National Assembly for Wales

Prynhawn da. Welcome to the Equality and Social Justice Committee, where we are continuing our inquiry into disability and employment. We are a bilingual institution and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. All Members are present today, so I've had no apologies. Are there any declarations of interest? I see none.

I'd now like to welcome our panellists in this evidence session—Rhian Davies and Miranda Evans from Disability Wales. You're very welcome; thank you very much for coming to see us. Thank you very much for your very clear evidence. I wanted to start off by asking you about the timetable for the disability rights group, because in your paper, you mentioned that the final meeting was held in July. That surprised me because I thought the whole thing was due to be completed by March, and I just wondered how this impacted on the disability and employment working group. I wonder if you could just elucidate us.

Thank you, Chair. The taskforce had its inaugural meeting in November 2021, so it's nearly three years, now, since it was first set up. It has been a major feat of logistics and organisation, and to credit the Welsh Government, they have abided by the principles, both of running the taskforce by the principles of the social model of disability and also co-production. There have been over 300 people involved across the 10 different working groups, so it's been a very complex operation. However, nearly three years on, we are yet to see the draft action plan, and of course, the draft action plan in itself would be out for three months' consultation. So, I think we are very much aware of time ticking by, really. And because of the numbers of disabled people in particular who are engaged with this, there are very high expectations; people gave their time, their commitment, their energy, their passion to this. And given the background and the difficult circumstances, both of COVID and then the cost-of-living crisis, disabled people in Wales are very much crying out for a major initiative from the Welsh Government that is going to hopefully set the plan for the next 10 years, really.

But the Welsh Government obviously can't respond to a piece of work that hasn't yet been completed. So, I just wondered when the disability and employment working group completed its work. Were you able to submit that piece of work to the Government in advance of the other work streams?

There are a few different groups. There was the employment and incomes working group that was one of the taskforce's working groups, but there is also a disabled people's employment group, which is a separate group that wasn't related to the taskforce. So, there are two different groups, which I think did add to the confusion.

Okay. Help us.

I think, Miranda, you were on the employment one.

Yes. There was a lot of confusion around that, because when the taskforce was set up, they set up another working group specifically on employment issues, and it sort of duplicated, I suppose, the work of the other group. So, yes, there was a lot of confusion around that.

Did that delay the deliberations?

I think it's partly because of the complexity—you know, 10 working groups, different themes, each of them met four or five times. I think there was a lot of involvement from the secretariat. Also, I think, although there'd been resources allocated, so there'd be at least six posts in the disability rights taskforce secretariat, a lot of the time, those weren't filled, so the secretariat was probably under-resourced because of challenges in filling all six posts. So, I think that that was a delaying factor, as well as just the sheer size of it. 

The employment-related working group that you were on: what were its terms of reference? Miranda, you were on a particular group. Could you just describe that?

It involves the employment champions. I went along to a few of the meetings—not all of them because they clashed with other commitments. It was mainly the employment champions working with different stakeholders, spreading the word about the employment offer that they deliver. I went along to a few of those meetings and talked about the social model of disability, and also signposting to our relevant resources, like our social model toolkit and things like that, which they can be using when they are meeting with employers.

And that was one of the 10 working groups, was it?

No, that was a different one.

That's a different one. Okay. 

This is the disabled people's employment group.

So, the disability and employment group: what were its terms of reference, then?

That's the one that I was on, yes. 

The one that Miranda was on was more like an operational one. The disability and incomes working group that was set up as part of the taskforce was more looking at what the barriers are, policy issues around disability and employment barriers, issues around low employment, the disability employment gap and pay gap. It was more related to the 'Locked out' report, and also then would be feeding in proposals to the taskforce, which would hopefully inform the action plan. That working group was actually chaired by Professor Debbie Foster, who is also the co-chair of the taskforce with the Minister. 

The reason that I am pursuing this is because we are in the last chance saloon here in terms of the action that needs to be taken before the end of this Parliament. I was trying to understand the reasons for the delay in lodging the report that is now under consideration by the Welsh Government. Clearly, they can't pronounce on an action plan until they have had your report.

Right. All of the 10 working groups were like task and finish groups run by the Welsh Government. I chaired the independent living and social care one, but there were others. There was one on children and young people. There was one on accessible housing—

Yes, we have got the list.

—et cetera, et cetera. So, all of those groups have met and have submitted their reports to the Welsh Government. As mentioned in our submission, the last meeting of the taskforce was in July. What I understand is now happening is that the secretariat are working with their policy colleagues across the Welsh Government, going through all of the recommendations from across the 10 groups, to draft an action plan that will then come out for consultation.

We will look forward to that, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. Lastly from me, before I hand over to one of the other Members, some of the evidence that we have received highlights that people with certain conditions—neurodivergence with a learning difficulty—face particular barriers and require targeted support. Would you be able to briefly summarise whether you agree with them being a particular group where there is insufficient information at the moment?

I most definitely agree with that point. There need to be supported employment initiatives—like, for instance, ELITE Supported Employment—that support disabled people from across impairment-related conditions, including those with learning difficulties and neurodivergence, to access personal support like job coaching, for instance, which we highlighted in our response. I believe that that has been highlighted by other organisations as well. There is a definite need for that specialist support and relevant resources that need to be there to provide that.

Thank you. Sioned Williams.

It is disappointing. The ‘Locked out’ report is the only report of its kind—no other Government in the UK commissioned such a report. It was co-produced with disabled people and it set out how the pandemic had highlighted the stark inequalities faced by disabled people that had been exacerbated by austerity and then the pandemic. When the taskforce was announced and was set up, there were huge hopes amongst disabled people for it. Three years have gone by, and I think it’s felt that any initiative around tackling disabling barriers in society, whether that’s on employment or independent living or housing, has been waiting for the taskforce to complete its work.

In the meantime, all the barriers and all the problems that were exacerbated by the pandemic have been further exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis, which we documented in our report that was published last year, ‘Barely Surviving’. I think there’s a sense of, ‘When are things going to change? When is my life as a disabled person going to get better?’ The taskforce heard evidence from across its working group members of just how challenging life is for a disabled person. For example, in the one that I chaired, the independent living social care working group, there was a real sense that social care services haven’t recovered since COVID, and I think that is then echoed across other areas. Every delay is a lost opportunity to tackle ableism and discrimination in society.

Disability Wales actively campaigned for incorporation of the UN convention on the rights of disabled people in Welsh law through our manifesto, ‘Bring Us Our Rights’. That was on the back of a survey we did where something like 78 per cent of disabled respondents didn’t feel that their rights were being recognised, or in fact would be recognised within five years. I think the problem we’ve got is that although there is legislation, for example, like the Equality Act 2010, it doesn’t actually confer rights on people, it’s more about tackling discrimination. Often, it’s done on an individual basis, an individual person has to pursue their rights, whereas if the UN convention on the rights of disabled people is incorporated in Welsh law it would provide that framework so that all Welsh Government policy and any legislation would have to be written within the comprehensive framework of the UN convention on the rights of disabled people. So, it would start off from a rights-based approach, and then it would put duties and responsibilities on public services in particular to then implement that rights-based approach. So, again, the lack of progress with that incorporation is hugely disappointing.

I think there is a silo approach. Again, what we're hoping for—. We've been involved since the introduction of the framework for action on independent living, which was published in 2013, which was aimed at being a cross-cutting approach to tackling the wide-ranging barriers that disabled people face in life, underpinned by the United Nations convention on the rights of disabled people and the social model of disability. Apart from one or two obvious initiatives, very little progress has been made in that joined-up approach. In somewhere like employment, you can't tackle the disability employment gap just by looking at employment; you also have to look at the other barriers, because if people aren't suitably housed, they're not in a position to look for work, or if they haven't got their social care needs met, they're not going to be able get up in the morning. And if the transport system is inaccessible, then they're not going to be able to get to the workplace. All of these things have to be tackled simultaneously and, I think, at the moment, I don't think the Welsh Government, or, in fact, any government, has really cracked that. 

So, in Wales, we have one of the highest populations of disabled people in the UK. We also have the highest poverty level amongst disabled people in the UK. I think nearly 40 per cent of disabled people live in poverty, and higher numbers of disabled people are on benefits. Some of that reflects an older population, but the fact that there are higher levels of impairment, which also correlates with poverty, says a lot.

I would also say that I don't think disability has been given enough focus in initiatives, because even things like—. Previous Welsh Governments had a tackling poverty programme and targets, but disabled people never seem to be that high on the list. I think that's a missed opportunity, because our argument is, given that a fifth of the population is disabled, then, basically, the Welsh Government, or any Government, isn't going to progress on its programme for government if it doesn't put disabled people centre stage. And I think this goes back to historic ableism. Disabled people aren't seen as productive members of society; disabled people are seen as about needing welfare and charity, not about rights and equality. I think that is lived out in our public life, even now, in 2024, which, for somebody who's been doing this for a long time, is disheartening, to say the least. And that's why we really need the taskforce, the action plan, to come out and to make that sea change. 

Okay. Thank you. 

Can I just bring in Mick Antoniw, who's been trying to come in for a little while, before I go to Julie Morgan?

Just a couple of things, only because they fit with the evidence that you're giving at the moment on some things I wanted to ask later on. Just on the incorporation issue, well, of course, the Welsh Government is bound by the UN convention in any event. It is unfortunate that the incorporation hasn't happened. But we've been told previously that, of course, the incorporation, as much as anything, is about focus, is about perception, and so on. Is it your view that it actually adds any legal rights to those that already exist? Because I think this is one of the issues that rises over, I suppose, the focus on incorporation, as though somehow it adds something extra, other than the specific focus.

The other question is: you referred to a silo approach, and you referred to disability, the employment gap, the poverty levels and so on. I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit about the data you have, the quality of data that exists in terms of the disaggregation of that information, and how much we really know about the situation vis-à-vis other areas, because we've certainly been told in the past about the problems about having accurate and properly disaggregated data, which, of course, is the foundation of any quality policy. Thank you.

Rhian.

If I start with the UN convention on the rights of disabled people, the UK Government ratified the UN convention on the rights of disabled people in 2009, and, of course, the Welsh Government is bound into that. But then we also know that, in 2016, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found the UK Government to be in breach of the UN convention on the rights of disabled people in respect of three of the articles of the convention as a result of austerity measures. And at the subsequent review of that initial review that was held earlier this year, incredibly, but I suppose not surprisingly, the UN committee found that the UK Government had made no progress. So, seven years later—they were found in breach in 2016 and, in 2024, they hadn't rectified that.

