User:CircleGirl/Disability in the United Kingdom Employment Section-Self-employment for people with disabilities (UK) merger

Statistics, legislation and policies


The employment rate for disabled people of working age in the UK is 45%, whereas those without a disability it is 77%. This is in spite of The Equality Act 2010 requiring employers to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled person so they are not at a 'substantial disadvantage'. However this Act, and previous acts, has had a positive impact, for example, Sainsbury's has recruited over 2,000 disabled people within four years, Marks & Spenser's have taken on over 1,000 disabled people, and BT has provided sustainable opportunities for over 300 disabled people since 2003.

Despite this positive action, statistics show that only 33% of disabled people are employed full-time, compared to 60% of non-disabled people. It is clear from these statistics that disabled people are denied parity of participation in economic terms as less than half the disabled population are employed, and even less again are employed full-time, thus there are significant obstacles in their way to participate fully in the economic sphere. Not all of the UK has adapted The Equality Act 2010, which in turn has led to inconsistency in the UK. Northern Ireland still operate under The Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

While the statistics above show that there was an increase of employment of disabled people within certain companies, this Act has not been as effective as was hoped, as employers were allowed to discriminate against disabled employees, as long as it was justified within the Act. For more consistency and in an effort to promote businesses employing more disabled people Lord Freud claimed that businesses should be able to employ disabled people for below the minimum wage. Freud claims that businesses would be more willing to employ disabled people as they will not be at a loss if disabled people do not perform at the same level as non-disabled people. Freud claims that other countries have similar approaches in place and it is worth looking at the approach different countries have adapted.

Creating opportunities for disabled people in the workplace
Making the workplace more inclusive for all of those who are discriminated against is part of a much wider campaign, and is not merely a matter just for legislation. In regard to disabled people in particular, The Disability Discrimination Act: A Guide for Managers and Employers suggests a number of guidelines for employers to avoid discrimination. These include understanding the social dimension of disabilities, recognising the diverse nature of disabilities, avoid making assumptions, finding out disabled people needs and seeking expert help. This in turn combines fulfilling the legal aspect of avoiding discrimination and changing social attitudes.

In the UK, self-employment is an option for disabled people. Of those in paid work, 18 per cent of disabled men and 8 per cent of disabled women are self-employed as their main job, compared to only 14 per cent and 6 per cent of non-disabled men and women respectively. Many disabled people are not familiar with the rules regarding self-employed work. Self-employment is also sometimes the only option for some disabled people who may require flexible working patterns as a result of their impairment.

The Business Disability Forum (BDF), formerly the Employers' Forum on Disability, is a membership organisation of UK businesses. Following the introduction of the DDA the membership of BDF recognised the need for a tool with which they could measure their performance on disability year on year.

In 2005 eighty organisations took part in the Disability Standard benchmark providing the first statistics highlighting the UK's performance as a nation of employers. Following the success of the first benchmark Disability Standard 2007 saw the introduction of the Chief Executives' Diamond Awards for outstanding performance and 116 organisations taking the opportunity to compare trends across a large group of UK employers and monitor the progress they had made on disability. 2009 saw the introduction of the third benchmark, Disability Standard 2009.

In 2012 the BDF had a number of initiatives to assist businesses in meeting and including the needs of disabled customers and employees. These consisted of The Technology Taskforce (a Business Disability Forum partner initiative which brings together some of the world's largest procurers and suppliers of ICT); Accessible Technology Charter (launched in November 2011) in which the 'Accessibility Maturity Model' (AMM) is a self-assessment tool to enable businesses to identify and plan key policies for accessible and usable technologies.

However, a report by the Social Market Foundation and Trust for London found that disabled people are not being supported into work enough in London. It found that there are 370,000 unemployed disabled Londoners, and a disability employment gap of 38.5%. This is still lower than national average disability employment gap of 41.5%.