Chamber and committees

In answering that, I have to refer to the fact that many of the issues are reserved to the UK Government. The access to work scheme is probably the most obvious source of funding for employers, and it is quite substantial funding—I would have to check the figure, but I think that more than £60,000 can be made available to adapt workplaces to allow access to work for disabled people. That is a UK Government responsibility; it is not the Scottish Government’s.

That scheme has a very important role, and I understand that one of the issues with it is simply to do with raising awareness among employers that the support is available from the UK Government. Maybe the Scottish Government could play a bigger role in raising awareness. That funding is not our responsibility, so we cannot take responsibility for it per se, but your point is valid. We want employers to know that assistance is there and that it is substantial.

The answer to your question is that support is available and that it is a UK Government scheme. We have funded specific projects on working with employers, but the financial support for individual cases is through the access to work scheme.

On the culture in workplaces, your point about career progression is important. Again, that is a cultural issue for employers and it could take us into reserved areas. There are on-going debates about mandatory reporting of figures on disabled employees. I do not know whether that would include figures on managerial positions and so on, but there is a debate about mandatory reporting for employers, which is a reserved issue. UK ministers are looking at a number of issues just now. I know that a House of Commons committee in 2021 carried out a similar inquiry to this one on the disability employment gap. I do not know whether the committee has seen that.

Yes. I am happy to take that point away. If that is what organisations have raised with you, we will certainly take that on board. I am happy to discuss that with such organisations. I meet them quite regularly and I make visits around the country, so I know that good stuff is happening. However, clearly if there are issues, I am happy to find out more about them.

We are aware of that, and it is part of our thinking in the fair work agenda. Under devolved responsibilities, we are very limited in what we can do on the disability pay gap, but we want to look at ways of involving the fair work agenda. I think that the House of Commons committee that I mentioned looked at the issue, as well. It did not press for mandatory reporting on pay, because it felt that that might disadvantage disabled people in getting on to the first rung of the ladder or getting into the workplace to start with. I am sure that there are a lot of debates on that.

All that I can say is that the issue is part of our fair work thinking and that it is, again, a complex issue to address. We can only address that through fair work and influencing people and employers; we do not have legislative power over the issue.

We evaluate fair start Scotland, which helps a lot of people with disabilities, and we evaluate the “no one left behind” strategy, which is delivered at local employment partnership level in each local authority. Those schemes are evaluated, but the issue is not just about schemes; it is about culture. It is about the fact, for instance, that we have labour shortages at the moment in Scotland. Employers are now being a lot more open minded about adapting and perhaps about encouraging people with disabilities to come into their workplaces. It is not just about funded schemes. They help the people whom we are targeting through the employability schemes, but there are lots of other factors involved. The culture is changing in Scotland. Many more employers are engaging and opening their minds to taking on disabled employees, but that is quite difficult to measure.

Yes, I will bring in Susan Ferguson in a second. As for the big picture, as I said in my opening remarks, some of the evidence about the impact of Covid on people with disabilities is still emerging. Our view at the moment is that there is no evidence that there has been a disproportionate impact of Covid on disabled people. There are various bits of evidence that show that there has been an impact, but we cannot say that it has been disproportionate; there is no overall evidence that the impact is greater on disabled people than it is on any other parts of the population, such as people with long-term sicknesses.

Scotland has an older population than the rest of the UK and, therefore, the percentage of disabled people in the working population is slightly higher. Those factors all influence where you are coming from with your question. I will bring in Susan Ferguson to speak about the impact of Covid, mental health issues and so on.

It is worth noting that all businesses are subject to fair work criteria, but that is proportionate. We know that it is more challenging for a small business than it is for a big business to get through some of the hoops, so there is a proportionate approach. The enterprise companies and others who apply the criteria will take that into account.

Just now, we are trying to raise awareness among all employers—small, medium and large—in Scotland, and to break down some of the cultural barriers. We know—I am sure that the committee has come across this—that many employers think, “This will be costly.” A small business owner might think, “I can’t afford to adapt my workplace to take on a disabled employee.” There is a lot of awareness raising going on. Some of the projects that we fund are about raising awareness and working with all kinds of employers. There is a lot of work to be done.

Thank you for raising that issue with me—I will certainly investigate it. I cannot pretend that I have had such feedback so far; other ministers might have had such feedback in dealing with organisations within their own portfolios.

However, I am sure that the member is aware, as are others, of the volatile economic environment and the pressure on public finances that the Government has been experiencing over the past few months. The draft budget is before Parliament just now. It has not been as easy as we would have liked it to be to give many organisations across Scotland, in many sectors, the assurances that they want, because of the financial situation that the Scottish Government faces in relation to the budget. We all know the reasons behind that. We will do our best to give people as much notice as we can, so I am happy to investigate the organisations that the member has—

There are two questions there, which I will try to answer.

The first question is about the fair work agenda and conditionality. We are constantly evolving the fair work agenda in Scotland. That is crucial, because employers that sign up to the fair work agenda benefit through being more productive, retaining staff, finding it easier to recruit staff and becoming more profitable. That means that more people can get into work, which benefits individuals in terms of their wellbeing and self-esteem and is very good for the economy.

The current fair work agenda has some broad themes, one of which is flexibility. The fair work criteria for supporting businesses with public grants and contracts now include flexibility. We are urging employers to be much more flexible. That will, in turn, help disabled people to get into work. The more flexible an employer is, the more attractive that makes them, and the easier it will be for disabled people to work for that organisation. That is where the fair work agenda plays a role.

There are many initiatives under way to help employers to adapt and, we hope, change their culture. For instance, a few weeks ago, I visited the Salvesen Mindroom Centre in Edinburgh, which is working on neurodivergence issues. I urge the committee to find out more about it, or to visit the centre. I met various big employers from the Edinburgh area that have effectively been changing their recruitment policies and taking on board how they can adapt to get people with various neurological conditions working for them. That was an interface between the organisation and employers; a lot of employers in the Edinburgh and Lothians area are engaged in that. It would be great to see that going national.

We also have the workplace equality fund, which funds very different projects across the country. The Salvesen Mindroom Centre is one of the projects that it funds—or rather, part funds, because a lot of the centre’s funding comes from the Salvesen family. The workplace equality fund is about working with employers and helping them to adapt and learn about how they can be more accessible to disabled employees.

I know that that has been an on-going debate for many years; many organisations in my constituency regularly make the same point to me.

I can only point to the enormous pressures on the Scottish budget. Our budget, unfortunately, does not vary as much as we would like it to, but the demands on it vary all the time. We see that there are huge demands on the Scottish budget just now, but there are, without the cake growing, only so many ways that we can cut the cake over and over. The demands on the Scottish Government’s budget are in the news every day of the week, for anyone to see. We would like to be in a position to give much more long-term certainty to organisations, but we are unable to do that until the Scottish budget has the same long-term certainty. We take the point on board—we know that the situation is not ideal, but it is a symptom of where we are, and the pressure on public finances.

It is worth mentioning—perhaps I should have mentioned this in response to Graham Simpson’s point—that some trials are under way. We are working on an initiative with the Association for Real Change. Ten local authorities are currently being worked with, and some of the things that I spoke about with Graham Simpson are being trialled. As I said, we are committed to introducing a national strategy in this parliamentary session. The trial is designing and testing changes that would improve planning and delivery of support for young people who need additional support as they make the transition into young adult life. I would be happy to follow up with more information about that for the committee.

I think that that gives reassurance that those issues are on the agenda and that things are now, for the first time, being implemented and trialled. I would be happy to come back to the committee on what my education colleagues are doing.