Manifesto for a disability inclusive UK

Manifesto for a disability inclusive UK

We are Business Disability Forum, the leading disability and business membership organisation working with over 600 organisations to advance disability inclusion in and through business practice. We are constructive and pragmatic. We solve problems by working with disabled people, businesses, and Government to ensure everyone has an equal voice in solving the most critical issues facing society and public policy today.  

• 16 million people in the UK have a disability, 24 per cent of the UK population. This is an increase of 3.9 million since 2020-21.  
• More people reported a disability across all age groups – children, working-age adults, and state pension age.  
• The most common conditions for working-age adults are mental health conditions and conditions that affect mobility. 

Source: Family Resources Survey 2021-2022. 

The term ‘disability’ includes people with physical or sensory impairments, mental health conditions, who are neurodivergent or who have other long-term conditions like cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, HIV or who have a facial difference.  

We consistently see that organisations who employ a diverse range of talent are more productive, more innovative, have better problem-solving skills and better reflect the consumer base they serve. And yet, only 52.7% of disabled people of working age are in employment, compared to 81.1% of their non-disabled peers. With skills shortages in many sectors, this makes no sense. Recent labour market figures showed a record number of job vacancies and increased economic inactivity in the UK. This is not only a waste of talent and potential but a missed opportunity for the economy.  

Our manifesto sets out five key strategies that we need to see from Government and business to change this and to create better experiences and opportunities for disabled people who work in or with their organisations as staff, customers, and other stakeholders. It also sets out the key principles that we believe are critical to achieving those aims. 

1. Implement a UK wide disability, health and employment strategy.

The UK needs a holistic, joined up strategy for disability, health, and work. This would include: 

• Ensuring every disabled education leaver is equipped to have the career and future they want because they have had an accessible and inclusive education journey. This means access to adjustments, tailored and specific career advice and a choice of inclusive pathways into employment. These include accessible apprenticeships and supported internships as well as post university support. 
• Prioritising workplace adjustments as the key principle at the centre of any employment related strategies. Workplace adjustments are the changes employers make to remove a difficulty someone with a disability or condition is experiencing in their role. Adjustments are so often the difference between someone struggling every day at work and being able to enjoy and be productive in their job – or even work at all.  
• A new long-term vision and sustainable financial investment which sees Access to Work repositioned as the single, ‘go to’ holistic workplace health and adjustments service for anyone looking for a job, in a job, starting a business, or wanting to take up volunteer or unpaid work. This includes implementing an ‘agreement in principle’ offer of an award before someone starts a job so that they can job-search and engage with employers confidently; removing of the support cap which disadvantages those with the most high-cost adjustments; and ensuring every UK worker can use Access to Work, regardless of the job, sector (including the Civil Service who do not currently have access to the scheme), or employment type they work in.  

“The mark of a civilised society is being able to enable disabled people to contribute at all levels – not just “cheap” disabled people… That means accepting that enabling some disabled people, particularly those who require human support, to contribute in a work environment will cost more.” – Business Disability Forum Ambassador. 

•  Flexible working should become the default, over and above the day one right to request. Flexible working arrangements are essential for promoting accessibility and inclusion in the workforce, particularly for disabled people. The day one right to request is an improvement on the previous policy but does not go far enough. We need to go further and place a greater responsibility on the employer to prove that flexible working is not reasonable, in the same way that women returning from maternity leave have the right to request part-time working, for example. As the requirement to consider flexible working requests has demonstrated, in most instances when required, employers have recognised flexible working will benefit the organisation.
• Joining up fit note reform and with sick pay reform. Statutory sick pay must move at the same time as the plans for fit notes to ensure people are not financially disadvantaged when gradually returning to work. The most urgent thing needed is for Statutory Sick Pay entitlements to have the flexibility to include a phased return to work. At the moment, people can either be on Statutory Sick Pay or at work, not both – which means they either come back full time before they are well enough as they cannot afford to be part time, or do not come back at all. 
• Implement a fit for purpose disability and employment data strategy to understand disabled peoples’ experiences of and progression in the labour market. Workforce reporting must be based on removing barriers and the experience disabled employees have; representation by numbers alone is not the same as inclusion. The disability employment gap must not be measured by one singular figure. We need better quality data which tells us what prevents people from being in employment and what works for helping them remain in work. 

2. Develop, cost, and implement a model to ensure everyone has the assistive IT technologies they need when they need it.

The UK is at risk of leaving disabled people behind as it ‘homes in’ on emerging and developing technologies and AI markets without first ensuring that disabled people have the technology solutions they need to carry out everyday tasks to communicate, work, learn, and access increasingly digitised customer services and products. The need for assistive technology can be identified at any point in someone’s life, whether they are 2 years old or 82 years old. Yet, unless they are in education or in work, their access to tech is severely limited, meaning so are their life chances as well.  

A ‘Technology for Life’ provision would assess and provide the technology disabled people they need when they need it. In the UK, communication, learning, working, and socialising must not be a privilege. But that’s what it is if there is no way to get technology to people who need it, at the time they need it, and for however long they need it, whatever their age or circumstances.  

Current assistance with assistive technology is high quality, but precarious. We often heard in our research that graduates, who received excellent support while studying, lost all access to assistive technology once they graduated and became ineligible for student-related support. They were then unable to regain the assistive technology they needed until they had entered employment and applied to Access to Work. Some spent entire graduate placements waiting for the same adjustments they had at university, jeopardising their early careers. 

