If the Government Wants to ‘Get Britain Working’, Why Is It Ignoring All the Learning Disabled People Who Want to Find Jobs?

After the Government unveiled its white paper to Get Britain Working, here’s a stark fact that should influence the statute book: less than 5% of people from a certain part of our population are currently in work, even though 86% want to be.

These statistics, about adults with a learning disability, reflect an untapped potential. Worse still, this low employment rate has consistently fallen over the years – from an already abysmal 6% a decade ago (the comparative employment rate among non-disabled people is 75%).

If Labour truly is the party for rights, equality, and social justice, then here is an opportunity to harness the contribution of a willing yet undervalued workforce. 

With 750,000 working-age learning disabled adults in England alone, the Government’s new employment plan could trigger a reimagining of how the state perceives those usually neglected when it comes to full citizenship.

Of course, we need more practical detail about the vision of the “biggest reforms to employment support in a generation”. Especially in relation to how plans for supported employment, or the proposed review of inclusive workplaces, might affect disabled people with learning disabilities.

Yet, we know that paid employment positively impacts independence, health, and mental health and reduces the benefits bill. Marginalised groups such as learning disabled people are in desperate need of this, as Byline Times has previously reported. 

Having worked alongside learning disabled collaborators on Made Possible, a book about how this group can contribute to society like anyone else, I know that huge potential exists. 

Campaigner Shaun Webster, who was involved in that project, has part-time roles at a self-advocacy charity and as an advocate at a NHS trust. He claims the personal independence payment (a benefit to help with daily living costs). For him, “employment empowers you, it can change your life and inspire other people to work”.

But one of the challenges in closing the disability employment gap is that employers often see giving people jobs as a charitable act, he says, meaning that a shift in attitudes is required – so people not only get work, but then progress into those roles.

Webster also refers to the problems of navigating benefits, as entitlement depends on hours worked: “I often hear from people who are scared of losing their benefits if they work more, and that stops them looking for jobs.”

Keir Starmer wants to get Britain working, but he also wants to cut the “bulging benefits bill” – this is a problem for those who rely on benefits to help them find and keep jobs. The Prime Minister’s stigmatising rhetoric alienates the very people he is hoping to encourage into work. 

A related barrier is that, despite equality laws and employer schemes such as Disability Confident (launched by the Conservatives to encourage employers to recruit a diverse workforce), workplace access and inclusion is dire. If it is considered at all, it is usually in relation to physical issues rather than adjustments for learning disabled employees, such as video CVs or accessible pre-interview information.

The lack of supported employment programmes is an additional hurdle. These schemes offer extra help for people to get jobs but have been decimated over the years and are not a local authority statutory responsibility.

The Government’s white paper reference to a new supported employment programme, Connect to Work, is welcome, but looks as if it will only provide “voluntary employment offers“. As campaigners like Webster testify, there is a grim history in learning disability support where people work for nothing in endless volunteering or ‘training’. 

In the 1980s, Gary Bourlet, co-founder of charity Learning Disability England (LDE), was a ‘trainee’ at a day centre where for six years for £4 a week (around £16 today) he packed bags of screws into boxes.

Little has changed, says Liz Ellis, a disability studies and inclusive research academic at the University of South Wales. One of her research participants a few years ago was being ‘trained’, without wages, to peel potatoes.

“He was paying to attend a day centre, 9am until 3pm,” she says. “He wanted to participate in my research but couldn’t because he had to work in the kitchen. We managed to work something out at the weekends, but it was so incredibly exploitative.” 

So if Labour really wants to Get Britain Working – and its white paper pledges to “put the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of any policy changes” – it should ask the experts for ideas. 

Policy-makers could talk to Bourlet and read LDE’s Good Lives Manifesto, which describes changes that could improve people’s lives. For example, there is a recommendation for a supported employment commissioning model that works specifically for people with learning disabilities.

The Government could learn from the work of Shaun Webster, like the ‘reverse jobs fair’ he co-organised earlier this year with the aim of disrupting traditional recruitment practices. The event allowed learning disabled job seekers to show employers what they could offer, instead of the other way around.

Webster’s other suggestions include improving promotion of Access to Work (grants that support disabled people to get into or retain jobs) and for disabled people to audit inclusive workplace schemes.

Next, Labour could flex its rights-based credentials while also getting more people into work by supporting the ailing self-advocacy movement. In recent years, these groups – led by people with lived experience which encourage individuals to speak up for themselves – have either closed or are struggling to survive as funding dwindles (councils are not obliged to support self-advocacy).

Ultimately, to live up to its reputation as the party of social justice, Labour must see employment for people with learning disabilities not in isolation, but as part of a bigger picture.

People have a greater chance of being productive in and beyond their working life if they start with a a decent education and have the right support moving from childhood into young adulthood. 

But the special educational needs system is in tatters and the ‘transition’ from child to adult social care is a cliff edge. Years of austerity and the pandemic have eroded adult social care that people rely on to live, while learning disabled people face huge disparities in healthcare. 

As well as taking this more comprehensive perspective, there is a need for sensitive and creative thinking about how everyone can make a contribution – and the understanding that not everyone is suited to ‘a job’ in the traditional sense.

Good Lives, the LDE manifesto, includes the story of a young woman who used a wheelchair and did not use words to communicate. The mother knew her daughter was good at being still, so found a role where this was an asset: she modelled for drawing classes.

This example is significant, clearly not because it is a universal solution, but because it shows a shift in perceptions, from deficit to strength. 

Before considering how to Get Britain Working, the Government must think about which Brits it values as being worthy of work.

There are words in the white paper which I hope the Government regards as also being relevant to people with learning disabilities: “Our country’s greatest asset is its people. However, the talents of too many are being wasted.” Or as Shaun Webster puts it: “The Government’s missing out on skills lived experience and talent, it’s a lost opportunity.”

Saba Salman is the editor of ‘Made Possible: Stories of Success by People with Learning Disabilities – In their Own Words’. She is the chair of the charity Sibs, which supports the siblings of disabled children and adults