factor in claiming benefits, which is a big focus in advice services. Careers Scotland's service is not in-depth with regard to people's rights, so I would encourage it to engage more with advice services and networks. Careers Scotland should have the confidence to work in collaboration with advice services to support its move towards providing more holistic advice.
That is a useful but worrying picture.
There are huge gaps for certain groups. There is very little in the way of services for people with significant learning disabilities, such as autistic spectrum disorder. Although parents campaign for pilot schemes and schools put a lot of energy into educating young people, there is a gaping chasm and that simply does not make sense. In the olden days, people used sometimes to go straight from school to a day centre, and that was it for life. It was a depressing prospect that did not make sense, especially after so much had been invested in their education. Parents are saying that they want better services for their young people, which they are partly developing themselves with support from the agencies. As I said, there is not a seamless transition for the NEET group, which is often very socially disadvantaged.
Support for people who are going through further and higher education should be looked at from a mainstreaming perspective. That will improve the core schemes rather than add on bits that will work for a particular group—additional support for lone parents being a good case in point. However, if we consider a mainstreaming approach, we must ask how much the core system supports different groups. If it does not support them, then perhaps we should change the core system rather than try to paper over the cracks with changes here and there. I know that that cannot be done easily or quickly, but more people will be supported better through the system in the long term if the core system is as embracing as possible.
From evidence, we have heard that more work needs to be done to engage with employers in employing disabled people. Employers have told us that they would like more information on how to support disabled employees. That information ranges from benefits advice to how to make reasonable adjustments. How should agencies and services engage with employers? Is the current support that is available to employers adequate? Further to that, is additional provision available for assistance to ethnic minority disabled people?
Employers do not get a great deal of support. The best schemes work when employers work closely with Jobcentre Plus or a delivery agency. For example, we have found that when people go out on placement, through work preparation or whatever, the employer often does not know who they are or what scheme they are on. The transfer of information about the person is often not very good. Employers therefore need to be better informed about what is happening and what their role is. Sometimes employers receive an incentive to put a disabled person on placement schemes and sometimes they do not.
This may sound cheeky, but without clear and robust legislation that puts people in much less doubt about their obligations and rights, there is huge scope to address discrimination by raising awareness through training and other measures.
There are different situations and contexts to consider. It is easier for big employers to run with this, because they have more resources. However, a high proportion of people in Scotland work in small to medium-sized enterprises, and it is sometimes difficult for an employer to know what they should do and how to get help to do it. We must remember that one of the central planks of discrimination against disabled people is the failure to make reasonable adjustments. Often, a disabled person is not aware that they have the right to ask for a reasonable adjustment to be made or that help is available for that, such as the access to work scheme paying for an adjustment, although in such cases the employer would also be expected—under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995—to pay a proportion of the cost.
Has there been a better response from the public sector than from the private sector in employing disabled people?
It is interesting that more cases are brought under the DDA against public sector employers. The reason for that is probably that everybody is more aware of the issue in the public sector than they are in the private sector. The main distinction is between large and small firms. The public sector is making reasonable progress, at least in certain areas.
Sheila Riddell talked about endless employability training. She said that people want to get into paid employment but not to join the ranks of the working poor. I want to explore that idea a wee bit further in the context of voluntary work.
Voluntary work offers people many opportunities to develop all sorts of social and work-related skills. However, your point that people do not want to get stuck in voluntary work is absolutely right. For some people, supported employment is important because it involves being paid for a job while receiving support and possibly working hours that suit them, which might not be an enormous amount of time. Supported employment can be the bridge for people, but we must also consider more closely the skills that people obtain in voluntary work. We must help people to use those skills and to develop them so that they do not get stuck.
That leads to my next question, which is about specific impairments. All of us would like to do certain jobs but would not apply for others. The committee heard in evidence that there is a perception—and probably evidence—that people with certain impairments can find work more easily than people with other impairments can or—to turn that around—some people find it much harder to get a job. According to the National Autistic Society's submission, 6 per cent of people with autistic spectrum disorder are in full-time paid employment, compared to the national figure for disabled people of 49 per cent. The situation may be different in Scotland—you mentioned that the overall figure in Scotland was 40 per cent, so perhaps the figure for people with ASD is lower than 6 per cent. The figures are worrying. Does the perception that people with certain impairments can find work more easily have a foundation? Will you comment further on that?
There are two aspects to that: the situation is partly to do with prejudice and with employers assuming that some people will not be able to work. That said, we should not ignore the barriers that some people face as a result of impairments. Measures can be taken to overcome the majority of impairments, although some are more expensive than others; for example, a deaf person might need a sign language interpreter at work, who would have to be paid and funds might be available for that through the access to work scheme. A person with autistic spectrum disorder might find many jobs too challenging, but people who are enthusiastic about supported employment say that there is barely a single person who cannot do some work given the appropriate support. We need to be more creative; we should not go for the easy option of saying that a person is too disabled to work. Such ideas are being challenged, particularly in supported employment.
