Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Markham on 11 January (HL Deb col 1415), how Integrated Care Boards are ensuring the provision of (1) support, and (2) treatment, for disabled children.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care systems are designed to join-up the commissioning of health, social care services and other system partners to meet the population health needs. These needs are assessed in the data-driven joint strategic needs assessments (JSNAs), prepared by Health and Wellbeing Boards. Government guidance on the preparation of JSNAs states that they should include the needs of children with disabilities and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) within these assessments.
Integrated care partnerships (ICPs) must set out how local authorities and integrated care board (ICBs) can meet these assessed needs in integrated care strategies. Statutory guidance states that these strategies should consider the health and wellbeing outcomes of babies, children, young people and families and they should include a statement on how the arrangement of health and social care services can be closely arranged with health-related services such as education providers.
Furthermore, to ensure SEND duties receive sufficient focus in the ICB, NHS England statutory guidance will contain provision for the delegation of responsibility for these duties to ICB executive leads.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Markham on 11 January (HL Deb col 1415), how Integrated Care Systems will ensure joined up provision between health, social care, and education for disabled children.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care systems are designed to join-up the commissioning of health, social care services and other system partners to meet the population health needs. These needs are assessed in the data-driven joint strategic needs assessments (JSNAs), prepared by Health and Wellbeing Boards. Government guidance on the preparation of JSNAs states that they should include the needs of children with disabilities and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) within these assessments.
Integrated care partnerships (ICPs) must set out how local authorities and integrated care board (ICBs) can meet these assessed needs in integrated care strategies. Statutory guidance states that these strategies should consider the health and wellbeing outcomes of babies, children, young people and families and they should include a statement on how the arrangement of health and social care services can be closely arranged with health-related services such as education providers.
Furthermore, to ensure SEND duties receive sufficient focus in the ICB, NHS England statutory guidance will contain provision for the delegation of responsibility for these duties to ICB executive leads.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Markham on 11 January (HL Deb col 1415), how Integrated Care Boards collect sufficient data to support the commissioning of services for disabled children.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care systems are designed to join-up the commissioning of health, social care services and other system partners to meet the population health needs. These needs are assessed in the data-driven joint strategic needs assessments (JSNAs), prepared by Health and Wellbeing Boards. Government guidance on the preparation of JSNAs states that they should include the needs of children with disabilities and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) within these assessments. Integrated care boards and local authorities must have regard to these assessments when carrying out their functions, including commissioning.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Markham on 11 January (HL Deb col 1415), how they will incorporate recommendations from the Independent review of Children's Social Care, published on 23 May 2022, into their Integrated Care Board Plans.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government’s approach to the recommendations from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care will be published early this year. Our 2019 manifesto committed to review the children’s social care system, to provide better outcomes for children. Last year, three reviews were published, including The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. We are committed to providing a rapid response to these reviews early this year so we can make the urgent progress that children need.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have they made of the impact of the policy set out in the SEND review which makes mediation mandatory before allowing families to go to the SEND tribunal, on levels of (1) stress, and (2) administration, for families with disabled children.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Throughout the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Review, parents and carers told us how lengthy, stressful, and often expensive, the tribunal process can be.
The department’s proposals set out in the SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper, which is subject to consultation, seek to enable issues to be resolved earlier and improve relationships locally by strengthening mediation, including consulting on making it mandatory.
In the current system, in most cases, families must secure a mediation certificate before registering an appeal with the tribunal, but they do not have to participate in the mediation itself. If the parent or young person does decide to proceed with mediation, then the local authority must ensure that it arranges for mediation between it and the child's parent or young person within 30 days.
Waiting for a SEND tribunal hearing can take significantly longer. The tribunal has a performance measure that 75% of appeals should be brought to a hearing and the decision issued within 22 weeks.
Mediation is effective in most cases. In 2021, 74% of mediation cases were settled without the need to progress to a tribunal. Mediation is free of charge for families.
The department will make sure there is appropriate support available to parents to help them understand the mediation process and how best to engage with it. Parents will still be able to go to a tribunal if necessary.
The green paper is now out for public consultation on its proposals until 22 July.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which sectors they have identified as providing particular opportunities to employ disabled people.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Disabled people work across all industries and sectors but are relatively more likely (42.6%), compared to non-disabled (35.4%) people, to work in the health, retail and education sectors1. Disabled workers are less likely to be working in the private sector than non-disabled workers and consequently more likely to be working in the public sector (26.5% of disabled workers in the public sector and 23.1% of non-disabled workers in the public sector).
Employers within the Disability Confident scheme provide employment opportunities, including for disabled people, across a wide range of industry sectors. When signing up to the scheme employers must commit to 5 actions and at least 1 activity that will make a positive difference to the employment of disabled people. The Disability Confident scheme supports employers to make the most of the talents disabled people can bring to the workplace. It provides employers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to attract, recruit, retain and develop disabled people in the workplace. DWP also works with sector facing Departments across Government to identify the particular barriers faced by jobseekers, including those with a disability, and consider what Government and industry can do together to remove these barriers, in order to help people into work at a time of record vacancies.
1 Source: Annual Population Survey 2020/21
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made in reducing the disability employment gap, in the last 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government has two main goals with regards to disability employment; to see one million more disabled people in work between 2017 and 2027 and reduce the disability employment gap.
Since 2013, the earliest comparable year, up to the start of the pandemic the general trend in disability employment was positive. There was strong growth in the number and rate of disabled people in employment and a narrowing of the gap between the rate of disabled and non-disabled people in employment. The pandemic initially reversed these trends with year-on-year changes showing a fall in the disability employment rate and a widening of the disability employment gap during 2020. In 2021 however the rate and gap returned to near pre-pandemic levels.
The disability employment gap was 28.9 percentage points in Q4 2021, the latest available data. This is an overall decrease of 4.8 percentage points since the same quarter in 2013.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many events have they held to meet and persuade employers to employ disabled people as part of their policy to close the disability employment gap, in each of the last three years.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Throughout these unprecedented times, the DWP Disability Confident (DC) Team has continued to work collaboratively with DC Leader organisations on a series of webinars (26 to date), covering topics, such as: Virtual Hiring, Recruitment and Retention, Mental Health in the Workplace and Workplace Adjustments.
The DC Team has delivered employer focused online events (11), entitled ‘A little less conversation, A little more action’ with DWP Work and Health Programme Providers and DC Leaders with the aim of encouraging employers to attract, recruit and retain disabled people.
The team has actively supported MPs to sign up to the scheme and has delivered employer focused events (8) in local constituencies to encourage sign-up to DC and have also co-facilitated a number of external events with other organisations, including national conferences to raise the profile of disability employment.
The DC Team has delivered an inaugural DC Awards ceremony (December 2021) in collaboration with the Business Disability Forum awarding employers from across the UK, who had actively encouraged the employment of disabled people.
Colleagues across Jobcentre Plus work on a daily basis with employers at both a national and local level and through these relationships secure support for our customers. This includes securing commitments to recruit disabled people and demonstrating this by joining the Disability Confident Scheme. This is done through both discussions with individual employers and also through local employer events
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who is the responsible Minister for closing the disability employment gap; and how many staff are engaged in these efforts.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Chloe Smith MP is the Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work. Her portfolio includes responsibility for supporting disabled people to get into and remain in work, to close the disability employment gap.
We do not hold details on the overall number of staff engaged across the broad range of initiatives that are contributing to closing the disability employment gap. Staff from across the DWP who are responsible for supporting disabled people into work include Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) and Disability Employment Adviser Leaders (DEALs), Work Coaches, and National Employer Partnership Team. From April 2021, DWP began increasing the number of DEAs to 1,000 and DEALs to 115 across Great Britain. By January 2022 DEA numbers had increased to almost 900, nearly double the number in place a year earlier; and over 100 DEA leaders.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what funds have been allocated to encourage business and industry to employ disabled people; and what is the total value of these funds.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
We recently announced that we are providing £1.3bn over the SR21 period for employment support for disabled people and/or people with health conditions, including to encourage business and industry to employ disabled people. This funds a range of initiatives, for example extending contracted employment support programmes, expanding employment support in NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services across England, and continued support for the Disability Confident employers scheme.
The programme includes funding for Access to Work, a demand-led, discretionary grant to de-risk the recruitment and retention of disabled people for employers. It provides practical and financial support for the disability related extra costs of working that disabled people may face which are beyond standard reasonable adjustments. The grant can provide up to £62,900 worth of flexible, personalised support per person per year. The 21/22 budget for Access to Work grant expenditure is £151.9m.