Disabled Employees (Hansard, 22 October 1993)

§ Mr. Michael Forsyth

Responsibility for the subject of the questions has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter to Mr. Martin Redmond from M. E. G. Fogden, dated 22 October 1993: As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to write to you direct to respond to your Parliamentary Questions to him about the number of public and private sector employers prosecuted for not employing the required percentage of disabled employees; the fines imposed and the current percentage of disabled employees employed in public and private sectors. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency. It may be helpful if I briefly explain employers' duties and obligations under the provisions of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944. The Act placed a duty on employers who have twenty or more workers to employ a Quota of registered disabled people. The standard Quota is currently set at three per cent. of the employer's total workforce. 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. A below Quota employer must

Table 1
Establishments covered by wages councils on register at December 1992
	Divisions
Wages councils	London	South East	East	South West	Midlands	North West	Yorkshire and Humberside	North	Scotland	Great Britain
Aerated waters	14	12	70	17	34	48	15	19	50	279
Clothing manufacturers	2,000	136	226	316	1,042	1,006	448	148	179	5,501
Boot and shoe repairing	370	215	249	272	382	449	620	83	138	2,778
Button manufacturing	16	3	1	4	11	4	2	3	0	44
Coffin furniture and cerement making	0	0	0	2	6	5	4	0	1	18
Cotton waste reclamation	1	0	0	1	6	20	0	0	0	28
Flax and hemp	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	6	7
Fur	61	2	2	6	4	15	4	0	6	100
General waste materials reclamation	99	74	92	157	212	286	222	89	105	1,336
Hairdressing	3,828	3,027	3,140	4,237	5,072	5,262	3,389	2,000	2,504	32,459
Hat, cap and millinery	14	3	38	1	3	17	10	9	1	96
Lace finishing	0	0	0	0	56	1	0	0	1	58

354W

not engage anyone other than a registered disabled person without first obtaining a permit to do so, and must not discharge a registered disabled person without reasonable cause. Failure to comply with either of these latter two obligations is a criminal offence. Employers in scope of the provisions of the Quota Scheme must keep records to show that they are complying with the requirements. No employer has been prosecuted for infringing the provisions of the Quota Scheme in the last ten years. You also asked about the percentages of disabled employees employed in the public and private sectors. I regret that information is not collected in this precise form. However, I can provide approximate figures related to registered disabled employees. Each year tables showing the number and percentage of registered disabled people employed by a wide range of public sector employers are published, with their agreement, in the Employment Gazette. The latest figures, relating to 1 June 1992, were in the April 1993 issue of the Gazette. The average percentage of registered disabled people employed by the public sector employers whose individual figures were published in the Gazette was 0.8 per cent. Deduction of the data for this range of public sector employers from national data in respect of all employers who are in scope of the Quota provisions produces an approximate figure of 0.7 per cent. for employers in the private sector. I hope this is helpful. As decided by the Administrative Committee of the House of Commons, Chief Executive replies to written Parliamentary Questions will now be published in the Official Report. I will also place a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.