The Star has launched a campaign to highlight the benefits of employing disabled people. Many top businesses see the value of employing disabled people in Sheffield, and Sheffield City Council are working with businesses in the city to help them recruit, train and develop disabled talent from across the region.
The Disability Works Campaign is a partnership with The Sheffield Star, local businesses, Sheffield City Council, Jobcentre Plus and local disability organisations to provide tailored support to make it easy for employers to recruit disabled people.
So, during the #Disability Works campaign Disability Sheffield intend to respond to the Government’s green paper and consultation, Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability, which was launched at the end of October.
The Government say it is part of their ten-year vision of how the Government’s wants to halve the employment gap for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. The Government tell us the strategy is to change attitudes by working with employers ‘to transform disabled people’s access to employment’.
Disability Sheffield welcomes both the #DisabilityWorks campaign and the advent of the green paper. However, from our own experience we would like to hear first-hand from disabled people in Sheffield what evidence they want to see on how this plan will halve the disability employment gap, and what outcomes disabled people themselves will want to see over this ten-year period that indicates their plan is working.
You can access the green paper here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/work-health-and-disability-improving-lives
The plain English version is here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/work-health-and-disability-improving-lives/work-health-and-disability-green-paper-plain-english-version
One of our supporters wrote to us saying, “I just found this consultation for the DWP about trying to ‘support’ disabled people and those with illness into work possibly regardless of what their needs are. I started to do it myself, it’s a hell of a document and I don’t understand a lot of it, it really needs to have people do it who can put across the issues of disabled people. There are sections for professionals as well as sections for carers and disabled people.”
Because of the lengthy nature of the consultation documents Disability Sheffield would like to respond to the consultation and we will set up a short consultation survey, based on a selection of leading questions, to help gather the views of local Sheffield disabled people and others who want to respond but find it difficult. Please email andrew.crooks@disabilitysheffield.org.uk if you would like to take part in this exercise.
The DWP consultation runs for some time, closing on Friday 17th February and you can respond to the green paper via the links below.
The Government is asking for information to help them “…understand why disabled people and people with health conditions might be unable to get a job or keep one, and to recognise the wide range of conditions and circumstances they face.”
You can access the official DWP consultation here:
https://consultations.dh.gov.uk/workandhealth/consult/
Further reading
Disability Rights UK outlines what the green paper covers here:
http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2016/november/improving-lives-work-health-and-disability-green-paper
The Guardian has published an article with responses from several national disability charities: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/31/government-aims-to-halve-disability-employment-gap-in-uk
Disability News Service article with responses from other user-led organisations around the main questions raised by the green paper: http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/dpos-criticise-dwp-for-excluding-them-from-green-paper-launch/
