§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment what statistics are being collected to monitor the code of good practice on the employment of disabled people.
§ Mr. Alan ClarkA variety of statistics to monitor the promotion of the code of good practice is being collected by the Manpower Services Commission on a quarterly basis. These include the number of copies of the code issued; types of organisation to whom it was issued; and the number of visits to employers by the disablement advisory service. Monitoring of employers' first reactions to the code is currently being undertaken and some preliminary results should be available later this year. A full, in-depth evaluation of the code's effectiveness will be made after about two years.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the reasons for the lack of figures available on the number of unemployed disabled people after 1982; and if he has considered ways in which reliable statistics can be collected.
Mr. Alan ClarkeAs foreshadowed in the September 1982Employment Gazette, with the removal of the compulsory requirement to register for employment as a condition for the receipt of unemployment benefits in October 1982, it became no longer possible to collect statistics of unemployed disabled people on the same basis that had previously applied. However, figures on the numbers and characteristics of unemployed disabled people who choose to register for employment continue to be collected in jobcentres. These figures are published in the Employment Gazette each month.
The Government decided that in addition it needed to know regularly how many other unemployed disabled people there might be. The labour force survey would be used for this purpose, and first results were published in the article "Labour Force Surveys: preliminary results for 1984" in the May 1985 issue of the Employment Gazette. These new figures are based on a self-assessment of health problems and disability, and cannot therefore be compared directly with earlier series.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many employers are subject to the disabled persons quota; of these what percentage meet the quota; what percentage has been issued with permits within the last 12 months and what percentage with bulk permits; and what percentage is below the quota but has not been issued with permits.
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§ Mr. Alan ClarkOn 1 June 1984, the latest date for which information is available, 36,680 employers were subject to the provisions of the quota scheme, of which 30.3 per cent. employed the full quota of registered disabled people. A further 51.2 per cent of this total were below quota but had been issued with permits during the previous 12 months, 49.9 per cent. with bulk permits. The remaining 18.5 per cent. of employers were below quota and had not been issued with permits. However, these were not necessarily breaking the law unless they had engaged other than registered disabled people in the period.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the number of disabled people who are in (a) section I and (b) section II who, during 1984–85, have been placed in employment by (i) disablement resettlement officers and (ii) mainstream advisers; and what these figures are as a percentage of total jobcentre placements.
§ Mr. Alan ClarkThe information requested is as follows:
Disabled people placed during 1984–85 Number Percentage (1) by Disablement Resettlement Officers (as percentage of total jobcentre placements): Section I 18,594 0.9 Section II 3,350 0.2 (ii) by Mainstream advisers (as percentage of total jobcentre placements): Section I 26,153 1.3 Section II 291 0.01 In addition it is estimated that 23,400 disabled people (1.2 per cent. of the total) were placed through jobcentre self service facilities.