Although I know that the Welsh Government, by making a programme for government commitment, has pledged to incorporate the UN convention on the rights of disabled people and to take a more progressive approach, the fact is that disabled people's rights are not realised either in Wales or the UK. And to give an example, with the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, we fought really hard to get the UN convention on the rights of disabled people on the face of the legislation, and the Welsh Government at that time refused point blank to do that, even though they'd put the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the older people's principles on the face of the legislation.

They did make a due regard commitment to the UN convention on the rights of disabled people in the exercise of social services, towards the UN convention on the rights of disabled people, in carrying out those functions. However, no guidance for social workers or practitioners or the local authority has ever been produced around what that would look like. So, I think that, while there’s goodwill, goodwill isn't enough, and the framework of the law, which I think, particularly in the case of the UN convention on the rights of disabled people, because it is the UN treaty of the twenty-first century—it’s comprehensive, it does take a social model approach, it is about co-production with disabled people, 'nothing about us without us'— could be realised in terms of people's rights and particularly around article 19, which is the right to independent living. So, we do strongly urge the Welsh Government and this committee to call for that incorporation, because it would send such an important signal to disabled people, and particularly to public bodies and others in Wales, that Wales takes a rights-based approach.

In terms of data, I think there is a gap in data. I think one of the problems of being in a small nation is that disaggregated data of a population of 3 million—and this is about 500,000, 600,000 disabled people—that granular detail is often not picked up in UK-wide surveys. So, it is important to do that data and to look at, in terms of the disability employment gap, for example, who it is. So, who is employed and how are they employed? And then who isn't employed and what might be the reasons for that? Or in terms of any initiatives or interventions, what works and what doesn't work? In some ways a lot of money gets thrown at tackling a range of disability issues, and yet disabled people still remain the poorest and the least likely to be employed. So, there does need to be a more granular approach, both to quantitative data but also qualitative, to actually hear people's lived experiences.

Okay. You can come back to that, Mick, when I come back to you later on. Julie Morgan.

Helo, prynhawn da. We've been told on the committee that it's often employers' attitudes towards disabled people that causes the difficulties, particularly people with learning disabilities. So, I wondered if you could say what more could be done to change employers' perceptions of disabled people. 

I don't know, Miranda, did you want to have a go at that first? 

Yes. Attitudes is one of the biggest barriers of all, isn't it, that disabled people face. And there does need to be a lot more focus on improving employers' attitudes and the attitudes of fellow colleagues in the workplace. There needs to be a greater focus on mandatory training, for instance—so, disability equality training within organisations. And I would like to say that public bodies should be leading the way as examples for other businesses to adopt more inclusive working environments. So, we are way off in terms of accessible workplaces. Disabled people are still encountering barriers to the built environment, for instance—just getting into a workplace is often problematic to lots of people. 

So, employer training is definitely a need—there's an identified need there, without a doubt—but we need to see more disabled people and disabled people's organisations getting involved in educating employers. There's a huge opportunity there for local, regional organisations of disabled people—like our membership, for instance—to get involved in helping to change employers' attitudes. 'Nothing about us without us'—that mantra needs to definitely be incorporated within employer training initiatives.

Are you asked to train often, your organisation? 

Yes, we do get requests, but, however, we lack the capacity to be able to deliver those requests, which is quite frustrating because we want to be doing that. We should be providing that training, but we've had to cut back on our training delivery just due to lack of capacity. It's a huge challenge for us as a national disabled people's organisation. We need greater support from Government bodies to enable us to play a part, a key part, in influencing employers' attitudes.

Thank you. And what about Government interventions, then? How successful do you think they are, in particular, the UK Government's Access to Work and Disability Confident? What are your views on those?  

Where to start? An overview position is that I think we feel—again, particularly in the last 15 years or so, well, certainly in the last 15 years or so—the focus has been on seeing disabled people as being to blame for being unemployed. So, we've seen huge cuts to benefits. Many of our members who go through things like employability support assessments talk about how humiliating they are. It's almost like you're trying to be caught out, that you're trying to defraud the system. We see cuts to benefits, and also things like sanctions if people aren't applying for x number of jobs or turning up for interviews, or whatever. But then, there's been very little focus on the discrimination that is rife amongst employers in this country. We know that there are, in terms of discrimination cases, repeat offenders, and often they will take the attitude of, 'We'll either performance manage somebody out of the workplace, or we'll settle in a discrimination claim.'

So, I think that's the big picture. There are very few repercussions for bad employers. But then, on the specific initiatives that there are, Access to Work has been around for a long time; it's known as the best-kept secret in Whitehall. As a scheme, it's a very good scheme because it does recognise and looks to find solutions to the barriers people face in the workplace, whether those are things like taxi fares, equipment or communication support. It will provide cash to provide that. But it's not publicised enough. Very few disabled people know about it. A disabled person leaving school should have a suite of tools and knowledge about their rights and entitlements, with Access to Work being amongst them; the same for disabled people who become disabled during their working lives. There are also huge delays, unacceptable delays, in getting access, getting assessments and then getting the equipment, or whatever it is, signed up. Many employers can't wait weeks and weeks for an employee to be able to properly do their job. So, there are big problems with Access to Work that need to be fixed.

Disability Confident is a totally discredited scheme. It is seen by many disabled people as window dressing. As an employer, you can literally just sign up to level 1 in about 20 minutes. It doesn't actually require employers even to employ any disabled people. There's no engagement of disabled people in the assessment process, nobody checks up, and even when—. And, again, through responses to the survey we put out, if an employer's got Disability Confident on their job ad, or whatever, it's almost meaningless, really. So, we've long called for a made-in-Wales disability employment scheme, which would have a meaningful assessment process that would engage with disabled people and draw on that expertise, which would require employers to show long-term commitment. That was one of the recommendations that came out of the taskforce employment and incomes working group, and there is some research going into that at the moment. Whether there's an opportunity now, with a new UK Government, to look afresh at this, but certainly the current Disability Confident scheme is better consigned to history, really.

Thank you very much. You mentioned the Welsh Government. What about Welsh Government initiatives such as the employment champions in Business Wales? How effective do you think they are?

I think it's a really great initiative. It's really great that Welsh Government, in terms of the recruitment process, sought out to employ people with that lived experience. Obviously, there are only five of them. But in terms of being role models, being able to provide lived experience to employers, I think that it's an important scheme. Miranda, do you want to come in?

Yes. Just to support that, we do think it's excellent progress in terms of providing an opportunity for disabled people to showcase our own abilities and capabilities to employers, and to other disabled people. I do think that the champions are acting as role models in a professional workplace, and being seen and heard, along with other professionals. We need to see more initiatives like that, so it's definitely something that we welcomed. However, very limited capacity; the impact could be far greater if there were more—yes, it could be far greater.

So, some good initiatives but maybe too small, and others that are UK that aren't—

Yes, very under-resourced.

Okay. Thanks very much. The Welsh Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have recently published separate guidance on remote working. So, I'd like to really know what your view is on promoting remote working as an option to support disabled people, and whether you think that would help them to remain in employment.

Well, it was almost miraculous, when the pandemic hit—that dread time back in March 2020—and then just suddenly the whole world went online, and suddenly everybody was working from home and discovering the benefits, and obviously some of the challenges of it. And yet, for many years before that, when a disabled employee had made a request to their employer for a reasonable adjustment to work from home, it was often turned down, it was often denied. So, I think there is now, obviously, greater recognition of how flexible working, working from home, hybrid working can enable more people to access the workplace. But, again, it's not just enough to—. People have to have a suitable working environment at home; not everybody has that. People need to have the necessary equipment and support, and also to have that connection with the workplace, so that they don't miss out on opportunities for networking or for progression, which can sometimes be seen as, 'You need to be in the workplace to take advantage of that.'

I think it's certainly extended opportunities. So, since we've been working hybridly, remotely, it's definitely opened things up. We're a national disabled people's organisation and we're now having people applying for our jobs from across the borders, because it's possible now. So, there's definitely a real opportunity there for many disabled people to access employment experiences and to secure careers in different industries, and also to try to overcome the rural barriers that many people encounter in Wales as well, so it opens that up. However, we still have broadband issues in some remote areas that need addressing, as we know. But, yes, hybrid working has certainly opened up many opportunities, and there needs to be a suite of opportunities, doesn't there? It's not the only way of working, but it needs to be available and acceptable in terms of a reasonable adjustment for people. Like Rhian said, in the past, it was turned down, but it's taken a pandemic for employers to realise that it is achievable, so we want to continue with that progression; we would not want to lose the remote opportunities that are happening now.

Thank you. And then, lastly, what would you say are the key interventions that the Welsh Government should take on in order to address the disability employment gap? What's most important, do you think, that it should do now?

So, I think the first thing is that schemes need to be co-produced and co-designed with disabled people. Top-down, Government-down schemes just don't work. I think there are roles for things like mentoring. We've been involved in running projects a number of years ago around self-employment, but also, recently, the Equal Power Equal Voice, which was about people creating more diversity in public life. A couple of the things that I think participants really talked about: one was mentoring and the other one was peer support. That's where things like the disability employment champions are important, because, again, there's the old saying that 'You can't be what you can't see', so actually being able to have access to that lived experience.

We've hosted over 30 disabled students on placements at DW, which have been hugely popular and successful, and I think one of the things, again, that comes out from those, is—. Generally, young people are either undergraduates or postgraduates and they've got no idea what their rights are, and they don't know, as a disabled person, if they were to approach an employer, what to ask for or even that they can ask for reasonable adjustments or support. So, there needs to be rights-based education, disability rights-based education in schools—it needs to be part of the curriculum—and also identifying pupils and students who would benefit from knowing what their rights are and having that confidence in going to an employer.

Thank you.

Thank you. Moving swiftly on, onto this very subject, Joel James.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks ever so much for coming in this afternoon. As the Chair said, I wanted to just briefly touch upon education and training, but one of the questions I'd like to ask first, though, covers the employment gap. One of the concerns that I have—and it's something that's raised quite a bit—is that, obviously, there's focus on getting people with disability into work, but sometimes there's the danger of a lack of a spotlight, if that makes sense, on those in work and the in-work inequalities that they face, as you mentioned there—you know, concerns about the lack of information about going to ask their employer about making those reasonable adjustments—and I just wanted to get your views on that. Is that a concern, then, that's also not being addressed, if that makes sense?

Yes, I'd agree with that. I think I'm right in saying this, but I think the majority of people become disabled in later life, and that will happen during the course of their working life. I think there needs to be a lot more expertise around—whether it's HR—what that support looks like, because becoming disabled, having an illness, an accident, it is a part of life and it often comes as a shock to people that this sort of thing happens, and rather than the immediate response being to performance manage people out of the workplace, there needs to be effort put into supporting people to return to work. That might mean people need to retrain or have a different type of job or different hours, whatever it is, but I think that should be the first port of call.

