* Blind and partially sighted people are excluded from employment in the UK on a scale that has not hitherto been widely appreciated and which is greater than that for other disabled people.
* UK labour activation programmes will not overcome this because they operate mainly on the supply side of the labour market rather than the demand side.
* Social enterprise should be built up as a means of overcoming this problem, thus contributing to the construction of an "employment continuum".
* RNIB is re-positioning its employment services so as to contribute to such a reconstructed labour market. New progammesst proposals are marked in the text by *.
1,1 WORK Matters, a report published by RNIB in 2001, revealed the extent to which blind and partially psighted people in the UK are excluded from the labour market.
The rate of "unemployment" or, more strictly, economic inactivity, among blind and partially sighted people of working age was estimated at 75 percent, or 69'000 out of 91'000 people. The comparable rate for disabled people generally was estimated at 50 percent and for non-disabled people 16 percent.
1,2 So much exclusion from employment comes as a shoc in a society which is accustomed to a blind Cabinet Minister, blind judges and lawyers, blind computer operators, etc. etc. It suggests a polarisation into a "blind elite" of highly qualified citizens and a much larger "under-class" of people who are permanently excluded. Work Matters declared that this state of affairs was "unacceptable" and pledged Rnib to work and campaign vigorously for a very significant reduction in economic inactivity.
1,3 This will not be easy or rapid. another report produced by RNIB throws light on the complexity of the problem. This is the second Survey of the Needs of Blind and Partially sighted people, conducted by Professor Ian Bruce of City University, London, (and Director-General of RNIB) with the assistance of Dr. Mark Baker. This report is currently appearing in separate chapters. The chapter on employment needs came to the same broad conclusion regarding exclusion as Work Matters, but went further in identifying a very large proportion of economically inactive people who stated that they did not want a job. At first sight, this result seems very depressing, even when set alongside the finding that blind and partially sighted people who do work are to be found in a remarkably wide range of occupations, much wider than was the case a generation ago.
1,4 Bruce and Baker, found, however, that matters are not as simple as they seem. When respondents were followed up and asked whether they would work if they could have a "magic wand" that would get them into the job of their choice, the number stating a desire to work rose dramatically. This result may suggest that the low participation of blind and partially sighted people in the labour market is due, not to a "won't work" psychology, but to structural barriers, which make the labour market seem intimidating.
1,5 This being so, the economic inactivity of blind and partially sighted people must be regarded as social exclusion. It is unacceptable because paid employment is widely perceived as a major promoter of social esteem, a route to increased purchasing power and a foundation of personal identity. To tolerate such a high level of exclusion is not only to practice institutional discrimination, but is also economically inefficient in a society where demographic change is steadily reducing the supply of younger, able-bodied workers.
2,1 It is the central hypothesis of this paper that current UK government policies must fail to impact significantly on the rate of economic inactivity of blind and partially sighted people, because they are designed to operate predominantly on the supply side of the labour market, to the relative neglect of the demand side. In general, labour activation programmes in the UK are based on the principle of "welfare into work". This principle has been applied to everyone of working age who is economically inactive and dependent on social security benefits for their livelihood. Typically, such people are summoned to an interview at the jub centre and offered jubs or training deemed appropriate to their abilities. Disabled jub seekers may be offered similar "support" under a specialised programme, named New Deal for Disabled P. Disabled job seekers, when they present themselves or are summoned for interview, may be referred for rehabilitation, training or re-skilling. A "job coach" may provide advice and assistance to the job seeker with such skills as job search, interview techniques and so forth.
2,2 Despite these provisions, which have built on earlier programmes RNIB is concerned that they will have only limited impact on the unemployment rate for blind and partially sighted people. People who are almost "job ready" or "near to the labour market", benefit to some extent, but there are major structural barriers which impede their delivery to people with serious sight loss. Their is a lack of appropriate rehabilitation, training and work experience for blind and partially sighted people at the local level. Such programmes are highly specialised, involving mobility training, use of access technology, etc. etc.
2,3 Since 1945, RNIB has delivered specialised vocational rehabilitation programmes at its Manor House centre in the south-west of England. Such rehabilitation could be followed by training at RNIB's vocational college. Current government funding for labour activation programmes, however, is directed towards delivery at regional level, on a pan-disability basis. There is much evidence that training of blind and partially sighted people at this level is poorly understood, owing mainly to the low incidence of visual impairment in the population of working age. Local training centres for disabled people are not equipped to deal with blind and partially sighted people. Disabled employment Advisers in the statutory job centres have too often little knowledge of their needs. RNIB staff can do something to counteract this on a local basis, but at present are more geared up to offer advice to the statutory service on a contract basis, rather than providing rehabilitation, training and advocacy for job seekers in their localities. Under the guidance of principles laid out in work Matters, RNIB is now taking some notable steps to improve the quality of regional support for blind and partially sighted job seekers. The following may be of especial interest to the conference:
* Direct training in office employment offered by RNIB Education and Employment Division at its headquarters in London. Some 15 blind and partially sighted trainees have passed through this programme in its first year, with a high rate of success in obtaining jobs on leaving. There is, as yet, no public funding for this programme and there is no equivalent in any of the English regions, though thought is now being given to providing it.
* A new approach to learning and skills training for school leavers and others. RNIB is re-designing the support it can offer to mainstream colleges which accept blind and partially sighted people onto learning and training programmes. This support includes advice on appropriate equipment and adaptations, and access to resources, etc., etc. Following the trend towards decentralisation of services, RNIB is currently planning to re-organise its Manor House rehabilitation centre to provide such support in partnership with a mainstream college in the south-west. Similarly, RNIB Vocational College at Loughborough has been developing out-reach services to provide support for mainstream colleges in its region.
* A similar development is taking place in Scotland, where RNIB is constructing residential and day-time attendance provision for blind and partially sighted people within a mainstream college in Edinburgh.
* Work Matters called for a new approach by RNIB employment service , involving a shift of emphasis from contracted servicing of the statutory sector towards more
direct case management of blind and partially sighted jub seekers.
* Campaign for retention policies. In each year, some 4'000 people incur serious sight loss at work. Many of them see this as an occasion for early retirement and a significant number come to regret this step. RNIB argues that they should be better advised and supported. It is campaigning for a statutury right to disability leave, similar to maternity leave, which would give the employee a period of time for rehabilitation and re-skilling. It is also exploring with insurance companies the practicability of including in occupational pension schemes an obligation to inform people who incur sight loss at work of the rehabilitation and training programmes available. Disability leave could provide an interval during which rehabilitation and training could begin.
2,4 ThusRNIB does not reject labour activation programmes aimed at helping blind and partially sighted job seekers to retain their jobs or enter the labour market. On the contrary, it welcomes and seeks to participate in them as fully as possible. But it does not assume that labour activation programmes of this kind are enough by themselves. Work Matters argues that they are based on the paradigm of homo oeconomicus-economic man. It is assumed that an economically inactive blind or partially sighted person can always be expected to navigate his or her way through complex information-systems to obtain appropriate rehabilitation, training and mentoring, finally landing, like Robinson Cruso, on an island of work opportunity. In other words, such programmes seek to reconstruct the long-term unemployed, or visually-impared people with additional impairments to become efficient players in the labour market. The "blind elite" has been pre-emminently successful in this regard, thanks to appropriate education and training. Ther can be no doubt that an unknown, but significant number of economically inactive blind and partially sighted people, who are not very distant from the labour market, could follow their lead by taking advantage of the programmes and policies outlined in this section. Yet there is a large body of evidence, reviewed in Work Matters, which shows that a significant proportion, perhaps 50 percent of economically inactive people, who cannot be successful in this way because the labour market does not offer appropriate forms of productive employment into which they can be included. For them, the choice lies starkly between economic inactivity, with dependence on benefits, or a long struggle to enter the labour market, during which they are inadequately supported and practically doomed to failure. For this reason, interest is growing in the reconstruction of the demand side for disabled labour and the promotion of an employment continuum through social enterprise.
3,1 In 2002 RNIB was commissioned, by the Industrial and Social Affairs Directorate of the European Union, to study the intermediate labour market. Three countries were chosen for study: UK, Sweden, Republic of Ireland, and three organisations participated: RNIB, the Swedish Labour Board and the National Council of the Blind in Ireland. The aim was to identify new initiatives and good practice in the provision of appropriate employment for blind and partially sighted people who are distant from the labour market.
3,2 The report drew attention to the very large number of blind and partially sighted people who are economically inactive in the European Union, perhaps 600'000 people out of 800'000 people of working age. As Work Matters argued, such people are likely to be over 40 years of age, have additional impairments such as circulatory, pulmonary, muscular-skeletal diseases, etc. Others have learning difficulties in addition to serious sight loss and yet others are handicapped by poor education and lack of training.
3,3 The report argues that such people are very distant from the labour market. for them, labour activation programmes which work only on the supply side are simply too demanding. Advancement through rehabilitation, training and job-seeking is, for them, like climbing Mount Everest. They simply cannot move from economic inactivity and dependence on benefits to supported mainstream employment in a few short steps. (They require at least a period of employment under special conditions.
3,4 Traditionally, sheltered factories offered employment to such disabled people. These included special factories for blind people and "Remploy" factorips for other disabled workers. The large-scale decline of UK industry in the late twentieth century has decimated provision for blind people in sheltered factories, the numbers employed having fallen from about 3000 in 1970 to about 500 today. Meanwhile, sheltered or "special" provision came to be criticised, both for the heavy rate of government subsidy it demanded and for the "getto" effect of segregating disabled people from the mainstream of economic production. Workstep is a UK government programme which attempts to meet this problem. It seeks to ensure that 10 percent of those disabled people who are employed in sheltered factories, "progress" to mainstream employment each year. Unfortunately, very few blind or partially sighted people have been help by this programme. RNIB found, in 1999, that only 600 out of 11000 disabled people on the programme were visually impaired. Many areas of the UK have no sheltered factory or any other kind of base in which visually impaired people can be moved on through assessment, rehabilitation, to training and employment. Some RNIB staff have proposed a government-led policy to create in every region a centre for supported employment to fulfill this role. Without it, Workstep will proceed at a snail's pace as far as they are concerned.
Such a system would emerge logically and practically from our proposals to create an "empoyment continuum".
3,4 This expression, from which the report takes its title, is intended to signify a labour market which would offer a spectrum of employment opportunities, graded according to the individual's productive capacity and potential. Such a labour market, it is argued, would require a significant number of social enterpreises, that is firms which trade for profit but are committed to employ a significant number of disadvantaged people. Often referred to in the EU as the "third sector", social firms are a relatively recent phenomenon in the UK, where they have addressed themselves mainly to the mentally ill and to people with dependency on drugs and alcohol. The Employment Continuum argues that in each of the three countries examined, there exist instances of good practice by which social enterprise has been able to provide employment for people who would otherwise be excluded. This is because they employ disabled people in "critical mass" alongside non-disabled people. They are thus able to trade efficiently for profit, provide adapted environments and equipment, subsidise disabled workers who cannot undertake to work normal hours for the standard rate of pay, and provide developmental training for their disabled employees. Case studies are presented in the report.
3,5 The report commends these innovative approaches, but points out that they constitute, as yet, mere specks on the economic map of each country. Steps should be taken to promote and expand this kind of provision.
3,6 Crucial among such steps would be government assistance with start-up costs, such as fixed and working capital, and measures to link social security benefits to wages. RNIB has noted evidence of a growing interest in such approaches. The Commission of the European Union has introduced an employment strategy for the inclusion of disabled people into the labour market, which allows for special provision as well as mainstream employment. EU governments have been asked to draw up national action plans on a biennial basis to show what policies they propose for promoting inclusion. The UK government's action Plan (2003) has included as an annex a summary of RNIB's proposals as an example of what the voluntary sector can offer. Other European Union countries, such as Spain, are experimenting with social enterprise as a way of employing disabled people. In following up The Employment Continuum with the Industrial and Social Affairs Directorate RNIB has argued that social enterprise is of especial interest to the accession countries of Eastern Europe, which have shifted rapidly from ' command and control economies ! to market driven models, with great job losses in the field of sheltered workshops for blind and partially sighted people.
3,7 RNIB cannot rest content with proposals on which government and others should act. It seeks to set an example of what can be done.
* Within the last year it has established a social firm at its college at Redhill. The firm is called "Insight" and its strapline is "Read It, Hear It, See It?.. It produces information in accessible media for companies and other organisations who are required to provide this for visually impaired people by the recent Disability Discrimination Act. Insight aims to produce a profit on revenue account, to employ vi people, many of whom have additional impairments, and to progress them into supported mainstream employment. Current reports suggest that complete success will be achieved.
3,8 Such experiments will test the case that special provision need not depend on long-term subsidy on revenue account to employ additionally impaired vi people. This has been the bugbear of sheltered employment in the past. They will also show that special provision need not place disabled people in an isolated "getto" of segregation so long as it acts as a base for progression and employs able-bodied people on the basis of equal value with "disabled people. Finally, by producing services, it will open up paths to employment that are difficult to achieve in the current state of industrial manufacturing.
3,9 Social enterprise, then, is neither a revolution nor a reaction. It does not require us to turn our backs on mainstream inclusion, nor does it seek to bolster segregation in ailing sheltered factories. Rather, it aims to construct the future by combining inovation with the best features of the past. If successfully promoted, it will form the bridge of an employment continuum and bring to thousands of hitherto excluded people the well known benefits of gainful employment. Thus it will demonstrate that, in the words of our initial report, "work matters".