Switching Focus: Whose responsibility to improve disabled people’s employment and pay

[Andy]

Introduction

This report addresses the question of whether there is a set of policy levers that could,
together, encourage employers to improve disabled people’s employment and pay. It also
considers how proposals could be framed and pursued, to enable people to unite to achieve
them.

It is based on a Joseph Rowntree Research Fellowship in Practice which I undertook at the
London School of Economics (LSE) in 2018. I had the great opportunity to stand back after
several decades of working to improve rights in practice, in senior roles with both disability
rights and mental health organisations.

The project involved 2 round-tables involving 50 people, the first with Disabled People’s
Organisations (DPOs), charities and academics; the second also including employer organisations, individual employers, trade unionists, think tanks and policy experts. Disabled
people involved had wide-ranging experience, including people with learning disabilities,
energy-limiting conditions, sensory impairments, mental health conditions and more; and
differing experiences of work and worklessness. I also held structured discussions with over
30 individuals from the same range of backgrounds, in which I posed the following 3
questions:
1. What ‘levers’ could best influence employers to improve disabled people’s employment and pay?
• Which few demand-side policy levers might best encourage employers to act? Are there examples (from the UK or elsewhere, from other equalities fields) that could help?

2. Why?
• What is the basis for making particular proposals, in concept and/or evidence?

3. How could we get them put in place?
• Which approaches to framing the proposals, building alliances and promoting the proposals might best encourage adoption?

http://www.lse.ac.uk/International-Inequalities/Assets/Documents/Report-JRF/switchingfocus-full.pdf

Found this via a Facebook post from the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project

We are influencing the policy agenda on disability employment. A major new report by Liz Sayce mentions the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project. It acknowledges that people with chronic illness haven't been included in the disability rights movement and recommends policy solutions for making work more inclusive for fluctuating and energy-limiting conditions.
"Notably, the interests of people with energy-limiting conditions were not successfully included in wider disability rights work. They were at the forefront of campaigns against social security cuts that used the concept of being ‘sick’. Since 2017 Catherine Hale has explored the history of this lack of unity and is developing new opportunities to connect the thinking of people with chronic illness with that of the disabled people’s movement"

https://www.facebook.com/ChronicInclude/posts/646768392391838