Okey-dokey. Perfect. Brilliant. Well, I suppose that brings us on to the second question: some of the evidence we've taken has basically said, 'Listen, if you address education inequalities within schools or within the college system, that will help address the employment gap inequalities.' I just wanted to get your views on that. Is that something that, 'Oh, yes, I think that makes sense', or, 'I agree with that'? How could that be addressed, really, then, if that was the case?

I mean, it does make sense. I think I said in a previous question, I think what we're dealing with here is systemic ableism, which has been going on for centuries, and we're still living in a society where probably up until the mid-twentieth century there was no expectation that disabled people either went to school or worked, and we had all these long-stay institutions. I think there's only been a recognition in the latter part of the twentieth century—and it has to be said, spearheaded by the disabled people's movement—that, actually, disabled people did face discrimination, because the attitude then was, 'Of course disabled people can't work, of course disabled people can't go to university, or whatever.' But we're now in a situation where it gets muddled up with the benefits system because that is perceived by Governments as, 'We're paying too much in benefits, there are too many people claiming unemployment benefits', so then it's, 'Well, people need to be in work then.' I think too many different things are being muddled up. One of the points we made in our submission is that there needs to be a decoupling of employment support from benefits and welfare rights. But I think a change in society, one based on the social model, one which took a rights-based approach, which did incorporate the UN convention on the rights of disabled people, would start a different conversation from the one that we've got now, and that could affect education, health, employment and housing across the board.

You mentioned there about systemic ableism. That's one of the concerns that I have; it's one of the concerns that has been expressed to the committee before, where an employer would look at, say, a person with a disability as maybe less productive than someone who isn't; there might be a higher cost to the business to employ them. How can we overcome that challenge, if that makes sense, from the business' point of view? How can we address that and say, 'Listen, there are benefits that you're not taking into account to employing these people'? How can that be—?

So, it's recognising what people bring. As an organisation, we talk about having an identity as a disabled person, what your experience as a disabled person brings to you, that you might see the world in a different way, you've learnt skills, because if you're living in a disabling world, you have to acquire a lot of resourcefulness to navigate that. Also, I think, in terms of employers reflecting their local community, it’s really important, and the fact that disabled people are employed in an organisation and progressing in an organisation—well, that can have benefits for other employees, because it feels then that this is an organisation or company that values its employees, that is supportive of employees. And also, in Wales, a fifth of the population are disabled people. Disabled people, although they may be amongst the poorer sections of the community, we do have money to spend. So, there are those business arguments as well.

Okay, perfect. Chair, if I may, I've just got two final questions.

Two. Okay.

Again, some of the consultation responses we've been getting, especially from disabled people, they’ve basically said, 'There are far too few voluntary opportunities.' And then, when there are work placements, it always seems to be the same, like maybe the hospitality sector. I know, a couple of times, I've visited coffee shops where they're allowed to have that sort of experience. But it just seems to be coffee shop after coffee shop, and they're great, but I'm just concerned, maybe, then, they're not necessarily getting the full breadth of what might be available to them. And I was wondering if that's something that you see, and how can that be addressed.

But then, the final question I have is about apprenticeships. Again, people are saying that there are far too few apprenticeships. Those that are out there, there's not much knowledge of them, both from someone who would want to be an apprentice, and from the company itself, then. And I just want to get your views on that then as well.

Do you want to tackle the apprenticeships one?

Yes. Shall I start off with the volunteering?

Yes.

So, that's a huge area, and there's a huge lack of support available for disabled people to volunteer and to gain their employability skills, confidence, self-esteem. But the Access to Work scheme, it does not relate to voluntary work, so you can't access a budget to support you to undertake volunteering. So, for instance, someone who is a deaf British Sign Language user would not be able to gain access to a BSL interpreter for a voluntary position. It has to be paid employment. So, there's a huge gap there, a huge need, in fact. It would be great if the committee could highlight that as an area that needs to be further resourced to enable people to gain work experience.

Yes, because the scheme through which we hosted a number of disabled students was Go Wales, and that actually provided expenses and the financial support that would enable disabled students to take up those work-experience opportunities.

I think, also, we're proud to be part the third sector, but I think, again, there is work that the third sector itself can do, in terms of, again, tackling ableism within the sector, because I think perhaps there is a view that disabled people are beneficiaries of the work of charities and third sector, rather than necessarily on the boards, volunteering, employed. So, I think there is work, as a sector, that we can do across the piece to support volunteering.

But I think the lack of an equivalent Access to Work scheme is one, because, particularly, a lot of third-sector organisations struggle for funding, so meeting the cost of reasonable adjustments for volunteers can be a challenge. Was there another question you asked?

Yes, apprenticeships.

Apprenticeships, yes.

Could you repeat that question, please?

Yes. So, one of the things that we're getting fed back is that there's a lack of apprenticeship opportunities. There's a lack of awareness of the ones that are there, both with the apprentice, but then also with the employer, really.

So, we can certainly comment on that. The feedback we've had from our members has highlighted a lack of awareness of apprenticeship opportunities as being a barrier, but also the lack of the wide range of opportunities across sectors. So, that's definitely something that needs to be looked at, but also apprenticeship schemes being offered in an office work environment, that kind of thing as well. So, it often seems to be construction, mechanical—that kind of thing. And also, one of our members—not one, multiple actually—commented that age is a barrier in terms of apprenticeships as well. So, people often feel too old to apply for an apprenticeship. They’re viewing it as a young person’s opportunity, so they’re not applying. So, yes, there’s definitely a lack of information about apprenticeships out there, so people aren’t getting the information that they need, you know.

Okay, thank you. Can I bring back Mick Antoniw, please?

Thank you. Just a few questions, to perhaps explore a little bit more about what I started earlier. The quality of the data that we have—perhaps you could just explain again what are your views on the quality of data we have, what are the main sources of that data, and, particularly in reference to the disability disparity evidence unit, how effective that is, and how accurate or useful is the information available from that. The quality of the data determines the nature and strategic use of policy that we have in this area. I’m just wondering what your thoughts are, or views are, on that.  

So, a major source is the Office for National Statistics, and, of course, one of the stark findings of the ONS during the pandemic was that, in Wales, 68 per cent of deaths from COVID comprised disabled people. So, I think there is that kind of powerful data there. But I think, as I mentioned before, one of the problems of being part of a small nation is that, often, data isn’t—you know, the disaggregation of data.

I think another issue we have in Wales is that we don’t have a disability studies department in any university in Wales, unlike, certainly in England and Scotland, and, I believe, in Northern Ireland—they all have disability studies departments, and those drive quite a lot of academic study, both quantitative and qualitative, around disability. So, I think, then, it is down to organisations like DW, or others, to obviously do—. Like our ‘Barely Surviving’ report that we did last year—we put a survey out to members, and I think we got 100 or so people responding. But, of course, those are very tiny samples.

We do work with the disability evidence unit. We’ve been working with them over the summer on feasibility studies for a couple of the proposals that were recommended through the taskforce, one of which was a Disability Confidence Wales Plus scheme, and the other was for a national centre for independent living. So, yes, we’ve certainly built a relationship with them.

Again, I think it’s really important in research that it is co-produced, because I think, again, historically, disabled people have been seen as kind of subjects for research, and often the researcher has brought their own biases. We talked about institutional ableism—well, that’s just as rife in research and statistical analysis as it is anywhere else. So, that’s why it’s always important to co-produce research, but also to test out findings and sense check them with people who have that lived experience as well.

Do you have a specific approach in terms of what is needed, though, with data? Do you have, I suppose, a strategic policy in respect of the data that you actually want and require? Because you’ve told me quite a bit about, ‘Well, there’s data from the ONS’, there’s the disparity unit you work with, et cetera. But it’s never been clear to me that there is a clear need for the sort of data we want, how that data is broken down, how it is divided demographically within Wales, and within various sectors as well. Because it seems to me that unless we’re clear what it is we’re asking for in respect of data and disaggregation of data, we don’t necessarily get what we want.

And then, can I follow on that question with just one further one? You mentioned about the lack of disability studies units in universities. I wasn't aware, particularly, of this as being an issue. I wonder if you could say a little bit more about it, because why is it that we would not have this work being done in Welsh universities, as opposed to Scotland, Northern Ireland and England? And does any of the work that is being done in those universities—? Does that work only apply to England, or does it apply to the UK as a whole, in which case, why is that work that’s being done there not of relevance? Are they limiting the scope of the research and the work that they do? Just so I can have a better understanding of that. Thank you.

Okay, so the first question—. I mean, in terms of disaggregation, it is by the usual issues, like age and other protected characteristics. It's having that detail. But I think it's sort of drilling down a bit, because I noticed from the responses that you had to this inquiry—. So, I know our colleagues in Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales submitted a response—so, you know, what is your experience as a disabled woman or a disabled girl? There was also another good response from our colleagues in EYST on the experiences of disabled people from ethnic minority communities. You've raised questions about people who've got different impairments—whether it's learning difficulties, neurodivergence, people who are neurodivergent. Again, all of these are different and will have subtly different experiences. They may experience common disabling barriers but will have subtly different experiences of how that works for them in their lives. I think that's the kind of information that we need, but which we don't have.

So, then, that brings us neatly to the universities. Again, it's long been an ambition for Disability Wales to have at least one disability studies department in a Welsh university. For example, I recently met with the chief executive of Disability Rights UK and he was rattling off a long list of universities that DRUK have partnerships with in England who've got a disability studies team, and he's been talking to them about how they need to be involving disabled people and co-producing research with disabled people. We just don't have that in Wales. I think it is a big gap, because there isn't any driver for disability research. I don't entirely know—. The universities, say, in England, that do research, they tend—. It's the old thing, isn't it: 'For Wales, see England.' They don't necessarily—. Again, because we're a small population, they don't disaggregate. Whatever research they do, it's not necessarily disaggregated to the Welsh experience.

So, the paper we've got from Learning Disability Wales with the National Centre for Mental Health at Cardiff University, that doesn't fit in with your criteria.

That's got a very specific focus on mental health. I'm talking about—. So, for example, Leeds university has got an excellent centre for disability studies. It's a key department in Leeds university. It does world-leading research. It's from a social model perspective.

Okay. I'm looking at the clock, and we've still got one more section to go into. Mick, are you content at the moment with that?

Yes, no, that's fine. I can't pursue that any further.

Okay. Jane Dodds.

We were trying to think about this, and it is difficult. I think it's more what are the principles of what good practice would look like. I know I keep saying this, but it is about engaging with disabled people, as the experts with the lived experience. I think any schemes or practice or policy change that doesn't do that is going to fail, and I think it is about a rights-based approach, and it is about recognising the systemic barriers in society. I'm not quite answering your question. We'd know what good would look like if we saw it; unfortunately, we don't often see it.

