This updated Business Plan sets out the key themes that the Disability Employment Advisory Committee (DEAC) envisages will form the basis of its work over the next three years; recognising the need to be flexible to new developments in the policy agenda.
The Plan places those themes in the context of DEAC’s overall vision for society and its particular vision for itself, its role and principles and its relationship with the Department for Work and Pensions. In particular it emphasises its commitment to the social model of disability.
The Plan also identifies a few issues that some DEAC Members have said they would wish the Committee to find a way to consider. It also proposes a Project Framework document that identifies how DEAC will progress project work, and measure successful outcomes.
This document also sets out how DEAC will ensure it does not work in isolation, and where appropriate to work with, and incorporate views from stakeholders.
A society in which disabled people can fulfil their potential and aspirations to access, carry out and retain work.
To support Ministers and the Department to deliver their objectives, targets and strategies for disabled people through identifying barriers to employment and through making proposals that will remove those barriers, promote best practice, and seek to close the employment gap.
The key themes and sub themes are:
The Welfare Reform Green Paper in particular:
Employer engagement in particular:
Disability and diversity in particular:
The role of specialist provision and its relationship with the mainstreaming principle; in particular:
Coherence across education, health and employment including:
In taking all activities forward DEAC will pay due regard to making the most of information and research materials that are already available. This will be vitally important in order to ensure that DEAC’s work is evidence based, to make best use of resources and to optimise the limited amount of time that is available to Committee members and others.
Central to the ongoing delivery of DEAC’s work will be the need for DWP Ministers and officials to engage with DEAC on an early and proactive basis and to ensure that the Committee has appropriate feedback so that it can judge how effective its input has been. (See project document at Annex 1.)
The Disability Employment Advisory Committee (DEAC) was established in 2002 by DWP Ministers to help the Department to deliver its remit on improving the employment opportunities of disabled people and in particular the delivery of DWP's specific Public Service Agreement target to “significantly improve the employment rate of disabled people”.
The Committee’s remit is to:
The Committee is concerned with:
The Committee may also take a view on:
The Committee's remit does not cover Civil Rights and Discrimination, Benefits, Schools, Further and Higher Education, Transport, Housing and Social Services issues. These are already covered by the Disability Rights Commission, Social Security Advisory Committee, Disabled Person's Transport Advisory Committee, specific Government Departments and other existing advisory/ Non Departmental Public Body arrangements.
In delivering its remit DEAC:
Introduction
In principle DEAC will continue to look at employment, retention, employment training and labour market issues as they affect all disabled people. This approach has been adopted as the barriers to accessing employment, and the solutions to overcome such barriers, are (in the main) germane to all disabled people irrespective of health conditions or nature of impairment.
Barriers beyond those faced by the individual might include: social attitudes, structural barriers, and economic market forces.
In certain circumstances DEAC will examine issues specific to one impairment group on the basis of the following criteria:
Where DEAC does adopt an impairment based focus that this will be undertaken within the remit of DEAC’s values and principles.
The Department is responsible for delivering the Government's welfare reform agenda. Its principal aim is to promote independence and opportunity for all.
The Department's key objectives are to:
Within the Department, the Work Welfare and Equality Group (WWEG) has specific responsibility to address the Welfare to Work agenda in relation to employment including the employment of disabled people.
The objectives of WWEG include:
It aims to achieve these by advising Ministers on, and implementing, frameworks for Policy, Delivery and Performance.
The Group has identified the following key elements as part of the foundation for this as:
Underpinning the Work, Welfare and Equality Group’s work, within DWP, is a series of Public Service Agreement Targets agreed with HM Treasury. Disability issues are covered by PSA Objective IV - in the three years to March 2008 – to:
DEAC’s role and purpose supports DWP’s stated emphasis on analysis, links with organisations and stakeholders and consultation. Regarding the PSA Target IV, DEAC’s remit covers activities within the second and third parts of the Target. Activity to improve the rights of disabled people and to remove the barriers to their participation in society is a civil rights issue and for the DRC.
Within the DWP’s Work, Welfare and Equality Group, responsibility for DEAC rests with the Disability and Work Division.
In delivering the vision set out above DEAC will,
The Committee is committed to:
DEAC meetings take place three times a year. These committee meetings are used to take a strategic view of DWP policy development and implementation, and where DEAC’s advice can add value to the developing policy agenda. Great emphasis is placed on DEAC’s work being progressed through project work. This is undertaken by DEAC members on a project management basis between the formal meetings. Specific impact/performance measures, timescales, outputs and outcomes are identified for each project, with subsequent oral and written advice being offered to Ministers and officials. (Project Framework document at Annex 1.)
There are a range of other Non Departmental Public Bodies and organisations working in the disability employment field. We need to be clear in what ways our role is different from theirs, and where it would make sense for us to seek to work together. In summary some of the key bodies/ organisations are:
This list is not comprehensive – in particular there will be various other organisations of and for disabled people who it will be important to liaise with either on an ongoing basis, or with regard to specific projects. In working at a strategic level contact with others needs to be at high level and is key to project activity.
DEAC’s unique selling point is that it is an internal committee with a focus on disability employment policy, practice and programmes and that it seeks to incorporate the perspectives of all key constituencies.
There will be a number of factors which will have an impact on what we do and when. These include:
In addition the Committee will be mindful of resources and the need to give attention to the activities of other stakeholders who may be considering similar issues at the same time.
The Committee will remain flexible and able to respond to new items raised by Ministers or officials or at meetings. The Committee will aim to address each item in the course of its next three year term but new priorities may emerge, or some projects will take longer than expected.
Examples of areas of work which committee Members have identified as of particular relevance to employment for disabled people:
The Committee has in the past discussed the possibility of involving others outside of DEAC where particular knowledge would be of value; such as in the case of a specific impairment or where information from a geographical area is not covered by DEAC would be necessary. In those cases DEAC will set out what information was needed and the most appropriate way of ensuring the information was available including working with specific individuals or organisations. In these cases issues of role, remit, and confidentiality would require to be detailed and agreed.
The Committee will regularly review progress of its work, and the impact of its advice to Ministers and officials, by monitoring the impact of its contribution, and having an annual review of its effectiveness.
October 2006
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