Business leaders call for PM to tackle disability employment gap

In an open letter published on Monday (March 22), senior business leaders from the likes of EY, Virgin Media and Royal Mail urged Boris Johnson to consider The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) Disability Commission’s new report “Now Is The Time”.

The CSJ is an independent thinktank that studies the root causes of Britain’s social problems and addresses them by recommending practical, workable policy interventions.

Agreeing with Johnson, that there should be no barriers to anyone realising their full potential, The CSJ has explicitly linked the success of the strategy to his flagship levelling-up agenda, which promises to increase opportunity across the UK.

The report makes five key recommendations to reduce the disability employment gap:

• Increasing supported routes into employment;
• Introducing mandatory workforce reporting;
• Leveraging government procurement;
• Reforming the government’s Disability Confident scheme;
• Reforming the government’s Access to Work scheme.

The CSJ Disability Commission is chaired by disabled Conservative member of the House of Lords, Kevin Shinkwin and comprised of both disabled and non-disabled members from the business, disability and parliamentary world.

Lord Shinkwin said: “The Prime Minister’s strategy represents a once in a generation chance to chart a new way forward where disabled people’s potential to contribute, compete and, in some cases, excel and reach the top of their professions, on merit, can at last be realised. We have one shot at this - that’s why it’s so important his strategy gets it right. What makes this even more exciting is that big business is ready to get behind him.”