Sheltered Employment (Hansard, 10 March 1994)

§ Mr. David Hunt

My hon. Friend the Minister of State announced to the House, on 28 June 1993,Official Report, columns 345–46, a consultation process on the funding of sheltered employment provided through local authorities and voluntary bodies. The arrangements for Remploy agreed in 1992 are unaffected. This consultation is now complete and we have received many helpful comments, which we have considered carefully.

The main changes that will now be introduced are: 339W To set up formal contracts with targets, between the Employment Service and providers, to make explicit what is expected and to improve the effectiveness of our expenditure; Contracts will be for three years in principle, with annual renegotiation of details, and with arrangements for termination at six months' notice where specific reasons are given; Providers will be free to switch provision between factory places and placements, and between wage subsidies and other forms of support, provided minimum contract terms are met and cash limits are observed; Determining maximum grant by a formula derived from what it would cost to support someone with a specified productivity level at specified earnings in an employer placement; Increasing maximum grants per head to local authorities to the level offered to voluntary bodies; this will involve a small transfer of resources from the revenue support grant; All clients to have development plans regularly reviewed with providers; Subsuming the sheltered workshop training budget, currently focused on a few people, into the general grant for the programme; Host firms are to be allowed, and encouraged, to be legal employers of a client where this is in the client's interests; Encouraging better assessment, including more thorough exploration of alternatives, for those being considered for sheltered employment and, where appropriate, more progression to open employment; Contracts will specify a minimum number of places overall for a block grant—based on a maximum revenue grant per head; providers will be encouraged to offer more places and better quality through greater efficiency.

These changes will ensure that as many severely disabled people as possible are supported from the resources available, and that provision is better targeted.

As we discussed in our consultative document "Employment and Training for People with Disabilities", there is need to consider whether the balance of places in sheltered workshops should be moved more towards sheltered placements. Further details were promised once decisions were made on funding.

The balance between different forms of provision must respond to the assessed needs and the wishes of disabled people, and be decided in discussion between the ES and our local authority and voluntary body partners. Those needs and wishes can best be established locally. We intend, therefore, to proceed, not by setting national targets for different kinds of provision, but through the ES and providers discussing the right balance for particular localities when contracts are reviewed annually.

In deciding the balance between workshop places and employer placements, we propose that regard should be paid to the following principles: The need to provide as many work opportunities, over as wide a range of occupations as possible and to the full range of eligible disabled people; The need to meet the wishes of very many severely disabled people to work alongside non-disabled people in integrated conditions; The need also to provide work in sheltered conditions for those who require it.

We recognise that if, in a particular situation, it is agreed that the balance of provision should be changed in favour of placements, this might involve providers in extra costs in implementing the changes. We are prepared to help with these costs where the change is in the interests of disabled people, and more disabled people are helped as a result. Applications for capital grants to expand or improve workshop provision will continue to be dealt with under current arrangements, and we will continue to help workshops, where appropriate, through consultancy grants and through helping promote the products of sheltered industry.

340W

Since the programme is moving increasingly towards encouraging a wide range of ways of helping severely disabled people, we agree that the recommendations of the National Advisory Council on the Employment of People with Disabilities should be adopted and the name of the programme should be changed to the supported employment programme.

I believe that these decisions will create a modern framework within which we and our partners can work together successfully to help people with severe disabilities to obtain opportunities for productive work.