Policy & research organisations

The Mental Health and Employment Partnership (MHEP) Social Impact Bond (SIB) was  designed to create partnerships between agencies to drive innovation and collaboration. It sought to increase investment in Individual Placement Support (IPS) with the aim of better supporting unemployed people with severe and enduring mental health conditions back into employment.

This report, from the Centre for Social Justice, assesses DWP's nationally contracted disability employment provision. The report is critical of performance over recent years and highlights some of the problem areas including commissioning processes, funding models and supply chain management. It suggests ways of making better use of the expertise within the voluntary sector and makes a series of recommendations.

The TUC has published a report looking at the disability pay gap. The current disability pay gap for all employees stands at 15.5%. This pay gap means that disabled people effectively work for free for the last 57 days (or 8 weeks) of the year and stop getting paid today. 

The analysis also found that disabled workers earn on average £1.65 per hour less than non-disabled workers, which is a gap of around £3,000 per year based on a 35-hour week.

Only 6% of people leaving prison receive support to find competitive work. Funded by J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust, The Henry Smith Charity, and Garfield Weston Foundation, this project worked with prison leavers from eight West Midland prisons.

This project trialled Individual Placement and Support (IPS) with a population it had not been tested on before: people with mental health problems leaving prison.