1. The Government’s perspective on measuring disability employment
Work and Health Unit
The Government’s perspective on measuring disability employment
Michael Howe, Head of Strategic Data Analysis, Work and Health Unit

2. To do this we need a tool that is:
Why Government uses the Labour Force Survey (LFS) - recognising it’s not perfect
Government has a manifesto commitment to halve the disability employment gap – this is a long term ambition
We need to measure the gap to monitor progress and inform policy decisions
To do this we need a tool that is:
Robust: The best source of the things we are trying to measure (to an extent)
Timely: To make responsive policy interventions
Large: So real statistical changes can be tracked and detailed breakdowns produced

3. What the LFS can tell us (and what it can’t)
It can tell us:
The number and employment status of those who self-report the criteria needed to be defined as disabled.
How the employment rates differ between those who do meet the criteria and those who don’t.
That there is a real difference in the employment rates of those who report their health condition impacts their ability to carry out day to day activities and those who don’t.
It can’t tell us:
How the gap has really changed over the last few decades due to series breaks. Ironically the legislation we would like to assess the impact of is also the reason for many of these series breaks.
Whether the individuals are “disabled” according to a more strict objective adherence to the legal definition.
How the disability status changes over the life course and how work and health relationships for an individual play out over more than a period of a year.

4. Disability status over time - it can be consistently inconsistent
At any given point in time the LFS reports that roughly 20% of all working age people are disabled.
However, whilst this overall prevalence tends to be fairly stable over time, evidence suggests a lot of churn at the individual level.
For example, as many as 11m individual working age people will report a disability within a year and only half of them report this consistently– many move out of disability or made multiple changes to their status during this time.
This has clear impacts on our ability to measure disability employment consistently.
It generates a lot of questions around why some change so often and some do not.
Also, employment can have an impact here – those who move into employment are occasionally more likely to stop reporting a disability, perhaps because they no longer feel their condition impacts on their day to day activities.

5. There are many other issues with measuring the disability employment gap…
Factor affecting the gap
Effect on the gap
Whether we’d like to see this happen
Disabled people moving into work
Narrow
Yes
Disabled people moving out of work
Widen No
Non-disabled people moving into work
Non-disabled people moving out of work
People in work becoming disabled
Someone in work no longer views their health condition as a barrier to everyday life
Because of these issues in measuring the gap it’s important that we build a wider set of measures that help capture the outcomes we want to see.
As part of the Work, Health and Disability Green Paper we are asking for ideas around a local basket of work and health measures that we can use to track outcomes in this area.

6. Get involved - have your say
Knowledge and evidence
We want to understand the key areas for evidence development and how we can best support the system to take informed action:
What should we include in a basket of health and work indicators covering both labour market and health outcomes at local level?
What is the best way to bring together and share existing evidence in one place for commissioners and delivery partners?
How can we encourage the recording of occupational status in all clinical settings and good use of these data?
How can government and local partners best encourage improved sharing of health and employment data?
Culture and attitudes
Thinking about how we can bring about a change in culture:
How can we bring about a shift in society’s wider attitudes to make progress and achieve long lasting change?
What is the role of government in bringing about positive change to our attitudes to disabled people and people with health conditions?

7. Consultation 31st October 2016 – 17th February 2017
Ways to get involved
Citizen Space online survey
Simple and accessible way to respond to all consultation questions
Face-to-face consultation events
Led by stakeholders
Tweet using #workandhealth
Contact the Work and Health Unit
Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper:
The Work, Health and Disability Green Paper Data Pack: