Improving employment opportunities for disabled people

 Mark BehrendtPrincipal Policy Officer

Corporate Policy Unit

 

• 12.4% (21346 people) of the population of Richmond has a disability

 

• 69% (14728 people) are economically active compared to a London average of 49.9%

 

• Economic activity rate for non disabled people is 78.1%

 

• However, only 2.7% of our workforce has a disability despite their being 8.5% of the boroughs working residents being disabled

 

• Significant proportion of the council’s disabled clients of working age are unemployed

Current situation

• Remove barriers within the council to the employment of Disabled people

• Improve support for all our disabled clients in finding employment

What does the council need to do?

 

• Senior management and councillors recognising that the council’s work force must be more representative and that there are some significant barriers that need to be removed

• The Disability Discrimination Act and the Disability Equality Duty

• Local Public Service Agreement targets

What is driving change?

 

• Largest employer is the council – we need to set an example

 • Using the Disability Equality Duty to be more

proactive. 

• Example - scheme is to remove the barriers to employing people with learning disabilities

Removing Barriers

 

• Changes to HR policies

• Support for People with Learning Disabilities

• Support for managers

Example: Making Positive Changes for people with learning disabilities

 

• Support available for people with Mental Health problems and for people with Learning Disabilities

 • Gaps in the provision of employment support for

people with physical and sensory impairments 

• Barriers to extending support

• Improve pathways to the support that is available

Supporting disabled people to find employment

 

• Change has started 

• Long term and sustainable improvements

 • Continuous change and improvement

  

Any questions?

Conclusion