It's fine.

I hadn't heard of that. We work closely with our colleagues in Inclusion Scotland, so I think I might be taking that away as an action, to find out more about that. I'll be honest, 2038 sounds a long way away, but whether that is a realistic target in terms of where we are now is perhaps a factor in that. I think targets are important, because they do focus everybody's minds. But, yes, it's that balance between what's realistic but also a sense of, 'Oh my gosh, that's another generation away.' So, those would be my thoughts there. 

Overall, just a change in attitudes towards disabled people—instead of seeing disabled people as part of the problem, seeing disabled people as part of society, who bring strengths and experiences and who enrich society. I think that over the last few years, we've seen disabled people vilified in public life and in the media, we've seen hate crime rise against disabled people, and we've seen disabled people blamed for a lot of things. So, I think it's that change in society's view of disabled people, which is more than attitudes; again, it's about that systemic change. I'd love to hear a Government, whether it's the UK or the Welsh Government, saying, 'No, we've been getting this wrong.' I think particularly with the taskforce and the action plan, we need that action plan out as soon as possible, and we need it to change the course of the direction for disabled children born, for people who become disabled. We want to be part of an inclusive Wales, an inclusive society, and we want to see a Government that puts its shoulder to the wheel in terms of achieving that.

I just want to add to that as well. It needs to be part of our future well-being agenda. We've got the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 in Wales, it's a real opportunity to be improving workplace practices for disabled people. That needs to be high up on the agenda. I'm not seeing it high up on that agenda right now and it needs to be. So, if there's a recommendation that could come from this committee to highlight that, that would be welcomed. It needs to be part of our future generations, and we need to get it right. 

A couple of quick questions from me. You said earlier that you lack the capacity to respond to employers, that you need more resources. How much of your resources comes from Government and how much from other sources?

We do receive an equality and inclusion grant from the Welsh Government, but I'll be honest, our overall funding from the Welsh Government has gone down, particularly since the cost-of-living crisis. So, that's been a challenge for us.

But you're trying to scrutinise Government, so if you get your money from Government you have a problem. How much of your resources comes from outside Government?

We also get funding from things like the lottery. We recently had a grant from the Moondance Foundation. We have other sponsors. And, over 50 years as an organisation, we've built up reserves. 

Okay. If you could just briefly write to us with where your funding comes from, because obviously it's an important point that, if you're turning down employers who need help because you haven't got enough money, that's an issue. You say there's discrimination by employers; what role do trade unions play in countering that?

I think they have an important part to play. I think trade unions could have a stronger role in championing disabled people's rights in the workplace and generally.

So, you don't work with them—

We do have contact with trade unions, and in the past we've campaigned with trade unions, particularly around things like welfare reform and that sort of thing.

Okay, but not on specific issues around a person who comes to you who's been discriminated against at work.

Sometimes, people will come to us and the first question we ask them is, 'Are you in a union?' And sometimes, they will say, 'Well, the union didn't really help us.'

Thank you for that, for putting that on the record. Thank you very much for your appearance, and we'll obviously send you a transcript. Please do change it if we've got something wrong. We'll now take a short break before the next session, which will be resuming shortly.

Welcome back to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. We're continuing our inquiry into disability and employment. In the committee room, we've got Gerraint Jones-Griffiths, who is the Engage to Change lead ambassador for Learning Disability Wales and honorary associate of the Engage to Change research and evaluation team at the National Centre for Mental Health at Cardiff University—we very much welcome you—and also Angela Kenvyn, project manager at Learning Disability Wales. Joining us online is Dr Elisa Vigna, research fellow at the National Centre for Mental Health at Cardiff University. Welcome, all three of you, and thank you very much for the very useful paper that you have submitted. I will start the session off. I wondered if, Gerraint, you could summarise what the main barriers to work for disabled people are, given the core work you're doing.

That's a very broad topic, Chair. I'll cover more detail as we go along, but I think for me the biggest barrier is reasonable adjustments that employers need to give to people. I don't think employers take heed of the Equality Act to the full extent, and I think the Disability Confident scheme isn't being used to its full potential, either. Those are the three main barriers that I would say, Chair.

From the information we have, the disability employment gap is consistently higher in Wales than across the UK, particularly for people with a learning disability. Could you give us a brief insight as to why you think it might be higher in Wales than elsewhere?

Truthfully, I cannot answer that question, because, to my knowledge, the Welsh Government doesn't hold the figures in Wales. So, I can't answer your question, I'm afraid, Chair, because we haven't got the numbers in Wales, because the Welsh Government doesn't give out those numbers and statistics.

Thank you. Elisa, would you be able to—? I'll come to you first.

We didn't have figures for Wales, so we had to rely on English figures, and we know that employment for people with learning disabilities is really low. It's 4.8 per cent. This refers to adults aged 25 to 64 known to social services. So, we can only assume that in Wales we have the same figures.

In terms of barriers, if I can add on, I think that a big barrier is about aspirations. We should work on those and try to work with schools, careers advice, family, parents and employers to showcase what people with learning disabilities could do in work. Engage to Change brings a lot of examples of that, so we can dig into it later on during the session. But shaping those expectations can really make a difference, because it does shape the future of people with learning disabilities.

We have fantastic examples in Wales of special schools that do a lot in terms of career aspirations. For instance, we have been visiting, with Gerraint and Andrea recently, Ysgol y Deri in Penarth. They do a lot in terms of career advice; they offer work experience within the school and outside the school. We should really do more and possibly know more about what is happening in Wales in other schools and build on this. So, I think aspiration is another big one.

I think there are also misconceptions, particularly with people with learning disabilities and what they can and can't do. Again, this links into raising expectations and aspirations, and that's across the board; it's with young people themselves, it's with their parents, carers and it's with people who support them and surround them in schools, in colleges and in their lives generally, not realising that, with the right support, anybody who wants to work can work, it's just that right support is needed, and support that's individualised to that person.

I think it's also about employers. It's about accessible recruitment processes. Some employers' recruitment processes are very difficult to navigate for anybody, never mind for somebody who's got a learning disability. Even if you get through that initial application process, it's then about the rest of the recruitment process, such as formal interviews. We've got examples of people who've taken a different approach to a formal interview and they've given work trials, or people have given video evidence of them being able to do something, or they've put together a video that tells them all about themselves. That works much better to help somebody get a job. It's about matching the job to the person, rather than the other way round.

There are barriers across the board, really, that people face, especially people with learning disabilities, with what is called that 'hidden disability' that isn't really apparent. We've got really good examples of people who have been able to do a wide range of jobs with the correct individualised job coach support—anything from groundworks, working in a garden, to working in a hospital pharmacy and being a healthcare assistant. So, it is possible to get a job; it's about raising those expectations and about challenging as well, I think.

Elisa mentioned a school that's got some really good work experience opportunities, but then, there isn't work at the end of it, so it's into college or into some kind of day opportunities, and in some ways, you've given the young people a taste of something that could be possible, but then it doesn't carry through. So, I think a lot more work needs to be done in schools and with parents from a much younger age, as well, to get people to understand that, if you want to work and you can get the right support, then you can actually get a job.

Thank you. We will pick up on some of that as we go along. Can I call Sioned Williams now?

Gerraint, do you want to go first?

In a broad answer, I completely agree with what Sioned was saying. The UNCRPD is there for a reason and it needs to be implemented to its full potential. This goes back to when I was highlighting the Equality Act. A lot of employers are on board with us—we have 800 employers that we've been working with throughout the whole of the Engage to Change project—but a handful are not adhering to the UNCRPD, and I think it's a real shame, because the employers are not realising the potential that people with learning disabilities can actually bring to their workforce, and to see employers actually being inclusive. Again, they don't seem to feel the real benefit and the real inclusivity of that network. 

Thank you. Elisa, do you want to add anything to that? 

I would like to add on our experience with Engage to Change, because I think that, often, employers are afraid of employing someone with learning disabilities, because they have simply never had this experience previously. Our research shows that employers who had experience of employing someone with learning disabilities were more likely and willing to take someone on board, because it doesn't have to be seen as a charitable act. There is a business case about the importance of having someone with a learning disability within the team, and I have a list of benefits. In terms of having that loyalty, a person with a learning disability, generally, is loyal to the business and works to the employer's specifications, because anyone can work with the right support, and we might go into more details later on about this. But there are, generally, also, studies that have been carried out in Kent and in other places in England on how, actually, there are benefits, economic benefits. So, I think that it's about recognising it and possibly showcasing what works.

And specifically, also, within our business at Cardiff University, we had the opportunity to have more interns and employees with learning disabilities, and especially in large businesses it has been proven to be really important to connect different teams. And also, the ability of job carving—. So, rather than fitting someone into a job, just carve a job around that person, a job that can serve different teams. For instance, we had some employees who were doing admin jobs and research tasks that could serve multiple teams, not just one. So, there is definitely scope for a business case for this. So, it's just about possibly highlighting this and sharing the knowledge. Yes, that's it. 

Okay. Angela, is there anything you want to add, before I go back to Sioned?

May I just quickly mention—? Gerraint said that we worked with around 800 employers, and I think it's worth noting that, percentage wise, the majority of those were SMEs—small to medium-sized enterprises—and I think this was partly because it was easier for the employment advisers that were making those links with employers to get hold of the right person, and, very often, there would be local links. They tended to be more local businesses to where the young person lived, so they might already have connections with the young person and their family. It was found to be much harder to get into large organisations, in particular, like local councils, local authorities. The larger organisations that we worked with, on the whole, were through the supported internship programmes that we set up, and they tended to be, you know, Cardiff University and then health boards, such as Betsi Cadwaladr in the north, Cwm Taf and Aneurin Bevan in the south. I think it's been quite difficult to get into local authorities. We did work with one local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taf, where we set up a supported internship. But, I think, getting hold of the right person can be very difficult in a big organisation.  

Who wants to go first? Gerraint.

Thank you, Chair. I'm so glad that you have mentioned this point. I have been working very closely with the disability working taskforce group, more specifically, the income and employment working sub-group. As part of this, there was a Disability Confident focus group, and as I mentioned in my introduction earlier, the main concern about this was that it is a tick-box exercise with regard to the Disability Confident scheme—for example, that employers were not taking this seriously, and that they were treating this as a box-ticking exercise.

The chair of the sub-group was Professor Debbie Foster, and going on from that, we were concerned to hear reports that reasonable adjustments were being turned down by employers, especially in the public sector. The Welsh Government does have a leadership role in working with public sector bodies to do better with regard to employment practices with people with learning disabilities.

In the group as well, it was discussed about people with learning disabilities being able to fully work from home. This would require a lot of support, but we know that this would isolate them even further. The Engage to Change project has clearly shown that being in employment increases people's social skills, confidence and friendship networks. Finally, from my point of view, it is also good for the general public to see people with learning disabilities in employment, and for the employer to be seen as being as inclusive as possible.

With regard to the disability taskforce group, or in general, Sioned?

Yes. With regard to the action plan, I suppose, that is going to be forthcoming.

Probably the only negative point from me is that, in the taskforce groups, there wasn't a large representation from people with learning disabilities. For example, there was a large presence from professionals, commissioners, who spoke on behalf of people with learning disabilities, which is fair enough, but to get a real sense of where the point is coming from people with learning disabilities, they need to speak for themselves, not have someone speak on their behalf. Unfortunately, I don't think that that was fully represented in the working taskforce group. However, issues such as the Disability Confident scheme arose in that working taskforce group, and I believe that it was fully aware, and Professor Foster did make that quite clear. I hope that that answered your question.

Angela wanted to come in, in the first instance.

Yes. With regard to the work that the Welsh Government is doing, we have been involved in working with the Welsh Government over the last four years quite closely—so, working with policy leads and the leads for employability and skills, in particular. But, as far as we are concerned, employment is everybody's business, and there are clear links to health and well-being, and there isn't enough joined-up work across departments, not just in Welsh Government, but everywhere else as well. So, when you talk about young people in their local areas, and the people that surround them and support them, there isn't enough joint work between teams such as children's services, adult services in education, mental health, employment, housing and so on and so forth.

There have been some really positive things that have come out of the work that we have done with the Welsh Government so far. We have got job coach support built into the Jobs Growth Wales+ programme. We have got the supported internships that we introduced to Wales through Engage to Change now being delivered across Wales, as part of the independent living skills curriculum in the further education colleges. We have got supported and supported shared apprenticeships with job coach support, and there is also specialist job coach support for people with complex learning disabilities, which is written into the employment and skills plan.

But there is still more work that we're doing with Welsh Government, because there are a lot of gaps there. And these programmes aren’t suitable for everybody, they’re not suitable for every young person, never mind somebody who’s got a learning disability and is over the age of 25. A supported internship is brilliant if that’s appropriate for you, and from a supported internship you may be able to then move along the pathway to a supported apprenticeship, but only if you can achieve a level 2 at the end of it.

With Jobs Growth Wales+, that’s a brilliant programme, but it stops at 19. A lot of the young people with learning disabilities and other disabilities, especially if they attend a specialist school, are in school until they're 19, and we’re finding that people don’t know about these programmes. We’ve been doing our best to promote them, so we commissioned a film last year that we’ve sent out extensively, and it’s on Careers Wales’s website, but what people are telling us—parents and carers as well as young people—is that they didn’t know about Jobs Growth Wales, or they’d heard of it, but they didn’t understand that they could apply for that programme.

So, I think a lot of work is needed to be done, again, with families, with schools, to see these different pathways to employment as an option. Because if you’re in mainstream school, staying on in school into what we used to call sixth form in my day, or going on to college, might not be the right pathway for you to get a job. I don’t see why it should be any different for somebody who’s disabled or who’s got a learning disability. Staying on until they’re 19 and going straight to college might not be the right pathway for them, but then they need to know about these other pathways.

But we do understand that, very often, parents and carers see that school, especially if it’s a specialist school, as a very safe place for their child, and it can be quite difficult to think that there might be something else out there. They might find it a bit scary and have lots of different anxieties and fears around that. But I think, again, it goes back to those expectations and letting people know what’s available and showing them what is possible. Using people’s stories—we’ve got champions for the project, we’ve got lots and lots of videos that showcase what is possible, and I think people are more open to it if they can see that somebody else has done it and done it really successfully. But, again, it’s about having that right support in place.

So, we are continuing to do work with Welsh Government around this and this new single operating model that’s being developed. We’ve provided lots of evidence because we’re really keen that job coach support is built into that, so that, for anybody who can’t get a job without having that specialist individualised support, that support is available. Very often, that will be provided by a supported employment agency who’ve got links with the employers, and their staff are trained to certain standards, the national occupational standards for supported employment. Their staff will have done the training for that. That is something that we’d highlight as best practice, is to use a supported employment agency for that. There’s so much work still to be done.

Okay. We'll go on to the Engage to Change project, and I'll come back if needed. So, Joel.

Sorry about that, I thought I had time for a swift sip then. [Laughter.] 

I'm sure you do.

Thanks ever so much for coming in this afternoon. I hope you don’t mind, my questions are mainly aimed at you, Gerraint, if that’s okay, about the Engage to Change project. I just want to get a bit more information about that. What were the objectives of it, and what sort of lessons were learnt over the seven-year period of the programme?

Well, if you like, I can explain the initial objectives and my journey through Engage to Change, if you prefer, if that’s okay. So, Engage to Change started in 2016 and the initial objective was to work with 800 employers and 1,000 young people. If I’m honest, we smashed that project out of the park, that aim. We completely smashed that target. When I started Engage to Change back in 2016, I was in college. I wanted to do admin—don’t ask me why now, I haven’t got a clue, but back then it was something I always wanted to do—and I was about to enrol on a level 3 business and admin mainstream course. The chief exec now of Learning Disability Wales said, 'We’ve got a post with Engage to Change, a six-month placement, and if we think you’re tidy then we’ll keep you on.' So, I started that Monday morning from that Friday afternoon, and I continued with that role up until 2018, when the project manager at the time asked me to go for the lead ambassador role. I said, 'Are you asking me this because I talk a lot, or do you think I can actually do the job?' And she said, 'We think that you'd be a good ambassador for the project', so, I thought, 'Okay, fine, just to shut you up, I'll go for it, no questions asked.' I was successful, and I'm still doing that role to this day.

Then, in 2021, I was privileged to be working with Dr Elisa Vigna and Andrea Meek at the National Centre for Mental Health at Cardiff University. They decided to give me the title of honorary associate for Cardiff University. Bear in mind I have got no undergraduate degree, I haven't got a PhD, I've had absolutely no experience up until this point working in an university, and being asked to be on the evaluation team was a thrill. I was highly, highly honoured. So, I've kind of now been the bridge connector, really, between Learning Disability Wales, with Angela Kenvyn as project manager, and the bridge between academia and academics, working with Dr Vigna and Andrea Meek in Cardiff University. So, that was my journey through Engage to Change, and, like I said, we hit those targets. So, now, I would say, back late last year, we had to change the name to Influencing and Informing Engage to Change, because we've stopped taking referrals, so we had to show the public and academia how successful this project has been in Wales and for others to realise the impact it has made. Now we are releasing our figures and statistics, along with papers that Angela Kenvyn wrote, which you all, I'm sure, have had a copy of, showing the real detailed success it has been. So, that's why it's now Influencing and Informing, not just Engage to Change.

Perfect. Brilliant. And that's absolutely fascinating. I often find how weird or how life can move sometimes quite quickly as well, really, from when you're in one place, and then, all of a sudden, it's like a whirlwind, and, all of a sudden, you're somewhere else, which I've always found quite fascinating really. Angela, with the programme, then, was there anything that stood out there for you, then, really?

Seeing the difference it had made to so many young people, and not just to the young person, but to the wider family as well. We've got young people who are now living independently, young people who are financially independent, who've got a really increased social circle, are going out with work colleagues. We've got a young person who learnt to drive and drives himself to his socials. It's made such a massive difference. We've got people who are financially more independent than they were before. We've got so many stories, and employers it's made a massive difference to as well. 

Talking about Gerraint, I've known Gerraint for a very long time. Gerraint, I think, will probably tell you himself that he has fortunate enough to go through a previous projects that we all worked together on, which was a transition project, from when he was 14. Again, it emphasises the importance of that transition support, and working early on with somebody if you're going to progress them to employment. Elisa, was there anything that you wanted to say on that?

Yes, thanks. Obviously, Engage to Change was a one-stop shop for every young person that actually was not in education, employment or training at the time, aged 16 to 25, with a learning disability, autism or learning difficulties. More than 1,000 young people were supported with job coach support through paid placements, unpaid placements, but with the ultimate goal to paid employment. We also had, obviously, the supported internship programmes. We have 144 young people that have been on Project SEARCH starts, and 80 young people have been on alternative supported internships. So, obviously, as people were referred to the project, then the most suitable trajectory employment pathway was highlighted for that specific person. 

One of the main findings was the importance of work experience. People that had previous work experience before getting on Engage to Change were then more likely to be employed through the project. That work experience could have been volunteering, work experience in school or paid employment. We don't have, really, details of the quality of the experience, but we know that they were engaged previously. That experience was really important then to be employed afterward, but none of them were able to actually be employed without the job coach support. So, it's that element of support—specific, needs led—that led them through the Engage to Change project and getting paid employment at the end of it. So, work experience is really important, but it needs to be supported by job coach support.

Obviously, we noticed within the project that the length of the experience as well was important. So, for people who were engaged in paid placement for the duration of six months, these placements were paid by Engage to Change. And then, as the employer committed to employing the young person, the wages were tapered. That was a positive pathway. So, I would encourage wage incentives, because that is a way for the young person to experience that very important element of being paid for the job that people do.

And the other very successful programme was the supported internship, and that is possibly because of the level of engagement. They are going on three rotations—they experience three different internship programmes within the year they are engaged. It is quite powerful then in developing those employment skills that then will bring them on to success in their employment.

Perfect, brilliant. Well, with that in mind, then, because you mentioned there work-experience placements and the need to have support via specialist job coaching, has there been much discussion with the Welsh Government about that? Have they sounded things out? Are they receptive to it? Angela.

Yes, we have talked to the Welsh Government about it, about the real importance of work experience, and work experience on two different fronts, really. So, we think, around about age 14, it would be good to have work experience for people with learning disabilities, for them to experience the workplace and to find out what it means to go to work—the general things about getting ready for work, being there on time, travelling, and that type of thing. We know that that takes place in the classroom, but, for people with learning disabilities, it is very often difficult for them to transfer that learning from the classroom into an actual workplace itself. So, it is much more beneficial for them to visit a workplace, to find out what it actually means to go to work and what it is like. And then, of course, when it comes to making more of a choice about what you might like to do in the future, maybe when they are a little bit older, having work experience where they are actually on placement in different sectors—so, they might have some work experience or work visits into offices, office work—. Gerraint mentioned he thought that was what he wanted to do and then he found it wasn't really for him. We find some young people love animals and they wanted to work with animals, and then they are taken on a placement to work with animals and it is like,'Oh no, this really isn't for me. It's not what I want to do.' So, you can have an idea fixed in your head—I think any one of us can, and any young person can—about what it might be like to work in a particular field, but, for a person with learning disabilities, unless they actually get there and experience it, even if it is just for a day or for a few hours to find out exactly what it is like, then it can be even harder to make those decisions.

So, we have talked to the Welsh Government about work experience, and I think, with schools, some schools have been doing it really well, like Elisa mentioned earlier, but then it doesn't lead anywhere. Some schools have got cafés and things that they have set up within the school environment to give that work experience, but, again, it doesn't lead anywhere when the young person leaves school. It is not like having work experience with specialist job coach support in real jobs out in the community and in businesses. So, it is something that we've talked about but, of course, as far as I'm aware, it's something that Careers Wales don't have to do, and schools are really stretched with resources. You can imagine that if they've got a class of even, say, eight or 10 people with learning disabilities that all want to go out on work placements, to take those young people out, to have somebody to support each one of those young people in a workplace, it's nearly impossible for the schools to do, which is why I think so many of them give opportunities on the school site. But, again, if it doesn't lead anywhere, I don't really know what the value of it is. In some ways, you feel as if you're setting somebody up to fail if you're giving them amazing opportunities and teaching them about the world of work, and then they're not actually going to get a job—they're going to go to college. If they go to college, they might end up on a supported internship and they might get a job out of that if that's suitable for them, but very often when they leave college, they just fall off a cliff, especially if they're that little bit older. When they get to 25 and all these young people's programmes are no longer available, there's nothing there.

There is a very good programme in north Wales, which is a new programme, and that's for people with learning disabilities of any age. We're trying at the moment to map out what is available across Wales, supported employment-wise, because when we talk about supported employment, we don't mean employment support—they're two very different things. So, with employment support, you'd be talking about the general type of support—learning how to write a curriculum vitae, learning interview skills and how to apply for a job. With supported employment, it's very much having that specialist job coach support and following what we call the five-stage model, which is an internationally agreed model that the occupational standards that we mentioned earlier cover. So, it's client engagement, it's vocational profiling to find out all about that person and what their needs are, what their abilities are, what they want to do—that type of thing—getting to know them and their family. And then, it's finding the right employer and the right job for them. We've mentioned accessible recruitment and Elisa mentioned job carving before, so it's about matching the job to the person and then having that ongoing support in work to learn the tasks, and then, once the person has learnt the task, maintaining that contact in case there are any issues and to make sure things are going well.

But it's also about if a person wants to progress, because we feel very strongly that if you've got a learning disability, you should be able to progress in your job the same as anybody else. You should be able to change jobs and go and work somewhere else if you want to, if it's a better job, but you can't do that without job coach support. So, people can get stuck or they can end up getting a job and then leaving it.

With that in mind, then, with the targeted employability support scheme, the TESS, where does that come in and you come in, if that makes sense? Where does that differ from what you're proposing, if that makes sense?  

With the Engage to Change project, we delivered supported employment. So, we offered a wide variety, and Elisa mentioned some of it. We did work experience, we did paid placement, unpaid placements. For some people, volunteering placements were a good way on their pathway for them to learn about a job, leading then to paid employment. That support was provided by specialist job coaches, employed by supported employment agencies, who'd been trained and were working to national occupational standards. And that's something that we've very much been promoting with the Welsh Government. We do a lot of work with ColegauCymru. So, we've been promoting that with them as well, because we know that, with supported internships, some of the colleges use supported employment agencies. Some of them employ their staff to give that job coach support, and we're saying that there needs to be a quality standard. It needs to be to a professional standard and a nationally agreed one. You've got the national occupational standards for supported employment, and there is accredited training available for anybody who's providing job coach support. So, that quality assurance is needed, and it's about equity as well, because you don't want young people in one area getting a better service than young people living in another area. And what we're finding with trying to look at what is available out there since Engage to Change finished is that there are areas where there's nothing. You've got the Welsh Government programmes, but, if they're not suitable, there isn't anything else, and then you've got another area like north Wales, where they've got this new programme, which is really good, for people with learning disabilities.

So, it's varying so much at the moment, and we're really keen that everybody pulls together and starts working together to make sure that there aren't gaps across Wales and there is job coach support available for young people that couldn't get a job—well, not just young people, anybody with a learning disability who couldn't get a job without it. So, it's about regional partnerships, Welsh Government, local authorities, health boards, everybody working together to try and make that happen. We recently published a national job coaching strategy—I think you may have seen that paper—which is calling for exactly that. It makes a lot of recommendations, learning from the Engage to Change project.

Could I intervene, just to ask why did you stop accepting referrals? Is that because the pilot had already demonstrated its success, or because you ran out of money? Because, Gerraint, you mentioned that you didn't any longer take referrals. So, what was the driver for that?

It was the project funding. So, Engage to Change was funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and Welsh Government—it was dormant account funding that funded the project. So, we were lucky enough to get a couple of extensions, because the project was doing well, but also, when we had that period of COVID, we carried on working, we just had to work in a different way, but we carried on working with young people and supporting employers, but in a different way. And of course, once that was all over and everything was open again, we got back to our normal way of working, but we were able to get several extensions to the initial funding period for the project.

So, the funding to support young people finished at the end of May last year, but, because we'd been doing so much work with Welsh Government, and with Members of the Senedd, around what we thought needed to happen, based on learning from Engage to Change, we were able to get some additional funding for us to carry on working on what we've called our legacy, with the hope that, by now, job coach support would be built into everything, and we're not quite there yet. And of course, this year, we've been hit with—. There have been delays because of changes in Government, and various other things that are going on, but we're still having those conversations. I had a meeting just the other day with the Welsh Government head of employability policy, and we're having a visit from Minister Jack Sargeant on Wednesday, aren't we? Yes. So, we're really pushing, because we haven't got much longer, but our 'much longer' is always a bit of 'watch this space'.

Thank you. Back to you, Joel. Sorry to interrupt.

No, it's okay. That was my final question, Chair.

Okay. Elisa would like to come in, Joel.

Oh, sorry.

I think that it's worth noting that the employment rate for the Engage to Change project was 41 per cent; that compared to the 4.8 per cent, despite that we had been through COVID. The pandemic just brought many challenges, because people were losing jobs, and—. So, without going into details, we know what works, we know that supported employment, delivered at the quality framework standard then, really works. And it works because it prevents people from staying economically inactive, it helps in that transition to employment, and also prevents people from becoming unemployed. I'm quite concerned about the people that actually got employed through the support of Engage to Change, and now, for whatever reason, they might need to transition to another job, and they don't have that support to allow them to transition to some other job, as well as that we know that people with disabilities generally are excluded from career progression, and I assume that for people with learning disabilities it's the same. So, that job coach support would be really important to help them progress in their career.

The input from the job coach is vital, because the training happens in the workplace. Even little adjustments, half a day of job coaching, can really make a difference. So, I think that is also about looking at the bigger picture and thinking about supported employment as useful for any type of disabilities, because it's been used for sensory impairment, but also for the bigger population, such as ex-offenders, people recovering from drug and alcohol misuse. So, it's about possibly investing in a system that can actually work. You know, more groups could benefit from this scheme.

Okay. Joel, I'll come back to you in a sec, but Gerraint wanted to say something, and Jane Dodds has a question as well.

Diolch. Thank you, Chair. I just want to really back what Elisa and Angela were saying. Because, with the project, even though COVID had a massive impact on all of us, we never stopped working. There wasn't one day where we thought, 'No, we can't be doing deliveries today', we just kept on working. Before COVID and during, I used to line-manage five project ambassadors for Engage to Change. So, before we had the full restrictions on lockdown through COVID, they used to attend events and promote the project. So, initially, they were the face of Engage to Change, if you like. Then, when COVID hit, unfortunately we didn't have work for them, because, of course, they couldn't go anywhere, so, unfortunately, we had to make them redundant. But then, once restrictions fully eased, Angela and I got together and thought, although we can't have project ambassadors, surely to goodness there can be an opportunity for the young people to actually show what they have achieved. So, we've come up with a name for these young people, and they are now our 'project champions'. So, we have champions across the whole of Wales. We've delivered a number of events this year. We had 'Knowing me, knowing you' listening events, and they spoke there, and their parents spoke—and I can assure you there wasn't one dry eye in the room, just to hear the impact it's made from a parent's perspective. And for me, really, the project has helped me to develop my working life, and I don't think I would be here where I am today if it wasn't for Engage to Change.

A bit of background to give you a rough idea from where I've come: I was non-verbal until I was five, but I've made up for it since, I can assure you. I was diagnosed autistic when I was 11. I was very fortunate to have been involved in a transition project, which was called Real Opportunities; Elisa was involved in the research for that, along with Andrea. Angela was project manager for Real Opportunities, so that's why Angela mentioned she's known me for all those years. And quite recently, Elisa, Andrea and I co-delivered a workshop in Barcelona this year, back in June, and that was at an international conference, a European international conference, because there were speakers there from Mississippi, United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. From that conference, I have been invited to the BASE UK national conference. So, for those of you who have not come across BASE before, they are the British Association for Supported Employment, and I've been asked to be on their main stage, on a Q&A expert panel, in Manchester, in November this year.

So, it's not just looking at supported employment, it's completely taking everything back to what we thought supported employment was. And accidentally mixing it with employment support, which—. As Angela clearly mentioned, you cannot be doing this; you've got to keep supported employment as a really one-to-one, specialised support. And likewise, if you have employment support, that's just—. I can't say, 'That's just', but that is like your curriculum vitae, helping you with your job interview, whereas employment support is an extra delivery service, which the young person may need. Everyone has a different support need—I'm not suggesting that—but when you have extra initial support—. I've always said, 'With the right support, anything is achievable.' I've always had the motto that is 'A is not for autism, A is for achievement', and if public sector bodies, Welsh Government, and all employers could see this, there would be a massively better society for all to enjoy.

Very good. So, Jane Dodds wanted to come in and ask a question, and then I'll come back to you, Joel.

Well, I was just going to start my questioning—sorry, Chair—so I'll wait for Joel to finish.

Okay.

I've finished my questions.

Okay. Fine. All right. Excellent. We'll move on, then, to Jane Dodds.

Elisa, would you like to go first? I can see your hand's up. Thank you.

So, at Engage to Change, we produce a variety of products, so not just reports and articles but also videos, and I think that the success of the evaluation was actually due to the involvement of people from the project presenting the research results to everyone. So, if you can have a look at the Engage to Change website, you will see that, actually, reports were given in easy read. So, as a partnership, I think we would like to see employers using those videos to familiarise with what actually it does mean to have a person with a learning disability working in a business, because we often, within the project, saw the stigma attached to what people with a learning disability can do. But Engage to Change proved it wrong: people were engaging in a variety of jobs, such as sales and retail, admin, catering and hospitality, cleaning, but also a wide variety of other roles such as care assistants, estate assistants, technicians, lab assistants, pharmacy assistants. So, a wide variety.

