HC Deb 18 September 2003 vol 410 cc907-8W
Paul Holmes

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many adults with a learning disability were(a) in paid employment in England and (b) known to social services in England in each year since 1997; what percentage of adults with a learning disability known to social services were in paid employment; and if he will make a statement. [127124]

Maria Eagle

The available information is in the tables.

The Department of Health collects limited information from individual councils with Social Services Responsibilities (CSSR) on the number of their clients with learning disabilities who are in paid employment. This is based on those known to the CSSR as part of a care package following a community care assessment. It is not possible to use this data to produce a robust estimate for the whole of England of the percentage of adults with a learning disability known to social services who were in paid employment.

Number of adults in England with a learning disability who are in employment
Year Number
1998 30,000
1999 40,000
2000 40,000
2001 30,000
2002 50,000
2003 60,000

Notes:

1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10,000 and are subject to sampling error.

2. "People with a learning disability" are all persons in employment and all other men aged 16–64 and women aged 16–59 who said that health or disability problems limit the kind of paid work they can do whose main health problem was a severe or specific learning problem.

3. Paid Employment includes employees and self-employed who were paid for at least one hours work in the survey reference week for people of working age (16-years-old to state pension age). It does not include those on Government employment and training programmes as not all people on these schemes are paid.

Source:

Labour Force Survey, Spring Datasets.

Estimated number of clients with learning disabilities receiving services following assessment
2000–01 2001–02
All ages 110,000 115,000
18–64 101,000 101,000
65 + 8,000 14,000

Notes:

1. The data are England estimates grossed up to the nearest thousand to allow for missing data and refer to the reporting year 1 April to 31 March.

2. Adults in this context are people aged 18 and over.

3. The "All ages" totals for 2000–2001 include the number of clients whose age was not known.

4. Figures may not add up because of rounding.

Source:

Department of Health, Referrals, Assessments and Packages of Care (RAP) returns for 2000–01 and 2001–02.

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