Your report mentions the debate about whether assistance for disabled people should be mainstreamed or impairment specific. Will you comment further on the issues and how they should be resolved?
The first issue with impairment-specific schemes is how they are broken down. The nature of a person's impairment does not necessarily dictate the support that they need. For example, a person might have more than one impairment; they might have a physical disability and a mental health impairment. If they receive support as a physically disabled person, where will the support for their mental health difficulties come from? It would be bad if we had only impairment-specific schemes, because that would mean that people could not access mainstream schemes, which would be a real pity. On the other hand, some advisers do not know a great deal about certain impairments and do not know what support people will receive. My feeling is that a range of provision is probably required, but that there is a danger in automatically channelling disabled people into a scheme for people who have the same impairment rather than into a mainstream programme, where they might do better.
Does that come back to training? In its submission, the National Autistic Society said that 75 per cent of Jobcentre Plus disability employment advisers whom it surveyed agreed that they would like training about ASD. That is concerning—does that mean that they do not receive training? Obviously, you cannot answer that.
They would probably like training about quite a lot of things. It has been found that personal advisers and DEAs often feel that they do not have the specialist knowledge and skills that they need in relation to particular impairments. We should deliver that. As I have said, much better professional development in such matters is needed and is sadly lacking.
I put my question to Sheila Riddell, but Morag Gillespie or Gareth Mulvey can respond.
I return to our research, most of which was from the perspective of service users—their experience of using advice and other support services, what they valued and what they had a problem with. It is interesting and consistent with research that has been done on the pathways to work programmes that service users valued services that understood their needs and focused on the soft skills. Service users might take it as read that they will receive high-quality, accurate advice—advice workers rated that highest—but they valued the soft skills and relationships of trust and confidence. That is why a mismatch arose: the people whom service users went to for detailed representation were not necessarily the best people to provide it, but they were the trusted intermediaries.
I presume that services have a role after employment is found. If it is known that somebody is sometimes late, perhaps that can be coped with better and work can be fitted around it. Sheila Riddell mentioned that. However, if the employer does not know about such a problem and the issues are not understood, that person might face disciplinary procedures and be sacked. Is that a problem?
That is an issue. Jobcentre Plus now has much more of a focus on job retention and working with employers to think about how to retain people in work, because we know that once somebody goes on long-term sick leave, the chances are that they will not return to the labour market or that to do so will become much more difficult.
I will talk briefly about benefits. They are reserved, but we need to have a bit of discussion about them, because we have heard much evidence about them. The committee has heard that they could be a major barrier to access to work for disabled people. If you could make any recommendations to the UK Government about the benefits trap, what would they be?
The witnesses have two minutes to answer.
I hope that that is going to be considered in the context of the new green paper that will be produced some weeks or months down the line. Efforts have been made to remove some of the barriers and to put into the benefits system some incentives, such as the 52-week linking rule. However, it would seem that that has not really worked so far. The benefits system is fantastically complicated and it is ironic that people who have the greatest difficulties in life have to cope with the most complicated bureaucratic system that would defeat anybody.
In 2003, Westminster's Work and Pensions Committee said that, although the benefits system is complex, it becomes a bit simplistic in relation to the binary split between incapacity and ability to work. That is a core problem that must be addressed more flexibly. One person's flexibility is another person's complexity. However, until that issue is addressed, the benefits system will remain a huge barrier to work. The system of disability benefits, the disability living allowance and tax credits for disabled people must become easier to understand. People have to be able to understand why their benefits change or stop.
One of the issues about incapacity benefit compared with jobseekers allowance is that there are more incentives for people to be on incapacity benefit than there are for people to be on jobseekers allowance. Not only do you get a little bit more money but you do not get pestered so much to get work—at least, that is people's impression. I am sure that the green paper will consider that issue.
We have talked about helping people to get into work and a bit about progression. Once a disabled person has secured employment, what assistance could and should be given to them if they want to advance their career?
Employers obviously need to be in dialogue with their employees, especially if they know that they are disabled. For example, they must ask about any adjustments that the employee might need, not just to do their job, but to be able to progress in it. There is sometimes a tendency to think that a disabled person should be grateful to have a job and therefore should not be demanding or asking, "What next?" That point was made earlier.
Disabled people have identified a lack of information on employment, benefits, child care and disability discrimination legislation as a barrier to getting work. In general, people think that such information exists, but they are not sure how to get it. What should be done to co-ordinate information provision among service providers? You have mentioned one-stop shops. Do you have any examples of good information provision that the committee could consider?
The models that I am aware of do not relate specifically to information on disability. It is necessary not just to produce information, but to use many different routes to put it out. The provision of well-written information that is easily accessible can allow good economies of scale to be made. There are examples of that. The one that I know best relates to lone parents, who can easily access a great deal of simple information.
That is right; Anne Marshall will say more about that later. A great deal of work has been done with occupational health services at work. It is important that small and medium-sized enterprises have external occupational health services that they can draw on, whereby not just employers, but employees can be given advice.
