Disabled and work
The government has launched a consultation seeking views on what it will take to transform employment prospects for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions.
This comes on the back of the Improving lives green paper on work, disability and health which commits to halving the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people — currently fewer than five out of 10 disabled people have a job compared with eight in 10 non-disabled people.
The Green Paper does not give a timescale for this commitment. However, disability campaigners point out that the reduction in funding for employment programmes – from £750 million in 2013-14 to less than £130 million by the end of this Parliament – could see 45,000 fewer disabled people allowed onto specialist employment provision.