Chamber and committees

Good morning to the panel. I want to move on to a slightly different subject, and I will start with you, Carmel. You opened up with a very positive message about the outcomes that have been achieved. Last night, I was looking through the slides that you provided, and I was very interested in one slide on the breakdown of jobs per sector, which, from my reading, showed that there is a high percentage of individuals going into food services, restaurants, hospitality and retail. Those are very important sectors of the economy, but there will be a perception—perhaps unfair—that they are low skilled and low paid compared with other parts of the economy. I would be interested to get your perception of that. Why are those sectors so heavily represented in the outcomes for the people you are helping?

Thank you.

Is that pattern something that you recognise? Do the sectors tend to be retail and hospitality, say?

Is it the case that, once people are in an organisation, particularly a large employer, they have an opportunity to advance if they perform well?

You were nodding along to that, Charlie.

I have a couple of specific questions that I would like to put to the panel on issues that have already been talked about more generally. One issue is on reasonable adjustments and the second is on access to work. I will start with Angela Matthews, who has talked about those already.

First, we know that there is a right to reasonable adjustments, but what are the barriers to employees requesting and accessing reasonable adjustments?

Secondly, you have already said quite a lot about access to work. Specifically, what needs to be done for access to work to improve and to meet the needs of disabled people in the workplace?

I will start with Angela, then others can come in, if they want to.

Okay. Thanks very much. Chirsty, do you want to come in?

I should say that we met people from The Usual Place two weeks ago.

Thank you very much. That is really helpful.

Thank you very much, Angela. It was very helpful to have that spelled out in detail, because the committee is looking for solutions that we can recommend.

I will go to Vikki Manson next. We have heard a lot about reasonable adjustments, about what might be done and what the barriers are. I am interested in hearing the FSB’s perspective on that.