So, we have to kind of explain to employers that, actually, this is the case, and that people with learning disabilities can work for a certain number of hours. So, we have on average 17 hours a week, and I think that it's about knowing that there is no risk in terms of—. They don't pose a risk to the business, so it's not that—. With the support of a job coach, anything can be explained, because what happens in supported employment is that a job coach actually learns the job in the workplace and then finds a way, the most appropriate way, to teach the job to the person in the workplace. So, supported employment is not just support to the individual, it's also support to the employer. So, I think that this is not so clear, and I think that, by clarifying this aspect, then we could break down barriers. I think if my colleagues want to add anything to it—. Thanks.

Angela.

Yes. Linking it back again to work experience, in the report that we wrote on a national job coaching strategy, one of the things that we suggested was maybe Welsh Government having some kind of employer youth-friendly scheme, because we know that all young people find it extremely difficult to get work experience; it's not like it was years ago when you were a teenager and you were in school, you knew you were going to get a week every year—that doesn't happen anymore, and I think, again, it's going back to those links with employers and trying to improve those links.

So, one of the things that we'd mentioned in there was having a youth-friendly employer scheme. The other thing that I've been talking to Welsh Government about is Business Wales and the Business Wales website. There is information on there about being a more accessible recruiter and more inclusive employment, but it needs to be more prominent, and links could be put on there to some of the employer videos that we've produced, for example, so that employers can see what it means, they can get a better understanding of job coach support and of what it means to employ somebody with a learning disability and the benefits that it brings, and I think it goes back to a similar thing that I mentioned earlier: if you can see somebody else doing it, then you can understand what is possible for you yourself, and I think that applies to employers equally as it does to young people and parents. So, if employers see that other employers are doing it and this is what is possible, and these are the benefits that it brings, I think that would be a really good thing to do.

Back to you, Jane.

Who's going first? Gerraint.

Just a quick note. One of the schemes that really comes to mind is Working Wales and the Access to Work grant scheme, which Angela will speak about more in detail. I attended an event last Thursday in Merthyr college, and it was more of a networking event, really, hosted by the Department for Work and Pensions, and I spoke to a number of colleagues from Working Wales, and they were basically saying that there was a huge backlog of grant applications for Access to Work, because, although the programme has been going since 1994, before that event, it hadn't been well publicised if I'm totally honest. And due to the publicity now of Access to Work, and through working with us and Careers Wales, there is a huge backlog now with Access to Work, and Working Wales is a really good grant funded programme as well. Angela.

I think, with the Access to Work programme—. So, with Engage to Change, when it started, there was a negotiation to be able to draw down Access to Work for the job coach support for the supported internships, and that's continued, and that is in Wales now, across Wales. I think there have been some difficulties with very lengthy delays in payments being made—months of delays—and that has really impacted on the supported employment agencies delivering the job coach support. But, through working with the Welsh Government, and them connecting with DWP, that has improved for the supported internships, because we've now got a named person in Wales that the supported employment agencies can go through to try and speed those up and to resolve any issues with it.

The waiting lists, I understand, can be up to 26 weeks for general Access to Work applications for in-work support and, of course, that has a massive impact, because people may not then go ahead and get that job, because that support isn't already in place, or you'll get supported employment agencies that will do that work anyway, because they really want that person to have that job, and then they've got to wait a long time to get a decision made and to claim that money back. I attend the Wales regional stakeholder group for Access to Work, which is also attended by the DWP. My understanding is they're doing their best to bring this down, and they've taken on a load of new staff, but those staff are currently going through training, and also, given the fact that Access to Work is becoming more widely known about now, they're getting an increase in applications, which is brilliant—that's what we want to see.

But it doesn't cover everything. So, for example, we found there are gaps. We talk about our supported internships. Traditionally, we've done a lot of work through Engage to Change, when we were funding it. You could do work through the summer holidays to do all that pre-preparation work—all of the courses that need to be undertaken, mandatory training, by a health board, for example, before you could actually start on the programme. That could happen through the summer holidays with job coach support, because we could fund that. The problem is Access to Work doesn't fund anything like that, so that's having that kind of impact on the programme, that they're almost playing catch-up. When they start in September, they've got to do all of that work really quickly that would have happened through the summer holidays. And it's the same at the other end. So, if the young person comes out of the supported internship and there isn't a job there for them, they then need support to find a job. Some young people might go on to a supported apprenticeship, but, like I said, you've got to achieve a level 2 at the end of it. So, that might not be suitable for them. After the age of 19, they can't go for Jobs Growth Wales+, so there is no specialist job coach support available for them then at the end of that programme.

There is the new health adjustment passport that DWP brought in, which is being used in some of the colleges, which we think is a really positive thing because it helps people with learning disabilities to have more control, and it helps them to be able to give their information to an employer, because a lot of people get quite concerned about disclosure when they're filling in an application form. So, that does help with that. And I understand there's an evaluation ongoing about that at the moment to see how well that's worked with the supported internship programmes.

The other one, of course, that we've been waiting for for quite a time now is the universal support programme coming into Wales. We're not really sure how that's going to work, but I think there were a couple of local supported employment pilots that were run with DWP funding—one over Pembrokeshire way and one in Cardiff—that I believe worked quite well. So, we’re waiting to see what’s going to happen when that universal support programme comes into Wales, which will hopefully provide local authorities with some money for job coach support.

Elisa, do you want to go first, just because you're online?

I don't know if she heard you. Elisa?

Yes. I think that the Welsh Government should definitely consider delivering a job coaching strategy for Wales, because this is what works. And I think that universal support, hopefully, depending how they develop it, will hopefully sustain this initiative. So, this is the only way to support people with learning disabilities in each stage of their employment journey.

And I think that there is evidence about cost savings that have been carried on. We don’t have anything for Wales, unfortunately, but there have been studies in Gloucestershire, in Kent, on how much, actually, we can save by investing in supported employment, in terms of local authority savings, as well as savings for taxpayers, and, actually, from all the soft outcomes, in terms of saving on the mental health bill, as well as the social care bill, because, obviously, employment delivers so many soft outcomes that, obviously, as Angela and Gerraint have already touched upon, can really make a difference and provide savings for the Government in other areas.

And I think that I would like the Government also to consider looking at the north Wales learning disability employment programme, which is led and funded by the regional integration fund. So, this is a really interesting approach, because it involves different local authorities and, obviously, is funded by the health and social care fund. So, I would like to see supported employment as a health and care-type of—. You know, how you can find it and how you can make it effective, to kind of make a difference and bridge that employment gap.

Okay. Did either of you want to add anything?

Yes, the only thing to add, really, is we can’t measure it if we don’t have the right data. And, of course, as we’ve already mentioned several times, the Welsh Government doesn’t collect data on people with learning disabilities.

Okay, hold that one, because we're coming on to that shortly. 

Okay. 

Anything else?

No. 

Okay. Okay, Jane, are you—? I'll pass on to Julie Morgan. 

Thanks very much and prynhawn da. We’ve been told in previous sessions that it’s what happens in the education system that is the beginning of creating the disability employment gap, and I think some of that has been covered today. So, what do you think? Do you think the inequalities in the education system are having a real impact on employment outcomes?

I think, definitely, yes. We’ve got examples where you’ve got siblings, with one who’s in a mainstream school and one who might be having special support in school, and it’s completely different what happens to them in school with regard to employment. For the person with a learning disability or autism, they might not even be asked about employment in the future, whereas the person without a disability will always be asked about it and have support to think about it. And it happens from a very early age. Most children get asked by their parents, by family members, by anybody, 'Oh, what do you want to do when you're grown up?', even when they’re five, six, seven, eight, and that doesn’t tend to happen for children and young people with learning disabilities and autism. It's not even a consideration. People don't think it's possible. So, I think it goes all the way back to early education, and from there onwards. It's a discussion that needs to be had, and talked to—

Very early on.

Very early on, yes, and not just with the children themselves but with their parents and families, and with other people that surround them. We've talked about work in schools, and we know one school that does very good work experience, and the member of staff that leads on that went and talked to one of the staff who works with the younger children about starting to work on employment with them, and I think the attitude was a little bit, 'Well, we don't need to do that because they're not going to get a job.' So, you know, work is needed with everybody, I think, right through education, even through to social services, if children and young people have got social workers involved with them, and health professionals as well, because we still find that—. I mean, north Wales is a brilliant example because it's led by health and social care. The social work team have had training on supported employment, so they're very well aware of that as an option for the people that they're supporting, whereas I think other teams of social workers might not be. We've still got our Engage to Change enquiry e-mail box open, and I regularly get e-mails from parents, from siblings, from professionals working in health and social care, in Careers Wales and so on: 'I've got this young person', a few details, and, 'What is there in the area?' So, I think, yes, a huge amount needs doing, and there really is a massive difference there between what people with learning disabilities get and what people who haven't got those disabilities get in school.

Julie, Gerraint wanted to come in, I think.

Gerraint, yes.

Thank you, Julie. I just want to add to what Angela was saying, really, that, yes, with regard to the education system, it is still a massive influence and gap. Transition is still a huge, huge barrier for young people. I'm sure Elisa will tell you that we have done numerous workshops and presentations to young people, and, even in the room, we asked them, 'What would you like to do when you're older?' and every time, they always say, 'I don't know. We've never been asked,' and that's even now. So, like Angela was saying, yes, you have got to work from a very, very early age, but even when they reach between 19 and 25, they still don't know what they want to do, because they've never been asked, and I think these are questions where we need to break down these barriers, because they're—. Even if they're in mainstream school, in a special needs school, they still don't know what they want to do, and whether that's a breakdown within the education system, or local authorities, or the public sector boards or commissioners, this needs to be fixed. Angela will tell you—between Real Opportunities and now we are still bashing on about this problem. I think people want to take on board, but it's a matter of frustration that, yes, you can see the enthusiasm, but they still don't get it right, and we need to understand why they are fixating in such a way that they just don't get it.

Yes, Angela.

