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<p>The Government is strongly committed to increasing employment opportunities for
people with learning disabilities and are working across Government and with local
authorities, voluntary organisations and employers in the public and private sectors
to achieve this.</p><p> </p><p>For people with a learning disability or autism who
are known to adult social care services, or those in contact with secondary mental
health services, we are working with local authorities, to test an approach to delivering
supported employment, with payments based on employment outcomes. We are also testing
supported work experience for young disabled people aged 18-24 flowing into the Work-Related
Activities Group of Employment Support Allowance or the Universal Credit equivalent.
Those young people with little or no work experience will be offered a supported work
experience placement with an employer, to help them gain confidence and encourage
them to look for work. Although the proof of concept is pan-disability we expect a
significant proportion of those taking part to have a learning disability.</p><p>
</p><p>Eligibility to specialist employment support programmes such as Work Choice
(WC) and Specialist Employability Support (SES) is not benefit or disability specific,
but does include claimants who are on Jobseeker's Allowance and who have a learning
disability. Of all those to have who started Work Choice, 56% were claiming Jobseeker’s
Allowance and almost a quarter had a mild learning disability/moderate to severe learning
disability.</p><p> </p><p>We are promoting Disability Confident among employers, including
the benefits to business of employing people with learning disabilities. Almost 5,000
employers have now signed up to be Disability Confident, including all Government
Departments. Access to Work is also available to help people with learning disabilities
into employment, such as funding for a Job Coach to support a person’s induction and
provide on-site training in a new job.</p><p> </p><p>DWP publishes online guidance
for employing people with health conditions and disabilities, including learning disabilities.
It provides information to help employers increase their understanding of disability
and enable them to recruit and support disabled people and those with long term health
conditions in work. The Disability Confident scheme provides links to a range of guidance
and other resources to enable employers to become more confident when recruiting and
retaining disabled people. The guidance can be accessed at <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employing-disabled-people-and-people-with-health-conditions/employing-disabled-people-and-people-with-health-conditions"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employing-disabled-people-and-people-with-health-conditions/employing-disabled-people-and-people-with-health-conditions</a></p><p>
</p><p>The Green Paper Improving Lives; the Work, Health and Disability Green Paper,
asked questions about how we better support people into employment and highlighted
learning disabilities as an area for further discussion. We engaged in a wide range
of conversations with stakeholders during the consultation period and received over
6000 responses. We are now carefully considering these formulating next steps for
longer-term reform.</p>
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