One of the barriers that disabled people identified at our consultation event was people's attitude to them, and we have commissioned research into disability equality training. What do you think can be done to combat some of the negative or ill-informed attitudes that some people have to disabled people, particularly as workers?
There are different attitudes to different impairments. There is probably a lot of sympathy for the so-called plucky wheelchair user who is getting on and doing their job, but there is less sympathy for those with certain types of impairment that people might find a little bit frightening. It is well known that there is still a lot of stigma around mental health, and I know that the Scottish Executive Health Department has been trying to raise awareness, through the see me Scotland campaign, of the need for much greater understanding of mental health difficulties, which affect lots of us—they do not affect just some other group of people. We need to be aware that there are different attitudes and that some positive stuff is happening, but there is still a need for big improvements.
That is an area in which volunteering can help. Advice services in the voluntary sector use volunteers a lot; I had a lot of experience of that in the past when I worked in advice services. It was interesting to see how much a volunteer could bring to the organisation. As well as gaining skills and experience from the organisation, many people brought a lot to the organisations for which they volunteered. That enabled people to learn a lot more. A lot of people's concerns are driven by ignorance, and volunteering can be a good way of helping people to learn and of improving their understanding, but there is a long way to go to reduce people's misconceptions.
We have covered a lot of questions about access to work for disabled people, and members of the panel have great experience in that area. Can you each tell us just one thing that you think we should include in our report that would make life better for disabled folk?
Linking up the economic regeneration and social inclusion agenda with the equalities for disabled people agenda is quite a challenge. That is happening, but it needs to happen more.
Services should talk to one another and deal with the whole person and the whole person's needs, rather than just think about what they want to deliver to a person.
My comment is linked to what Sheila Riddell was saying, possibly with less of a focus on individual barriers and problems—going back to the social model versus the medical model of disability—and with more focus on how society disables people.
Thank you for your answers, which will be helpful for our report.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome our new panel of witnesses: Liz Galashan from Careers Scotland in the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area; Julie-Anne Jamieson from Careers Scotland in the Scottish Enterprise area; Anne MacDonald from Highlands and Islands Enterprise; Anne Marshall and John Reid from Jobcentre Plus; and Scott Skinner from Scottish Enterprise.
Yes, I think that it probably is. However, we should be careful what we wish for. Do we want consistency? What is it that we want to be consistent? Perhaps we genuinely want to take a consistent and person-centred approach to assessment and to treat people as individuals, but we should acknowledge that there are different ways of achieving good outcomes.
There is inconsistency. A lot depends on the part of the country in which a person lives. Reference was made earlier to areas of high population such as Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen, where there tend to be many advice agencies—a lot of the national voluntary organisations are based in those areas—and where a lot of good advice is available. However, the problems might be greater in rural areas where there might not be the same level of infrastructure or access to information.
I agree with the rest of the panel about inconsistency. It is vital that we should have more joined-up working and partnership working. To go back to what Sheila Riddell was saying, I agree that the public sector duty on disability will have a phenomenal effect on the delivery of public services for disabled people in Scotland. The onus is on us all to make sure that partnership working is effective. If we do that properly, the level of inconsistency will start to decline.
Do you see that partnership between organisations in the statutory sector only or between the statutory sector and the voluntary sector? What kind of preparation would you want to put in place to ensure that the voluntary sector is an equal partner?
It is absolutely vital to bring in the voluntary sector, which provides superb services throughout Scotland—it would be remiss of statutory bodies if they did not work closely with voluntary bodies. The public sector duty puts the focus on partners that are delivering public services for disabled people. The duty of statutory bodies also transfers to the voluntary sector, which is why the issue is important.
I agree that there is inconsistency in services, particularly in the rural area covered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. There are examples of good practice where organisations in the rural areas have been proactive on the whole agenda, such as the disability forum in Orkney, which came about through public sector forums. Also, in our area we have started the Highlands and Islands equality forum, a partnership between the voluntary sector and statutory bodies that addresses all areas of equality, but particularly focuses on giving advice on disability.
You have some good examples.
Yes.
We want good examples from the rest of the panel as well. The committee is concerned about the differing natures of the services that are provided, the possibility of duplication of provision and the impact that that might have on resources. For example, there are schemes that might be competing for the same staff and resources, which, of course, means that there will be duplication of services to the folk who are meant to benefit from them. Is there duplication of services and competition between them?
In your first question, you mentioned inconsistencies between services, but there is also concern about the complexity of services in some areas, which is confusing both for the people who deliver them and for the people whom the services are supposed to help. In a recent study, the Glasgow welfare to work forum did a stocktake of the services that are available; the results were astounding. There is a lot of duplication and a lot of parallel provision. It is not that one service is better than another, but there is an awful lot out there.
You are wondering what is out there, but it must be even more confusing for a disabled person who is looking for work.
Absolutely. That came through in the work that has been done in Glasgow—and in Fife and other areas—to map provision. Services have different names and are provided by different providers even though they are basically the same thing. There is a lot of confusion around, particularly for the long-term unemployed. There is a concern that services are not as progressive as they could be, even though everyone is doing good work. How do we streamline services and identify what is needed and who pays for it?
On that point, we heard that there is a fair amount of money around but that it is probably not appropriately directed to deliver what needs to be delivered. Are we getting value for money? Is the money that is available to get people into work being targeted properly or does the lack of co-ordination between agencies mean that the good work that is done in some areas is not done everywhere? Perhaps resources could be better targeted and better used.
The DWP evaluates all the programmes that Jobcentre Plus delivers, but given the changing nature of our customers, questions have been asked about the provision that is required. When my colleague John Reid speaks later about the pathways to work programme, he will talk about how we have changed and the way in which we use resources.
I would be interested to hear other agencies' views on resources and how they are used.
I guess that a hobby-horse of mine is that public sector organisations do not communicate as much as they should, not just on disability, but on equality issues generally. The Scottish Executive's equality unit is looking into that to try to ensure that public sector organisations share more information. However, you are absolutely right: service providers as well as disabled people will get very confused if we do not know what is going on outwith our own areas.
I want to take a step back to the previous question. We work across the Highlands and Islands and often there is no marketplace—quite the opposite. We are considering how we can ensure that there is a range of services across the geographies where we work. We sometimes carry out support work at what is almost an amateur level. We work very much at a community level and the question is how we can support the unofficial systems that are out there. That is why we work so strongly with the voluntary sector. We are often simply not visible to the public sector partners across the Highlands and Islands, so our networking at the voluntary sector level is very important.
I want to go back to the point about competition for resources and the question whether resources are perhaps not being used effectively. Recent preparatory work on the employability framework included a mapping exercise, which considered the complexities involved in the provision of support services for young people in a couple of areas in Scotland who are NEET. What came out strongly from the consultation that was done as part of that work, particularly from the voluntary sector, was that organisations were constantly chasing short-term resources but that lessons from that were not being adequately learned and inputted into mainstream services. There is a kind of revolving-door syndrome, which involves people chasing resources but not learning from the process.
We heard about the duplication of services, which by its nature must be expensive. Are you suggesting that that situation should be reviewed and that more funding should go to the voluntary sector and what you call the unofficial services?
That depends on what is being duplicated. There are statutory organisations that have clear remits to work with individuals and provide different types of support. There are also a number of voluntary organisations that can support that process—some have a specific remit to work with individuals with a particular disability, while others have more wide-ranging remits.
There is room for statutory, local and voluntary organisations. Indeed, I think that there is a tremendous opportunity for some of the work to be carried out as part of the community planning process, as happened when I worked in West Dunbartonshire. Given that the full range of statutory and voluntary bodies is not represented at the table, community planning offers an opportunity to discuss rationalisation and ensure that we are not duplicating services or wasting resources.
I should point out that the suggestion that services are being duplicated or resources wasted is based on evidence that we received from someone involved in delivery, not from the voluntary sector.
I am interested in Liz Galashan's point about whether there is agreement over what we are trying to achieve. In the evidence that we have taken, disabled people have stressed that a person-centred approach should be taken and have told us that they want to be treated as individuals, not as statistics in an outcome-based approach. To what extent do the services that we provide help disabled people as individuals to prepare for work and to find and keep a job?
I can respond only in terms of the services that I am directly involved with, including the services that are contracted to service providers and over which we have some management control. I am confident that, over the past three and a half years, we in the Highlands and Islands have developed a person-centred approach that helps the individual to discover what they need to move towards employability. Of course, what they need might not necessarily be what they think they need or even what they say they want. We take the person through a process of discovery to allow them to have some self-determination over their choices.
With the best will in the world, public sector organisations cannot even begin to understand many of the employability issues that disabled people face. That is why consultation with disabled people is vital. One of the main tenets in the public sector duty is the requirement to go to consultation on any services that we provide to disabled people. That allows us to focus and target our services to individual needs and to get feedback. We cannot have a broadbrush approach.
I want to follow up on some of Liz Galashan's points and talk about the work that Careers Scotland is doing in the Scottish Enterprise area. We developed an operating model, which shows how we operate as an organisation. At the heart of the model is the individual: we look at their assessed needs, what sort of service is appropriate and what sort of career planning or additional support they might require.
I mentioned earlier the changes that Jobcentre Plus has been going through. In some areas, we still have social security offices and job centres, but by the end of April next year we expect all Jobcentre Plus offices to be fully rolled out, as they say. The emphasis is on services through a personal adviser network. Much of the processing work and things that went on in the old job centre and social security network will be done elsewhere, so that the focus of those working in the job centres will be exactly as Frances Curran said: delivering a very personal service to their customers.
