But really it's a wider issue amongst society that disabled people are just seen as being less employable. Tackling that is a going to be an issue and is a key part of getting more disabled people into work.
I think a lot of it comes from the fact that employers are afraid of being left with a large burden on their shoulders without any support. It's understandable, and I think the country needs to take a long hard look at what actually can be done to get disabled people working. My friend does ok because he's self employed and works when he can, but he always says that he would much rather just be in an office doing office things rather than sitting at home.
As an aside, I think the Polish system actually works quite well: there's a special government agency which essentially funds employers to employ disabled people and to provide the adaptations needed. It's quite complicated to explain, but the gist of it is that the employer can get up to 100% of the costs needed to adapt the workplace and 75% of the wage costs covered, depending on the level of disability. The money is paid indefinitely, and one crucial thing is that it also covers thing like mental illness or other mental disabilities where someone can work, but they might not be capable of everything that's expected from an ordinary employee.
The general idea is that the subsidy makes it worthwhile to employ a disabled person, so for instance, supermarkets will employ a disabled person to staff self-service checkouts to deal with basic tasks. The cost to the supermarket is very little, and yet everyone gains from it.
There are others, of course, who are further away from being ready to work and need more help getting upskilled, gaining confidence, or working on mental or physical restrictions. But the current Jobcentre system is not at all geared to help them actually move towards the workforce.
I think the less said about the Jobcentre, the better. Some of the stories are beyond belief, yet it's very obvious that it's all just a tick box exercise. A friend was on benefits a couple of years back, and the most degrading thing about the whole experience was dealing with clearly demoralised "work coaches" who had no ability to offer him anything more than sending him for interviews in completely unsuitable places. I remember that he said that while he could deal with it as an educated person (and who was clever enough to know how to get rejected from every single job interview), he said that there was a very clear focus on trying to catch him out on the slightest thing so that he could be sanctioned.
Going back to Labour, I think if Labour really wanted to put the effort in, they should have gone in with a clear plan to reform the Jobcentres from Day 1. They surely must have known that the Jobcentre had become a place of rampant bullying of jobseekers and a place that employers won't cooperate with, yet they seem to have no real idea beyond 'let's force people into them so that we can force them into applying for jobs that they can't even do'.
A friend's brother has been convicted of some quite serious things, but was allowed to stay out of prison through being subject to a pretty severe SHPO for a long time. The gist of it is that he's pretty much banned from working in any environment where he could be alone with a woman, and he's also explicitly banned from using any form of social media or even sending unsolicited e-mails to women. The order lasts for 10 years, and if he breaks it, he's been told clearly that he can expect a lengthy custodial sentence.
He's subject to some other restrictions too, but the general message is that he's very limited in the work that he can do. The Jobcentre then tried to force him into some jobs that he couldn't do, such as working in a care home, and when he explained that even attempting to get such a job could put him in prison for a long time through breaching the SHPO, he was sanctioned. He won on appeal, but in this specific situation, the Jobcentre are clueless and they still keep proposing that he should apply for jobs that he simply won't be allowed to do. Fortunately, the courts are quite sensible and understanding about the situation that he's in, but even a letter from the sheriff that imposed the order to the Jobcentre hasn't changed anything.
For that reason, I'm not surprised that there was mass backbench rebellion, because the Jobcentre is simply not fit for purpose.
) by various politicians and members of the media. Many will remember "Benefits Street" from the early austerity era for instance. So there is a perception built in that many claimants are, in someway, on the fiddle.
