Employment Schemes: Disability

(asked on 19th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the £156 million committed in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 to provide job finding support for disabled people, what services that funding will support, in addition to the work coaches referenced in part 4.99 of that document.


Answered by
Chloe Smith Portrait
Chloe Smith
This question was answered on 30th November 2021

The Government is committed to seeing one million more disabled people in work between 2017 and 2027 and reducing the disability employment gap. The disability employment gap

has closed by around 5 percentage points since 2013 (the earliest comparable date, when the current way of measuring disability began) and in the last four years, the number of disabled people in employment has increased by 850,000. This is good progress, however, we know we need to go further to help more disabled people and people with health conditions start, stay and succeed in work, where it is right for them.

We have committed in both the recent Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper and the National Disability Strategy, to continue to improve employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions to help support more people to move towards and into work. We are reviewing Green Paper responses now and will come forward with a White Paper next year.

The Spending Review committed £339 million per year for the continued funding of existing disability employment programmes such as the Access to Work scheme and the Work and Health programme.

In addition to this, £156 million has been agreed over the Spending Review 2021 period to provide job finding support for disabled people, with a focus on additional work coaches. We are continuing to develop detailed plans for a range of disability employment support to best support disabled people towards and into work across the Spending Review period.

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