I want to build on Anne Marshall's point about experts and talk about the issues around pathways to work. It has been decided that the NHS will deliver the condition management element of the service so that personal advisers have access to condition management at all times. On the point about people having to tell their life history, condition management practitioners and personal advisers often work jointly with the individual, so that they do not need to go over the same information twice. We are attempting to ensure that the personal advisers are experts in their fields. When it comes to the health conditions, we make use of the resources that are available.
My next question is about the concept of people being work ready. We understand from much of the evidence that we have taken that the aim is to assist disabled people into work at a stage prior to their being job ready. However, many participants at our consultation events said that they lacked the confidence to apply for work. The committee has noted that, in many work preparation schemes, the standard time available is not usually sufficient and that people are often not job ready when they complete their scheme. In your opinion, is the current system working? Do you think that anything more can be done? The issue is important because it is linked to statistics and outcomes, which are in turn linked to funding.
I can answer that in relation to pathways to work, although perhaps not in relation to other aspects. The pathways to work programme is not aimed at job-ready individuals. One of the tools that the adviser uses screens out individuals who could find work for themselves. That leaves those individuals who are further from the labour market. The advisers and the NHS staff have time to deliver a tailored service over a period of months to help those individuals into work. If people move into work more quickly, so be it. As for pathways to work, the DWP has taken the decision, along with the NHS, to tailor that service to those who are slightly further away from the labour market and who need greater support. Those who are closer to the labour market will move on through mainstream or other provision or off their own backs.
Is that time limited or time unlimited?
The advisers conduct a series of work-focused interviews, as we call them, of which there are six of over a period of six months. We can, however, defer them and the NHS can give advice to the advisers on the length of time that it might take an individual to move on. The individual might move on to other provision before returning to a personal adviser at a later date. There are time limits for when an individual can see an adviser. However, that limit may be deferred or, as a result of advice from condition management, delayed for a given period.
What is the position of other organisations on the timescale that Frances Curran highlighted and on people being job ready?
We have been involved in the new futures initiative, helping many disadvantaged clients, people with disabilities and people with long-term mental health issues progress towards employment. One issue to come out of that work has been the amount of time that people need to become work ready. However, since that initiative came to an end and we have realigned our training towards clients who are much closer to the labour market, we have realised that a gap in provision has developed. We hope that the employability framework, which will come into effect next year, will help us to address that. We are aware of the potential gap in our adult programme, but we are not time bound in relation to the skillseekers programme and young people who need a longer period for training.
May I make a distinction between work ready and job ready? Semantics are always a problem. From a Careers Scotland perspective, I suggest that a number of programmes that we offer our clients would make them work ready. The programmes get them to a stage where they can begin to take control over their decision making and are motivated to work; they have attained a level of confidence without our necessarily being specific about what sort of job might be appropriate or how many steps there might be to go until they are stable within the labour market.
The point about timescales is relevant to Jobcentre Plus, as many of our contracts have time limits. There are flexibilities on the margin, but people tend to speak about a six-week course or a 13-week course, because that is how the contract has been designed. Some of those contracts may have been designed for a customer group that they do not fit very well, so, obviously, that is all being reviewed.
We have heard about inconsistency in services. One suggestion that the committee has heard in evidence is that there should be a centrally funded scheme to support disabled people into employment and sustain them in it and to assist people to maintain employment if they acquire a disability or their impairment or condition worsens. The purpose of such a scheme would be to bring together all the services provided with permanent funding. What are your views on that?
I would be rather concerned if another layer of service provision was put in place in the public sector. As we have heard this morning, some disabled people are already confused about the provision of employability services, so to add another layer of provision would be quite dangerous. We need to mainstream the public sector duty agenda within existing provision—for example, in Scottish Enterprise's national skillseekers programme and modern apprenticeships. If we do a proper disability impact assessment, which the new duty will require, we should be able to service the needs of disabled people much more efficiently. That does not happen among public sector bodies at the moment. If we did that work really well, there would be no need for any additional support.
But that is not happening. You are telling me that this will happen and that will be fine, but we hear that such work is not happening. The public sector duty is being introduced and things should already happen because of the Scotland Act 1998 and equality requirements, but we hear that they are not. I know that sounds cheeky, but disabled people tell us that although they want to get into the workplace, the barriers are far too high.
Absolutely. That is why we at Scottish Enterprise fully support the introduction of the new public sector duty. Legislation has put in place certain measures for disabled people but, as we have seen for race equality, the real change will happen when the public sector duty is embedded. There are examples of good practice, but consistency is a problem and the public sector is not currently providing services proactively for disabled people. We will not have a choice about that come December 2006, so we have to start working towards that now.
I have mixed views. I can see pros and cons depending on what we are talking about—would it be a real or a virtual unit? Could we have it in Benbecula, where we are short of opportunities?
It would be helpful first of all to know the best way of achieving the aims that the consultees told you about. They said that disabled people do not get the information that they require and that there is confusion and conflict. They want more joined-up services. The question is: how do we best achieve that? Like Liz Galashan, I can see the merits and demerits of having a centralised unit.
