Summaries and dates of meetings in 2007

Fifteenth Meeting – London 31 January – 1 February 2007

At the pre meeting evening event on 31 January, there were two speakers.

Rebecca Sudworth spoke about the work being taken forward by the Extended Working Lives Division and possible read across to disability.
Helen Clements spoke on the work of the National Employment Panel Coalitions and the Able to Work Pilots being delivered with Jobcentre Plus.

During the meeting the Committee:

Heard Anne McGuire, Minister for Disabled People thank the Committee for its work and gave an outline of the areas where she felt DEAC could usefully be involved in the coming year.
Were given updates and the opportunity to discuss Welfare Reform, Review of Disability Employment Services and Individual Budgets.
Were given the opportunity to comments and discuss Cities Strategy.
Heard Sharon White, Director of Welfare Reform, who spoke on the broader policy context, Ministers thoughts and the synergies and processes for the next few months.

Sixteenth Meeting – London, 26 April 2007

There were three main elements to the day:

A presentation and discussion on the Independent Living Review – led by Sheila Evans and Helen Bowers, Office for Disability issues – with specific consideration of three particular themes:

Mental Health and Employment
Older workers and extending working life
Harder to reach groups and the needs of BME communities.

A presentation and discussion on self employment led by Mark Deal and ENHAM colleagues. Mark set out the main points from the paper and said the objective was to gauge whether the Committee felt that further work should be done on self employment. He introduced Gordon Rhodes, Business Ability Project Manager at ENHAM who had provided an additional paper and Linda Matthews, Head of Learning and Employment at ENHAM.

A presentation and discussion on mental health and employment led by Rosie Hallam. Rosie presented the paper, which set out the employment position of people with mental health difficulties, the factors that affect their entry into and retention in work and what practice was and was not effective. Issues raised included whether the focus should be on preventing the flow of people onto Incapacity benefit, or those in workshop type provision or both; and how there might be joint working with others such as Dept of Health and professionals in the health field.

Seventeenth Meeting – Edinburgh – 13-14 June 2007

At the pre meeting evening event on 13 June 2007 there were two speakers:

Ken Wardrop, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, presented his work towards employability policy issues within the Welfare Reform Green Paper and also on the development of Glasgow City Strategy.
Dr Julie Ridley, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire spoke of her work on the “Go for it” research relating to supported employment for people with learning disabilities.

During the Meeting on 14 June 2007 the Committee:

Were brought up-to-date on the timetable for assessing bids for provider led pathways and the contracting process.
Had a presentation on the Freud report and possibilities for piloting.
Discussed a proposal for future work on mental health issues.
Heard and discussed the overlap between disability and age and worked through possible action for DEAC.
Heard a presentation on the Review of Disability Employment Services and DWP’s work to build on existing good practice and the importance of mainstreaming.

Eighteenth Meeting – Cardiff – 24-25 October 2007

At the pre meeting evening event on the 24th of October there were two speakers:

Rhian Davies, Chief Executive of Disability Wales, gave an update on on what her office had been doing since she last spoke to DEAC, and gave a presentation on its plans to develop partnerships to tackle economic activity.
Axel Kaehne, from the Welsh Centre for Learning Disabilities at Cardiff University, gave a presentation on his office’s work with the Shaw Trust on what works in transition to employment.

During the meeting on the 25th of October the Committee:

Heard a presentation on and discussed the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) regulations and the ESA customer journey.
Heard a presentation on and discussed DWP’s proposals for a Commissioning Strategy and their future involvement with it.
Received a summary of and discussed the Green Paper entitled "In Work-Better Off".
Received updates on and set out next steps for DEAC project work including, "Mental Health and Employment", "The Skills Gap" and "Transitions" for disabled people.
Monitored progress against the DEAC Strategy and Work plan 2006/2008.