Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Official Report 793KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Michel Syrett, mental health champion from Action in Mind.

People who have mental health conditions remain among the most excluded within our society. Nowhere is that exclusion more evident than in relation to the workplace. More than a quarter of a million people who have mental health conditions—42 per cent of the total number of claimants—are unemployed and receiving unemployment or incapacity-based benefits in Scotland.

We know that appropriate employment actively improves mental health and wellbeing. People who have mental health conditions can and do pursue successful careers, and we know that most people who have a mental health condition and are out of work would like to be in paid employment. However, a combination of stigma and discrimination, low expectations and failure to provide the necessary support continues to deny many the chance to work. Too often that failure leads to hopelessness and despair.

In the face of the negative images that surround people who have a mental health condition, too many people give up on themselves and their possibilities: they resign themselves to a life on the margins of society.

It is especially important that younger people with mental health issues receive positive messages of hope, enabling them to contribute to society as equal citizens. When someone who is at the beginning of their working life has a mental health problem, their talents and abilities do not simply dissolve into the ether. As such, it seems hugely unfair to slam shut the door of opportunity when they have only just reached out to knock on it.

Employers have their own reasons for focusing on the challenge. In a recent report, the Scottish Association for Mental Health estimated that mental health problems at work cost Scottish employers more than £2 billion a year, which is approximately £1,000 per average employee. With one in four people suffering from mental illness at some point in their life, even the best recruits will require work-based support if their skills are to be retained and used effectively. It is, therefore, in the best interests of the Scottish economy, businesses and society as a whole that more is done to retain people who experience poor mental health in work, as well as to support those who are eager to get into work.

Employment has a central role in our society and it is vital to improving the quality of most people’s lives. Increasing access to paid work is essential in changing the way in which people who have a mental health condition are viewed in our society. Enabling people who have mental health conditions to contribute their talents through gainful employment challenges myths and stereotypes and offers hope to those who develop such conditions.

Thank you.