Strategy

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) has published the Levelling Up White Paper. The White Paper aims to close the gap between rich and poor areas by 2030 through improving services such as education, broadband and transport. It sets out 12 ambitions covering a variety of themes where inequality is experienced across the country.

The Government has responded to the Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into the disability employment gap. BASE gave both written and oral evidence to the committee which published its report in July.

The Government has published the long-awaited National Disability Strategy. It follows a consultation that was strongly criticised by disability campaigners. It is published on the DWP website rather than by the Cabinet Office which led development of the strategy.

The strategy contains a range of proposals covering education, employment, housing, transport, leisure and access to services.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has published the long-delayed National Autism Strategy. It includes a section on employment but, unfortunately, there's little in the way of new measures or ambition. It includes an implementation plan that focuses on promoting Access to Work, improving awareness amongst employers and continued access to the IPES programme (for which we've seen no outcome data yet). We hope that the strategy will become more ambitious following the next spending review.

In the first year, the key employment support commitments will be to:

The government has published its Green Paper on Health and Disability, Shaping Future Support, and will consult on the content until 11 October 2021. BASE will be responding and invites your views on the proposals contained within it. The Government has also published it's response to the 2019 consultation, Health is Everyone's Business. We expect the long-awaited National Disability Strategy to be published very soon.