Everyone is saying that there is a lot of good stuff out there; it is spread a bit sparsely, but there are good models around.
I have a brief question on supported employment. You mentioned a supported employment agency called Prospects, which was set up specifically for people with ASD. Can you tell us a bit more about that? The evidence that the committee received from the National Autistic Society was that there was a pilot scheme that was an overwhelming success, which it was trying to roll out and share with other organisations. Do you know any more about that?
No. I know that the agency is recognised as an expert in its field. We have a contract with it to deliver specialist service work preparation, which was mentioned earlier. That work preparation would not be six weeks, but would be flexible to meet the customer's need and would support the person in employment. We also call on Prospects for other in-work support. It is a key organisation.
Perhaps we can pick that matter up and explore it further, convener.
Yes, we can do that.
That was an interesting discussion. I do not think that another layer is what we are asking for; however, I am interested in the idea of a national base in an office on Benbecula. I am sure that that would be helpful.
It is hard to argue with people's perceptions, especially if they are based on experience. That reflects an earlier discussion that we had about the disparity in provision throughout the country. It would be interesting to know whether that perception is universal or whether there are geographical differences in people's perceptions.
A lot of good work has been done at a strategic level. Hearts and minds have been won at that level, but part of the difficulty is in translating that into activity at the operational end. We are perhaps not quite so good at monitoring to find out whether the strategic agreements that we have made are being lived and breathed in the community. We do not always check up on that.
Work is on-going on mapping to clarify the situation. We work with the Disability Rights Commission on its employability work, part of which is to consider how to get a clearer picture for disabled people. We also work with the Scottish Executive's equality unit on its employability work, a report on which is to be produced at the beginning of next year. The evidence from that and from the committee's inquiry will help us with the mapping process, which aims to provide a clearer picture for disabled people as they seek assistance.
It is a little bit frustrating that there seems to be a lot of expertise, but we are not sure whether it is reaching the people at whom it should be targeted.
Yes. We have a strategic partnership agreement in development for both parts of Scotland—if I can put it like that. I was involved in a national group on guidance, career planning and referral systems. We have the "Working Together" handbook, which inevitably has Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise versions to reflect the different structures and ways of working in both parts of Scotland although, ultimately, we have the same aim. We have had joint staff development events, which have been important. The measures must be right at the operational end; we need the right level of understanding of how Careers Scotland and Jobcentre Plus operate so that the best referrals can be made in the interests of clients. The issue for us is the potential growth in demand, not so much through Careers Scotland referring clients to Jobcentre Plus, but through Jobcentre Plus referring clients to Careers Scotland. Issues arise about incapacity benefit and the kind of contracts that we currently and may hold, which may give rise to resource implications in the not-too-distant future.
Liz Galashan spoke about working together nationally. However, while that strategic relationship is crucial, we cannot underestimate the importance of local working. Good examples exist throughout the country of joint working between staff of Careers Scotland and Jobcentre Plus, some of which is at the local, strategic level and some of which is at the operational level. The more we do of that, the more we will benefit our mutual clients.
The evidence that we have received at our events suggests that more should be done to engage employers in service provision. Professor Riddell's report "Disability and Employment in Scotland: A Review of the Evidence Base" notes that disability employment advisers would like to spend more time on liaising with employers and delivering support to disabled people who are working, rather than on assessing, counselling and placing people. How do your organisations work with employers to facilitate the employment of disabled people?
The disability employment advisers are trained to work with employers to encourage them to consider their employment practices, take on more disabled people and adopt the disability symbol, which we promote. In general, the disability employment advisers think that that work is important. As well as getting people ready for work, we need to have employers who are receptive. The position might vary across the country and there will be various pressure points where there is a focus on seeing the individuals. However, that responsibility is certainly there.
I stress that I do not do Tupperware parties myself.
We have some way to go to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, to take on disabled employees. There is a big information deficiency. They do not understand the legal implications of taking on disabled people or the good business case that there is for taking on disabled people.
What are you doing to get that information over to SMEs?
We started with the business gateway; we have some proactive material in the gateway about getting disabled people on board. In March, subject to final approvals, we will be launching, in partnership with the Executive, an SME information unit within the gateway. There will be a two-pronged attack. One prong is about trying to engage more SMEs and the other is about mainstreaming in our organisation and getting our business advisers up to speed with issues for disabled people and equality issues in general. We need to do an awful lot of work to get rid of the information deficiency in SMEs.
It seems like we still have a long way to go, which is interesting, because we had hoped that we were a good way along the path.
I will give you an idea of what is going on. A lot of dialogue takes place at present. Margaret Hodge is meeting Scottish ministers next week and there has been dialogue on the common agenda, which really helps working relationships.
Clearly, there are crossovers and grey areas.
