§ Mr. Ovendenasked the Secretary of State for Employment what consultations are proposed by the Manpower Services Commission before making its recommendations to him on the review of the quota scheme.
§ Mr. John GrantAs announced in the Manpower Services Commission's programme "Developing Employment and Training Services for Disabled People", issued last February, the Commission's employment service division (ESD) will collect information during the next 18 months about the operation of the quota scheme and the related question of registration. This will include research into the attitudes of employers and disabled people to the quota scheme and to registration, and an evaluation of the impact of its long-term strategy embodied in the guide to employers, "Positive Policies", which was issued in May 1977.
I understand that, when this preparatory work is completed, a discussion paper will be issued on which comments will be invited from a wide range of organisations interested in the employment of disabled people, including disablement advisory committees, the all-party disablement group, major voluntary organisations in this field, the CBI, the TUC and local authority associations. The comments of these organisations and those of the National Advisory Council on Employment of Disabled People will be taken into account by the Commission when drawing up its recommendations to the Secretary of State on the future of the quota scheme.
§ Mr. Ovendenasked the Secretary of State for Employment what explanation he can give for the substantial fall in employers satisfying the disablement employment quota of 3 per cent., from 61 per cent. in 1961 to 37 per cent. in 1977.
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§ Mr. John GrantI am advised by the Manpower Services Commission that the main reason is the decline in the number of disabled people on the disabled persons register from 666,000 in 1961 to 532,000 in 1977. Only disabled people who have registered under the 1944 Act count towards an employer's quota. However, registration is voluntary, and it is known that there is an increasing disinclination among disabled people to apply for registration and an increasing tendency for them not to renew their registration. The Department of Employment's consultative document on the quota scheme estimated that in 1971 only about half of the disabled people in employment had registered, and circumstantial evidence suggests that the proportion may be even lower now.
There have been two other contributory factors. The first is the change in the nature of disablement. The proportion of disabled people who have suffered mental illness has increased in recent years, but the tendency has been for few of them to apply for registration. Secondly, a large number of war disabled people who registered during the years immediately after the Second World War will have retired from the employment field in recent years.
One consequence of the decline in the number of registered disabled people is that, if all those now employed were recruited by firms with a quota obligation, the average level of compliance would still only be about 2.2 per cent. An overall 3 per cent. compliance rate is therefore impossible.
As announced in its recent publication "Developing Employment and Training Services for Disabled People", the Manpower Services Commission will be reviewing the quota scheme and the related question of registration, probably late in 1979. I understand that the Commission proposes to seek the views of interested parties on this complex question before making any recommendations to the Secretary of State.