Opening doors

Improving employment outcomes for disabled people is essential not just for raising living standards across Britain, but for supporting economic growth, reducing inactivity due to ill health, and curbing health-related benefit spending. While policy attention has mostly focused on benefit reform and employment support for individuals, less emphasis has been placed on the role of employers. This report addresses that gap, setting out policy proposals on how the Government can effectively incentivise and support businesses to hire and retain disabled workers.

Despite apparent progress in narrowing the ‘disability employment gap’, the UK’s position on disability inclusion is actually getting worse once the rising prevalence of disability is taken into account. A key problem is the limited availability of suitable jobs, particularly for certain people in certain parts of the country. To address this, the report proposes a new employer-focused strategy built on four principles: reimbursement (reforming Access to Work), reporting (mandating employment and pay gap transparency), reintegration (a new Right to Reintegration for existing staff), and recruitment (a Return-to-Work Recruitment Incentive targeted at disabled people who have been claiming incapacity benefits for six months or more.) These should be complemented by efforts to expand high-quality part-time roles and improve job design across the board.