Disabled People (Hansard, 6 March 1991)

§ Mr. Allan Stewart

Statistics on the employment and training of people with disabilities in Scotland are212W available in a number of different formats from various sources. The main sources of information on the employment and training of disabled people in Scotland are described as follows.

Data on those on Government training programmes who have disabilities are based on information supplied by the training provider about each trainee starting a training programme. Providers are asked to identify disabled trainees on the basis of those who on account of injury, disease or congenital deformity are substantially handicapped in obtaining or keeping employment or undertaking work on their own account of a kind which apart from that injury, disease or deformity would be suited to their age, experience and qualifications".

The latest information for Scotland is that, between April and December 1990, some 1.2 per cent. of those who started on YT and 5.6 per cent. of those who started on. ET were recorded as disabled by their training provider.

Some data are collected about registration as disabled under the terms of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Acts 1944 and 1958, and on the extent to which employers are complying with the provisions of the quota scheme —which was established by the 1944 Act.

This Act places a duty on employers who have 20 or more workers to employ a quota of registered disabled people. The standard quota is at present 3 per cent. of an employer's total work force. It is not an offence to be below quota. However, when in this situation an employer has a further duty, under the Act, to engage suitable registered disabled people if any are available when vacancies arise. An employer who is below quota must not engage anyone other than a registered disabled person without first obtaining a permit to do so from the employment service's local disablement resettlement officer, and must not discharge a registered disabled worker without reasonable cause. The provisions of the Act are not legally binding on the Crown, but Government Departments and the national health service have undertaken to accept the same responsibilities as other employers.

The disabled persons register is kept at the employment service's local offices and local education authority careers offices. The numbers registered are counted annually in April to provide local, regional and national totals.

The employment service's local offices, which also monitor compliance with the provisions of the quota scheme, conduct an annual inquiry, which takes place in May and is concluded on 1 June, into the extent to which employers in their areas who are subject to quota are employing registered disabled people.

In April 1990 there were 34,082 registered disabled people in Scotland; and on 1 June that year, the average percentage of registered disabled people in the work forces of Scottish-based employers subject to the quota provisions was 0.7 per cent. This latter figure compares with 0.8 per cent. for Great Britain as a whole.

However, data about registered disabled people and their employment under the quota scheme do not provide an accurate picture of the employment position of people with disabilities. Registration as disabled is voluntary, and it has been established by recent research commissioned by the employment service—"Employment and Handicap", SCPR 1990, a copy of which is in the Library—that the majority of people with disabilities who would be eligible 213W to register choose not to so so. Data on compliance with the quota relates only to registered disabled people and to employers with 20 or more workers.

There is a further complication, in that the quota responsibilities are placed on employers in respect of their total work forces, not separately for individual branches or establishments. In the case of employers with more than one branch, compliance is monitored by the employment service's local office in which the employer's headquarters is located. As a consequence, statistics provided from local office records in Scotland do not take account of registered disabled people working in Scotland for employers whose headquarters is elsewhere in Great Britain, but will include data in respect of those working elsewhere in Great Britain for employers based in Scotland.

In the spring of each year, the Department of Employment publishes an article in the Employment Gazette showing the number and proportion of registered disabled people employed by a range of public sector employers. Information is given for the main central and local government employers including those in Scotland. The latest article, which gives information for May 1990, was published in the February 1991 edition.

Until January 1990, the employment service maintained information on the number of disabled people registered for work at jobcentres and careers offices. However, this information needs to be treated with considerable caution because, from October 1982, it has not been compulsory to register for employment as a condition for the receipt of unemployment benefit. Because of their limited value, the collection of these figures was discontinued in January 1990. At that date, there were 1,928 unemployed registered disabled also registered for work at jobcentres and careers offices in Scotland, and an additional 4,521 unemployed people with disabilities registered at jobcentres and careers offices who were not also registered as disabled.

The annual "Labour Force Survey" collects a wide range of information about the United Kingdom labour market. This is a sample survey of households which can provide analyses for the Scottish labour market. Some information is collected in the survey about those with health problems or disabilities in response to the question Do you have any health problems or disabilities which limit the kind of paid work you can do?

This covers a much wider range of people than those recorded as disabled on Government training programmes and than those registered as disabled under the 1944 Act. It should also be noted that, since the "Labour Force Survey" is a household survey, disabled people living in hostel or institutional accommodation will not be included in the survey.

The latest information from this survey is that of an estimated 444,000 people of working age in Scotland in spring 1989 with health problems or disabilities which limit the kind of paid work they can do, 34 per cent. were in employment, 10 per cent. were unemployed and 56 per cent. were economically inactive.