“I have good support now, but it was a long, tough process. I knew what I needed, and it was a fight” – An employee quoted in our response to the APPGAT’s call for evidence. 

3. Implement a UK-wide standard and commitment to clear, accessible, inclusive communications that all product and service providers and Government are required to meet.

One of the key inhibitors to inclusion is being unable to use, understand, and interpret the communications that a society relies on every day to function, be informed, and be safe.  

From important consumer information when accessing products and services (such as data and consumer rights ‘small print’) and digitised customer services, to Government and broadcasters delivering news and urgent, emergency announcements in a way that every single the UK citizen can understand must no longer be optional.  

There are currently industry standards on accessible communications but no commitment for these to be fulfilled and no requirement for anyone to do so. We want the Government to be a leader on the ‘world stage’ which says to the whole of the UK these are the standards that we as a country use to ensure every citizen has access to the same opportunities, the same products and services, and the same public health and news information at the same time as everyone else. A society cannot be inclusive without this as a UK-wide commitment led centrally by Government. This also includes a mandatory requirement in every single procurement contract that a supplier or provider will commit to the same standard.  

“I ended up staying with my current bank because I could not get information in easy read format from any other bank.”  

Source: https://businessdisabilityforum.org.uk/knowledge-hub/resources/report-what-disabled-consumers-choose-to-buy-and-why/ 

4. Invest in the wider support and infrastructure that is critical in supporting employment and broader inclusion goals.

This means investing in a long-term strategy for integrated health and social care as a national priority, creating a consistent, reliable and accessible public transport system and providing decent, meaningful support to carers.  

The impact of how health and social care is functioning on how healthy our economy and labour market are cannot be overstated A robust, fit for purpose, integrated public health and social care system that are must be at the heart of any government whose vision is to see disabled people, carers, and older people taking part in every area of UK society and economy. ‘Piece meal’ condition-specific strategies appear from different corners of health and social care policy without being joined up; the most pivotal and critical areas of the NHS are overwhelmed, and its staff overworked; social care being increasingly unavailable to those who need it. All of these pressures contribute to preventing more people getting into work or returning to work following injury, ill health, or relapse. Similarly, too many people struggle or fall out of work because of caring responsibilities when they are unable to access the support they need. This is deeply damaging for individuals who are unable to fulfil their potential and also makes no sense for the economy in terms of lost tax revenue and increased reliance on the state. 

“You feel you are not doing all you should be at work, and you feel you are not doing everything you should be for the person you are caring for.” – respondent to our research, quoted in our consultation response (The role of carer’s leave in supporting working carers, September 2020) 

The broader infrastructure that makes work possible needs to be invested in and transformed so that it is fit for purpose for everyone to participate in economic and other activity. Too many disabled people are excluded by a public transport system that does not reliably and consistently meet their needs and which lacks the flexibility to respond to the needs of modern working life. Special assistance has to be pre booked – meaning that spontaneity is impossible – and patchy provision and lack of information about accessibility creates real barriers.  

5. Implement a fit for purpose inclusive procurement standard for all contracts used by the public.

A key and necessary factor in how included or excluded disabled people across the UK society are rests on inclusive, fit for purpose public procurement requirements. Our upcoming Procurement Act goes nowhere near embedding accessibility and inclusion as necessary competences and deliverables in contract tendering.  

This is a serious issue in everything from the delivery of core public services to the development of AI. No contract supplier or provider should be considered if they cannot guarantee an accessible product or service where adjustments can be made for disabled people and where they can show that that product or service has been designed inclusively, with input from those with the widest possible lived experience to identify and remove barriers from the start.  

Focusing on the public sector and government contracts is not enough; it must extend to any provider in any sector who is commissioned to deliver products and services to a UK citizen. Public money spent on services that not every member of the public can use is not just unacceptable, it’s not inclusive. And it says, ‘Our society does not provide for disabled people’. We want a future Government to change that. 

The ‘key principles’ that underpin our manifesto

• Let businesses ‘do their thing’ and don’t overburden them in the wrong places. There needs to be a more informed balance between Government enabling business to do better, and Government telling businesses what to do and how.  
• Improve coproduction with businesses – all and any business – to inform disability policy making.  This means not relying on industry representation or small groups of ‘usual suspects’. It is about more engaging stakeholder activity that sees policy makers go into businesses or different shapes and sizes and find out what they think and what they need.  
• Don’t overcomplicate things and keep it holistic. Various schemes ‘here and there’ are difficult for businesses and disabled people to follow and keep track of. We want businesses and disabled people’s lives made easier, not more complex and difficult.  
• Change the narrative! Disability is everyone’s business. It can and will affect all of us. 83% of disabilities are acquired, not present from birth. We need to change the narrative of “us and them” and the deeply unhelpful rhetoric about costs to the system and instead create a narrative about talent and opportunity and enabling everyone to thrive. Disability inclusion needs to be at the centre of decision making, policy and messaging of any future Government. 

We don’t believe making the UK and its society better for disabled people is the job of Government alone. It is only by working together, across Government, business and, crucially, with disabled people that we will truly ‘move the dial’ and make the transformative changes that are needed so that every citizen can access the same opportunities and life chances.  

Our manifesto tells a future Government what we want from them. In turn, we will work constructively with Government to help implement policy and ensure it works as effectively as possible for disabled people and business. We will evidence problems, and equally importantly, offer solutions. The policy positions we take will always be informed by our business members and disabled people who work in and with them.  

For more information, contact our policy team at policy@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk