Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department provides to employers in Stockton West constituency to increase disability confidence in recruitment.

Nationally, in our Get Britain Working White Paper, published November 2024, we committed support for employers to recruit, retain, and develop staff. As part of that, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have asked Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead ‘Keep Britain Working’, an independent review to consider how best to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more people with health conditions and disabilities, promote healthy workplaces, and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence. Sir Charlie Mayfield will deliver a final report with recommendations in the autumn.

In addition, in January this year, we launched an expert academic panel to advise us on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work. The panel will consider the reasons why neurodivergent people have poor experiences in the workplace, and a low overall employment rate, making their recommendations later this autumn.

The Disability Confident (DC) Scheme encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. It provides employers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to attract, recruit, retain and develop disabled people in the workplace and to take positive action to address the issues disabled employees face.

At my request, officials have been discussing with stakeholders options for making the DC scheme criteria more robust. The Government is working towards announcing next steps for improving the scheme later this autumn.

DWP also has a digital information service for employers, (www.support-with-employee-health-and-disability.dwp.gov.uk), which provides tailored guidance to businesses to support employees to remain in work. This includes guidance on health disclosures and having conversations about health, plus guidance on legal obligations, including statutory sick pay and making reasonable adjustments.

Access to Work aims to support the recruitment and retention of disabled people into employment. It is a personalised discretionary grant that provides support with workplace adjustments beyond an employer’s obligation as outlined in the Equality Act 2010.

As part of our Plan for Change, and as set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published in March, we are consulting on the future of Access to Work and how to improve the programme to help more disabled people into work and support employers ensuring value for money for taxpayers. We will review all aspects of Access to Work after evaluating the findings of the Pathways to Work consultation.

In the area of Stockton DWP talks to employers about the diverse range of customers available for work, which includes those with a disability. The benefits of being a DC employer is promoted, including referencing Stockton Borough Council as a DC leader. Employers are signposted to the DC website and follow up conversations are held to offer support in becoming a DC employer. DWP has also contacted employers who have received an award for being dementia friendly to consider being DC.

To support jobseekers who have disabilities DWP actively seeks placements with DC employers to aid them in their journey back into work. Work is about to start with Sainsburys, which is a DC employer, on recruitment for a new store in the area and will involve supporting customers with disabilities to consider and apply for roles.