Future of Specialist Disability Employment

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we are undertaking quite a major exercise around Access to Work, and one of the areas that we are working on is exactly the noble Viscount’s point about making employers feel comfortable. When Remploy began after the war, manufacturing was a major part of our economy. It is quite hard to be full steam in a steelworks, for instance, if you have a physical disability. As the economy has moved over to the service sector, it is very different, and the idea that many disabled people—certainly physically disabled people, around whom the concept of Remploy was developed—cannot do a whole stream of mainstream jobs is incongruous today. That is what we are talking about in the modernisation process. As I said, there is an issue about mental health. There, we are trying to push Access to Work so that people with mental health issues are pulled in and involved. We have a lot of work still to do about stigma. The Mind campaign has been extraordinary in starting to turn attitudes, and we need to get right behind it. That is a big and important issue to get employers behind.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I shall make a couple of points. First, the point made by my noble friend Lady Browning about reporting back is vital. This is probably the final public step of the process of looking at those with disabilities as individuals as opposed to people who are put away in blocs. I have always felt that the Remploy factories were on a time limit, and the previous Government accepted that. It is never the right time to make that change, and it is particularly unfortunate that it has to be done now, at a time of high unemployment. Can my noble friend assure me that in this process, those who are placing people outwith the specialist teams—normal job centres and secondary support services—are given greater briefing, particularly in the areas where people are being made unemployed? This may well be a useful test case for those who are providing better services overall. Unless we get that process right across the board, we will have merely pockets of good practice, not good practice overall.

[Lord Freud]

I thank my noble friend for that point. As I said, I will outline exactly how we will report back and timings. The more important point is the level of support we are providing in this case, where we have the personal help and support package, which is considerably tailored with consultation at every stage with, most interestingly, a specific caseworker per person, so people’s individual requirements are analysed and taken into account, plus a fund to help people in. In this case, there is a lot of tailored support. One lesson may well be how important individual caseworkers are in helping people.

Occupational Health Services

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Thursday 1st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I share the noble Lord’s concern about having adequate physiotherapy services. We are making quite a lot of strides in the combination of helping people to stay in work and getting them back to work and good health. There have been a lot of pilots, which I could go through if there were time. A lot of work has been done on this and it is right at the forefront of our concerns. We will be trying to optimise the position as we look at our response to the sickness absence review.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, my noble friend spoke about the link between the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions. Will he ask the Department of Health to make sure that if somebody has a soft tissue injury, which is usually what we are talking about, not only are they allowed to see a person who is qualified to assist them with it—usually a physiotherapist—but they are encouraged to do the exercises they will be given? If you think that treating any injury and stopping it becoming chronic can be done by somebody prodding you once a week, you are mistaken.

[Lord Freud]

I will not talk about the prodding too much, my Lords, although we get plenty of that here. One of the most valuable developments has been the self-referral process. There has been a lot of experimentation and piloting in relation to self-referral to physiotherapy and it has all been found to be very valuable. Patients have been empowered and highly satisfied with the results, with a lower level of work absence. The service provision has reduced costs and has substantially reduced the quantity of medicines prescribed as a direct result.

Disability Benefits

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Monday 12th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, this is a very interesting issue. We have been reading closely Macmillan’s evidence to us, and what is set out is not what Macmillan is actually asking for. Many of the oncologists whose evidence was taken say that it is important for many patients to stay in work. One stated that it may be inappropriate for some patients and that it risks stigmatising chemo patients, but that some people on long-term maintenance treatments may have little or no upset and be quite able to work. We are taking that evidence and looking closely at how we apply it. We will have more people with cancer in the support group because many undergoing oral chemotherapy need to be in it. However, we are not taking a blanket view and we do not want to stigmatise cancer patients.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, will my noble friend give an assurance that when the initial assessment is made, someone with real expertise in the disability or group of disabilities advises on whether the benefit should be paid?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, yes, one of the things we are keen to ensure is that there are people with expertise on whom those making the assessments can rely. Professor Harrington addressed that in his first review. For that reason, we had mental health champions in particular in each of the offices undertaking this work.

Remploy

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Wednesday 5th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my declaration of interests. Can the Minister give us some idea how successful Remploy has been in making sure that people who work in its factories find jobs in the outside world, as this is probably the ultimate test of how good it is? If he can give us an assurance in that regard, many of these problems will be seen in the correct light.

[Lord Freud]

Yes, my Lords, I have the up-to-date data for the voluntary redundancy programme which took place in 2008. Of the people who chose to look for re-employment, there was a 90 per cent success rate in getting them jobs.

Autism: Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, there is no intention of steamrollering people. In fact, one of the things about the personal independence payment is that it is designed to be far more effectively focused at the people who need support, particularly those with learning disabilities and so on. I can absolutely assure noble Lords right around the House that during the process of this Bill I will listen very carefully to people and that good ideas will be gratefully received.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, can the Minister give us an assurance that when we go through any form of assessment or process, a great effort is made to get the right information about the individual conditional set of problems? Much of the historical problem here is the fact that if a person did not fit the particular slot or the interviewer did not have enough information, they did not have the freedom—or were not encouraged—to go and find out the best answer.

[Lord Freud]

My noble friend makes the very good point that there has been continual disappointment in that area of assessment. We are beginning to learn how to do that better. Professor Harrington, in the context of a different assessment—the WCA—is pointing us in the right direction in getting information and support for people when they are being assessed.

Disabled People: Employment

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the Remploy business plan was designed by Remploy management. It has failed to achieve its targets because, in retrospect, it was wildly overambitious to expect that public procurement could go up by 130 per cent. The cost of subsidising a disabled person in a Remploy job has now reached £23,000 a year, compared with the success of Remploy employment services in putting a person into an independent job for a one-off cost of £3,400.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, will my noble friend expand on the work of Remploy employment services? Getting people with disabilities into jobs in the mainstream is surely the way forward. What guarantee is there of support for such schemes, which are in line with what most of us have been working towards for a long time.

[Lord Freud]

Yes, my Lords, the success of Remploy’s employment services is little less than extraordinary. It has now put some 24,000 people into jobs. In 2009-10 there were more than 10,000 people. It looks to get about 18,000 people into jobs this year and its target for 2012-13 is 30,000.

Disabled People

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, when dealing with groups such as RADAR, will my noble friend bear in mind that, good as they are, they will never be able to cover the whole spectrum and government must always try to drag in such expertise as they can from across all the groups and then they must co-ordinate advice, because without advice we will pass more laws and achieve very little?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that excellent point. Clearly, we make an enormous effort to see people right across the disability lobby, not just RADAR. RADAR is part of various groups. It is important that we consult. The House will be familiar with the motto “Nothing About Us Without Us”. We take that obligation very seriously.

Disabled People: UN Convention

Debate between Lord Freud and Lord Addington

Monday 5th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have four reservations on this convention, and there are two ways of looking at that. A large number of countries have signed—145 of them, and 87 have ratified. We have taken this convention with great seriousness and looked through the implications of applying it, rather than looking at it as a purely aspirational matter. Of those four reservations, we are working extremely hard to ensure that we can remove two.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, when we are dealing with disability matters we tend to pass a lot of legislation, then have to go back and pass legislation again on the same subject. Have the Government decided whether we have the legislative framework to enact the United Nations convention? If we do not, when will it be in place? May we know as soon as possible?

[Lord Freud]

The United Nations convention is not a matter of law in this country or in Europe. It is a convention that holds us to account on our performance, and on which we report back to the UN. We will do that in July.