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Social services inspectors have found that councils' progress in supporting disabled people in work varies widely. Natalie Valios explores the reasons behind the discrepancies.

Social services' key role in supporting disabled people in employment was set out in the white paper, Modernising Social Services.¹ Objective three in the 1998 national priorities guidance puts the onus on authorities to ensure that services are provided in ways that maximise both service users' and carers' capacity to work. And by April 2001, local authorities should have produced, with other agencies, a joint investment plan for welfare to work for disabled people.

So why is it that a Social Services Inspectorate report last year, examining the progress of eight councils, found development was varied at best, and embryonic at worst?² While one council had launched its draft plan publicly by October 2000, another was still at the thinking stage.

According to the SSI report, most councils had simply not seen supporting disabled people in employment as a high priority. And although they had developed some general services to support carers, many had not recognised that, if carers were to be able to hold down jobs, the people they cared for needed flexible services.

What disabled people need, says the report, is effective co-ordination between agencies; recognition of their value and needs as a whole person; expert information and advice; physical access to services; guidance in making informed choices; a local training and employment infrastructure to respond to the diversity of the whole population; and continuing support in employment.

Instead, eligibility criteria leading to an assessment for services generally make little reference to employment. Existing employment schemes tended to focus on people with learning difficulties or mental health problems, with little attention given to those with physical disabilities or sensory impairments, it says.

There were several light industrial, horticultural and catering occupational schemes that provided a sense of worth to those using them, but they had little success in enabling disabled people to move on to open employment. "Success for a few was more by chance than design," the report suggests.

Why is this? Despite various policy initiatives over the years, such as the New Deal, there is still a wide difference in the employment rate between disabled and non-disabled people. Disabled people make up between 12 and 16 per cent of the working age population.³ And in 1999, disabled people made up half of all those who were not employed but said they would like to work.

As a ground-breaking piece of legislation, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 plays a part in ensuring disabled people's right to employment. Tania Burchardt, research fellow at the London School of Economics, believes that local authorities should take the initiative in promoting and making employers aware of their responsibilities under the act.

"Setting their own house in order could be a good starting point as they are traditionally large employers of disabled people themselves and it is important that is sustained," she says.

But she warns that if employment support meted out to disabled people is regarded as separate to general support given to employees there is a danger of segregation in the workplace.

Running parallel to supported employment initiatives is the Access to Work scheme - a government fund providing financial assistance to support disabled people in work, such as adapting a computer for a blind person. However, a lack of publicity means few disabled job seekers are aware of it, while few employers know that they can use the fund to offset the cost of the adaptation, says Burchardt. Local authorities should make the scheme more widely known, she adds.

As one of the eight local authorities visited by the SSI, Wokingham Council is well placed to comment on why local authorities may not have made the progress expected of them. Head of adult services at Wokingham Mike Geernaert thinks the effort of co-ordinating several agencies to make welfare-to-work schemes succeed has a bearing.

Added to this is the benefit trap, which is a huge disincentive for users and carers. If disabled people forgo their benefit for a job but it doesn't work out, they have to reapply for benefit. On the other hand, disabled people may restrict themselves to part-time work in order to keep their benefit, or an employer might feel they could only employ them part time. This produces a mindset that isn't helpful, says Geernaert.

"The SSI report has made us realise that we have to create the right environment for people so they can access work, for example, support at home that is flexible enough to allow them to do work experience."

The social services department is now trying to ensure that welfare to work features on disabled people's care assessments, irrespective of their level of need.

The social inclusion agenda is critical, says Geernaert, because work is about experiencing the real world. Disabled people can fail at work, not because they don't have the job skills, but because they haven't got the emotional and social skills to cope with the environment, he says. These are acquired in socially inclusive settings such as going to college where you rub shoulders with others. To this end, the council's welfare-to-work project aims to help disabled people access leisure and education opportunities as they can lead to job prospects.

"The report has made us think more broadly than focusing purely on the job. It's about preparing both their work skills and their social and emotional skills," says Geernaert. "The paths people can follow into work aren't always a direct route."

¹ Department of Health, Modernising Social Services, The Stationery Office, 1998

² G Griffiths, Making it Work: Inspection of Welfare to Work for Disabled People, DoH, 2001,

³ T Burchardt, Enduring Economic Exclusion: Disabled People, Income and Work, YPS, 2000

"Our role is to instil belief..."

Stockport Council's employment service began in 1986 as part of the Mencap Pathway employment service. The closure programme for long-stay hospitals had just begun in the area, so the service was geared up to helping people move on from long-stay care from day one, says Doug Cresswell, employment service manager, and lead officer for the council's welfare-to-work joint investment plan for disability.

Its success in helping people with learning difficulties into mainstream employment led to the service expanding to cover people recovering from mental illness, sensory impairments and physical disabilities. In 1988, the service was taken on by Stockport Council and it also now works with people recovering from substance abuse.

It operates a supported employment model, with 25 employment officers covering the area when fully staffed.

"We work with people who other agencies will not work with, either because they believe they aren't ready for work or they believe they don't have enough support available to help them through employment," says Cresswell.

Name a national or regional company and the chances are that Stockport Council's employment service has worked with them, says Cresswell, including organisations in retail, manufacturing, high-tech and catering, as well as hotels and the public sector.

"We get to know the job seekers really well and the people in their lives, so that everyone is hooked up on the idea that they can work. Our role is to instil our belief in those people," he says.

The service finds the kind of job the client is after and which both sides feel they will be skilled in and then negotiate the job for them. Then they decide on the type of support structure that will be needed to make the job work for the employee and the employer. This can be in-work or out-of-work support - for example, an employer may need help to train the employee and to interpret training materials for someone with a sensory impairment, or someone else may need to be reminded to take their medication.

The results speak for themselves: the service has placed almost 300 people in ordinary jobs since 1986, and in any one year works with a minimum of about 60 people. Half way through this year it had already found jobs for 37 people.