That is not my area of expertise. I doubt that it is anyone's area of expertise, because of its complexity. We know, however, that it comes up a lot. We have found in some cases—not in every case—that when people sit down with us and we perform in-work benefit calculations and look at the in-work support that might be available, the picture is not as negative, or as black and white, as it first appeared. There is no doubt that there are issues. Permitted work will suit some people, but there are implications if they are on housing benefit. Benefits have been recognised as an issue—that is why the extra bonus that John Reid mentioned in the pathways to work is outside of all of that. We are looking at that to see whether it makes a difference.
I will turn to other barriers such as information and promotion. We received a submission from a support group that represents children with Asperger's syndrome and their families. The group described a survey that it had undertaken to ask about
Before we move to the response, I inform members and witnesses that we need to finish the session by 1 o'clock. I ask for brief questions and answers, if possible. That would be wonderful; it would allow us to cover as much ground as possible.
In that case, convener, I will include the question whether information is given to employers. Part of what we were told was that employers also lack formation.
As far as getting information to individuals is concerned, I think that it was a member of the first panel who spoke about the range of ways in which services could be promoted. Certainly, we have our website and our offices. A range of work is also done by our action teams, which are based in communities and which try to get information out to people in communities.
GPs have been mentioned a lot today. Do you see them as key to all this?
We do, although only time will tell if GP surgeries are the right place for IB personal advisers—Anne Marshall mentioned the slow pace of that work. There have been discussions on the subject, however. I was part of a group that made a presentation to Lewis Macdonald yesterday, as part of which our director addressed some of the issues about GPs. Those issues include how we can better include GPs to ensure that the information that goes out to people on incapacity benefit and people with disabilities is information that sets out the choices including whether work is an option for them.
I am sorry, convener, but I have a follow-up question. I am interested in the subject.
I have no information on that.
That is perhaps something we could look into.
One of the committee's concerns, following evidence that we have heard, relates to the effectiveness of the DDA. We have heard, for example, that people are not always aware of their rights and that employers and service providers are not always aware of their responsibilities. There seems to be confusion over what reasonable adjustment means. How effective is the DDA? What can be done to make disabled people more aware of their rights and to provide employers with more information and support to meet their responsibilities?
We are working with the Disability Rights Commission, as are my colleagues in Highlands and Islands Enterprise, on awareness-raising sessions, particularly for small employers. That is important. Scottish Enterprise had a great many inquiries when the new disability legislation came into force. An awful lot of bad advice was going about. Some businesses were panicking because they thought that the new legislation would shut them down. You are right: it comes down to reasonable adjustments, about which many companies were not getting good advice.
On the subject of reasonable advice to SMEs on disability, that was one strand of equality that hooked the private sector into the equality forum, because the private sector saw the forum as a resource for explaining its duties and how it could fulfil them at a practical level. Previously, the private sector had a hard time engaging with the forum. There is a growing demand for advice, especially on disability and how businesses can support people.
All those issues at a higher level must be considered, but when we are working with individual clients we can advise employers that it is not necessarily about altering only the physical environment. A client with a learning disability may need more time for induction, or a more structured approach to settling in to the work place. That kind of thing can be considered to be a reasonable adjustment.
As you are aware, the Scottish Executive has an equality strategy. To what extent do Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise adequately implement that strategy and how do they go about monitoring and evaluating it?
The equality strategy is probably not our organisation's guiding light; that is more "A Smart, Successful Scotland", which contains quite a strong equality remit. The clear equality agenda that it states must help more businesses take on equality for business benefit and so on. We work closely with our sponsoring unit, which is the Department of Enterprise and Lifelong Learning. We also work with the Scottish Executive's equality unit, particularly on disability with employability, to ensure that organisations meet the requirements of disabled people. However, as far as implementation is concerned the equality strategy is probably more strategic than we would want, which is why we take our guidance from "A Smart, Successful Scotland".
I do not understand that answer: surely the equality strategy should be mainstreamed across Scotland?
Absolutely.
Are you saying that the implementation of the strategy depends on where you live?
Not at all. The equality strategy's focus is on mainstreaming, which approach we whole-heartedly support. That means mainstreaming in the smart, successful Scotland strategy and through the services of Scottish Enterprise. A lot of our work is focused on mainstreaming and involves, for example, staff training. By the end of this financial year all our staff will have been through equal opportunities training. We have also just purchased 600 licences for our staff to train in online disability awareness. Staff capacity and training are vital to mainstream the strategy successfully. That is a main tenet of the Executive's equality strategy.
Could I hear from the representative from Highlands and Islands Enterprise?
Our view is similar to Scott Skinner's. Our guiding light is "A Smart, Successful Highlands and Islands", which includes cross-cutting themes such as equal opportunities and closing the opportunity gap. We should address equality through those themes. We monitor some aspects of that strategy through our national programmes and business start-ups. I must admit that we are not very proactive, and we must get a lot better.
I want to be clear on this. Have you not implemented the equality strategy as a mainstream policy? Is it not monitored or evaluated?
I will have to get back to you on that because I do not come from the strategy group in HIE; I come from the schools division. However, I do not think that we have. I shall check that.
I would like more information on that.
I could easily furbish that.
It would be helpful if both organisations could give us that information.
We have been delighted with the success of the business able pilot, which came from the disabled entrepreneurs' conference that we ran in 2003. We were astounded by the wishes of disabled people to start their own businesses, so we set up the pilot in Scottish Enterprise Glasgow as a response to that. Our initial target for this financial year was to assist 100 people and as of last month we had helped 92 people. Thirty two people have started their own businesses and they have a real enthusiasm to get them growing.
From what you have heard so far, how successful do you think that skillseekers and modern apprenticeship programmes have been and can be to get more disabled people into employment?
National programmes can be extremely effective in helping disabled people to get into employment, but perhaps we have not been as successful as we should have been.
It is similar in the HIE area. The only difference is that we have a couple of pilots for our get ready for work programme, which Liz Galashan could speak about if the committee wants more details. It is a much more person-centred approach that will be better able to assist disabled people. Apart from that, our situation is the same as Scottish Enterprise's.
I had better own up to the fact that I worked in further and higher education and was seconded to the fast track project, so I worked in a similar area for approximately 18 years. I am concerned about the lack of flexibility in skillseekers programmes and about the fact that they are very target-driven. I have a difficulty with equating that with best serving the needs of disabled people, unless you can tell me that there have been improvements in assessment procedures and so on. The funding mechanism is also rigid and that forces 16 to 18-year-olds down the skillseekers routes when other types of training might be more beneficial. Obviously I have been out of the job for the past five years. Have there been improvements in the skillseekers approach, and is there enough flexibility in the funding, choices and assessment processes?
That is exactly why we have set up the get ready for work pilots in the Highlands and Islands. To be fair to our colleagues, having Careers Scotland as part of the enterprise network has brought issues to the surface that we might not have had to deal with before. I am sure that it has been very difficult for some of our colleagues to have the likes of me coming along saying the kinds of things that Marilyn Livingstone has just said: the programmes are not flexible enough, they do not take care of the needs of individuals, and they are too prescriptive. I also talked earlier about the appropriate level of expenditure and I should mention the rule book that the networks have to work to for all the national programmes. That is why we are doing the pilots.
Is that happening throughout the network? Is it happening in Scottish Enterprise as well?
No, the pilots are being run in two of the Highlands and Islands local enterprise companies at the moment.
There is a tension with getting people closest to the labour market into some of our programmes, but our skills people have just carried out a big survey of the uptake of national programmes by all streams of equality and we are working towards addressing any shortfalls.
In the Highlands and Islands and remote and rural areas, it is more difficult for disabled people to get to and from work. Do local authorities do enough to provide extra local transport or subsidised local transport? Should something be done to help to provide transport for private carers who volunteer to take people to and from work?
That is a big issue. I know that you want a quick answer, but I am not sure that that is possible.
We will consider transport in more detail later in the inquiry.
The access to work scheme, which was mentioned earlier, can pick up the costs and therefore help people to travel to work. Expenditure on transport was a big item in last year's budget.
Transport has certainly been high on the agenda of every participation event that we have attended, so we will consider it.
Scotland has no provision or funding for residential training to assist disabled people into employment. In England, disabled people can attend residential colleges to enhance their employment skills. That training is funded by the residential training unit, which is part of Jobcentre Plus. In written evidence, the Royal National Institute of the Blind stated:
I am surprised that that evidence was given. If that is the case, it is obviously something that we need to look into.
The voluntary organisations that are involved certainly think that it is important.
One of the major barriers that disabled people have told us about is other people's attitudes towards them. The committee has commissioned research into disability equality training, which may help to inform people and to combat negative attitudes. What measures should be put in place to combat people's negative attitudes towards disabled people both at work and in general?
I would like to make a couple of practical comments, particularly about the young people we deal with. Employers run businesses and they need staff who can do the job or can learn to do it in a reasonable period of time. It is better to show an employer what an individual can do, rather than just telling them. The determined to succeed programme is on the local authority side, but Careers Scotland was asked to help with employer engagement and we have schools programmes and work experience programmes. It is not a big commitment for an employer to offer a week's work experience and lots of employers are willing to do that. A week is long enough for them to see that employing a disabled person is a feasible option for them.
It is bigger than just employers. It is about everybody raising their awareness, and we have taken that approach at Jobcentre Plus. We offer work placements to all our contractors; they can access any of our offices throughout Scotland and place people there.
One of the most beneficial approaches is to show disabled people in employment. That has an impact not just on employers but on other staff, who are, obviously, citizens with their own views and attitudes. That is one of the most powerful ways to break down barriers. Our organisations are a good example of that. We employ disabled people and the focus is on what they can do. The fact that they are disabled is irrelevant. They have support to help them to do their jobs, but they are colleagues just like anyone else. It is in that way that we will break down the barriers and attitudes.
Thank you for your evidence this morning. I realise that we had lots of questions for you. This was our first formal evidence-taking session on the theme of work and we are keen to gather as much information as possible.
Meeting continued in private until 13:09.
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