And I think the other thing that does tend to happen sometimes when young people get a bit older, or even adults, and they've got learning disabilities or autism is, that very often, volunteering is seen as good enough, so, 'You can go and work in a charity shop, but you can't do a paid job, because you're not capable to, but you can go and work in a charity shop for a few hours a week.' Well, if you can work in a charity shop for a few hours a week unpaid, then you can do a paid job, and you've already demonstrated that. So, I mean, volunteering can be a good way of people increasing their skills, not just their work skills but social interaction and increasing their confidence, and helping to relieve anxieties their family members might have about them working, but it shouldn't be something that somebody does never-ending. We've had examples of people that have been in never-ending volunteering places for over two years, and they're jobs where other people get paid. So, if other people are getting paid to do that, and you've proved that you can do it through volunteering, then you should be paid for it too. I think sometimes there are instances where family members may be concerned about loss of benefits, but better-off-in-work benefit calculations can be done, so that they will understand better the impact or non-impact on benefits. But, of course, it needs specialist help to be able to do this, and this is the type of work that the supported employment agencies that we've worked with would do with all of the young people that we work with, right from the beginning, so that the young person and their family were very clear about what going to work would mean and if it would have a positive or negative impact on any benefits that they might be getting.

The next question I was going to ask was actually about voluntary placements. We did have feedback from the consultation that they were difficult to get and in a very narrow range—catering, maybe, or hospitality—and not wide enough. Is this your experience?

We tried not to do too much volunteering in the project, because it was more about having work experience placements or paid placements leading into a paid job. I know that certainly some of the volunteering would be in charity shops, for example. In charity shops, the staff don't tend to be paid, do they, so it would be a stepping stone. I don't know if there were really any difficulties getting it, but I think Elisa could probably tell you more about that from the data that she collected. 

Elisa.

Yes. For Engage to Change, we consider volunteering as a learning opportunity, and I think that, for us, the problem is different, because we had people on Engage to Change being paid for their jobs, so in paid employment for 16 hours plus, and then losing their jobs because of COVID or because it was a term-time contract, and then going into volunteering, because there was no support to get a new job. So, I think that, for us, volunteering is never an employment outcome. And we didn't find, really, a problem. What we found, actually, is that people in paid employment, many of the people who we are still in contact with and our ambassadors from the project, they work and they also volunteer on the weekends, because they are so confident now. Because 100 per cent of the people we interviewed said that their confidence increased because of the support provided by Engage to Change and because of their employment experience. So, they are so confident that now they want to give back to the community, they are involved. So, they also volunteer on top of the employment. So, I think that, for us, for this population, it's a bit different. So, I think we need to be careful to not have people with a learning disability volunteering when they are perfectly capable of working in paid employment. 

Thank you, Julie. I just want to echo what Angela and Elisa have mentioned, really. For me, my main concern is people volunteering long term in jobs that other people are getting paid to do, which Angela has already highlighted. Also it's sometimes seen as good enough that a person with a learning disability has a volunteering placement, when the truth is that, if they are able to volunteer, they are also able to do paid work. A voluntary placement is a really good place to start for a person with a learning disability on their journey to paid employment, which you know, but then to learn work skills, social skills and gain confidence through volunteering. However, it should never be a long-term effect. If they do it for a certain number of months, like Angela has highlighted, and Elisa, once they gain that confidence, there is absolutely no reason why they cannot get a paid job after they've done their voluntary placement. 

Thank you. And my final question is about apprenticeships, which we also touched on earlier on. We've heard, as a committee, that there's not enough information around for employers to know what help there is for them in terms of apprenticeships and the support that's available. So, what do you think needs to be done to encourage the uptake of apprenticeships by disabled people?

Well, my understanding is that, overall, the number of disabled people taking on an apprenticeship has steadily risen. It's not as low as it was, although it could do a lot better. And of course we did a lot of work with the Welsh Government's head of apprenticeships and his team a couple of years ago and, as a result, there were supported and supported shared apprenticeships with job coach support, and also around making the assessment process more accessible for those young people as well and building in a six-month period at the beginning to upskill those people and prepare them for the apprenticeship. So, that's been working really well. But Elisa has almost completed a report on apprenticeships, so maybe she might like to answer the rest of that question.

Elisa.

Yes. We just wrote this report, but it's not comprehensive as to the all-Wales situation in terms of apprenticeships, because it's not really an independent evaluation, but we've been working with ELITE Supported Employment to get some data. I think it’s really important to underline that a supported apprenticeship is not a pathway for everyone. It’s really important that suitability is—. We understand that this is the right pathway for some of the people with learning disabilities that we support. Often, a supported apprenticeship is undertaken after people have already done a supported internship. So, it’s a step up. Or some young people were on Engage to Change and then transitioned to a supported apprenticeship. But it’s important to underline that some young people with a learning disability might not be able to work 16 hours plus, which is a requirement for a supported apprenticeship. They might need to build their hours up as they go along. As well as having the education element at the beginning, it needs to be clear to the  young person going into an apprenticeship, because we don’t want to set people up to fail. Because, usually, learning something in the workplace is more effective. Having a job coach attached to a supported apprenticeship is not the only reasonable adjustment that should be considered, so more work, I think, needs to be done on it. And of course we need more employers. So, there needs to be a way to advertise supported apprenticeship and the value of it, but I’m not sure what the strategies are, maybe some case studies. I don’t know if my colleagues have got ideas.

It goes back to, like you were saying, promoting it more and making that information available and maybe having some videos that employers can have a look at of it working in action and how successful if it can be if there’s the right match between the apprenticeship and the employer.

Right, I think that's all from me. Thank you.

Fine, thank you very much. Back to Mick Antoniw.

Yes. I'll be very quick. You did start talking about the issue of data, particularly within the context of monitoring, and I suppose it leads also to enforcement in some ways, but predominantly monitoring. If you don’t understand what’s happening, if you don’t have the data, it’s very difficult to know how policies can develop and be adjusted and so on. Of course, we’ve heard quite a few comments in the past about the lack of disaggregated data. How do you cope with the current situation, with fairly fragmented data from different sources, and I suppose a lack of a strategic presentation, analysis, of ongoing monitoring of the situation on the ground? And what should be done about it?

I think, with the Engage to Change project itself, because of the nature of the funding and everything else, we were able to collect a lot of data, because data was collected right at the beginning. We had a system where the job coaches or employment advisers had iPads, they fed in, and that data went live through to NCMH at Cardiff University. So, it wouldn’t just be if the young person had a learning disability, it would be any other conditions that affected their daily life and their ability to learn and to hold information. So, we were able to look at our data and see how many people had a learning disability, how many had autism, how many had both, how many had other co-existing conditions, and then what the outcomes were for those people. But I think, Elisa, you’re probably the best person to answer a data question.

I think that the way that we collected data within Engage to Change was really powerful, because it was real-time data collection. The data also served to change what didn't work quite well within the project. Also, we always involved the voice of people with learning disabilities. So, every four months, we had a project forum, with All Wales People First. So, there was a constant review from people with lived experience of learning disability, both on the way that the project operated and what didn't work, so they were able to raise concerns about the project, as well as regarding the evaluation. That's a really nice way to collect data—have it in real and time and involving people with lived experience. Obviously, for us it's been barrier not having data from Wales, so it's really difficult to make comparisons. But, definitely, this data collection system is a positive way to collect data.

What would you like to see happening with data in the future? Do you think there is a more specific role for Welsh Government, or perhaps even in conjunction with the universities, or whatever, in this area?

Absolutely. Absolutely this is something that would be really welcome, to use our expertise to inform, and to collect data for all Wales, yes, definitely, and, I would say, not just on employment, but all the other elements of—.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. I think Gerraint wanted to comment as well.

Just a quick comment, really, from me. I was an observer on the evaluation forum that Elisa was talking about. What the young people told us on that evaluation forum was that the presentations that we had back then weren't very adequate when it came to accessibility. So, they came back to us and said, 'Can you make the presentations more accessible, so that we can understand them?' So, we put the presentations into plain English, and into easy-read format as well, and since, from that sort of initial stage, they were a great support to us. 

One of the things that came from the evaluation forum was that there were too many males and not enough females on the project, so we held a few events—I don't like to use the words 'aimed at' women, but they were trying to encourage female participants to sign up. Likewise, there was, percentage wise, a lot of individuals who were autistic coming through the project, and not many with learning disabilities coming through the project. So, again, we held several events to not make it so one sided. And I think, like Elisa was saying, not only was the data collection helpful from the job coaches who were having their tablets and iPads and so on and so forth, but also having that contribution from the evaluation forum helped us a great deal to develop our project further down the road.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Elisa, I think we lost you at one point, so I just wanted to ask you what work have you done with the disability disparity evidence unit, really, to try and address this data gap.

So, basically, as Gerraint was saying, this real-time data collection really helped to support the work and address and think out of the box about how some issues could be addressed. One of the issues, for instance, was people being on a waiting list. People were referred to the project, and then, because, obviously, job coaches were so busy, especially in some areas of Wales, people had to wait. This was something that wasn't very well received by participants in Engage to Change and the All Wales People First forum. We then, with the supported employment agency involved, were able to create job clubs, so people were then working on their employment skills already before being actively engaged in the project. In this sense, this kind of data collection system is really powerful, so I would welcome it if we can support the Welsh Government, to share our understanding and knowledge. It has proven to be really helpful with Engage to Change.

The papers you've provided obviously provide lots of evidence. There's one thing I wanted to clear up. You said earlier in your evidence that you'd had to make the disability ambassadors redundant because of COVID. That's obviously unfortunate, but we can't rewind on that. You say in your paper that the disability employment champions are a welcome addition, but you're disappointed about the loss of a disabled people's employment champion with lived experience of learning disability. Could you explain whether that's because they went on to get another job? It's Business Wales who is the employer of these people, is it?

I think we're talking about two different things here. The disabled people's employment champions are employed by the Welsh Government, and they are part of Business Wales. That's a completely different thing to the project ambassadors.

I understand that. I completely get that. Why have we lost this person with a lived experience of learning disability? Is that because by their personal choice they went on to do something else?

Yes, it was by their personal choice that they left that job and moved on to another one. But we have mentioned to the Welsh Government that we do feel that that is missing now, having a person with a learning disability who's a disabled people's employment champion.

What is Business Wales doing about it? We can ask them, obviously. 

My understanding is that, from conversations I've had with the Welsh Government, they feel that the person with learning disabilities that left has left a legacy, and has helped the Welsh Government to reconsider how they employ and support people that they do employ, and that learning from that has been fed through to the disabled people's employment champions that they're working with. All of those places are filled now. I got the impression they're not going to be looking at recruiting another person who's got a learning disability because they haven't got a vacancy.

Fine. We'll pursue that with Ministers when they come in.

Thank you very much indeed, all of you, for your evidence. We'll send you a transcript, which you can look at and make sure that it's a correct record of what you wanted to say. Thank you very much indeed. 

We've we've now got three items of correspondence to note. Do any Members want to raise anything or can we just agree to note them in public? I see no disagreement. 

Therefore could we, under Standing Order 17.42, now exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting?