The earlier the better: Raising awareness of employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions

Labour has set an ambitious long-term target to achieve an 80% working-age employment rate in the UK. However, we estimate that there are at least one million people not currently in work who would benefit from accessing disability or health-related employment support.

This paper, supported by Maximus, focuses on one key barrier that prevents people with disabilities or health conditions to start, stay and progress in work – a lack of awareness of the employment support schemes currently available to them. We explore what measures the government can take to boost awareness to maximise uptake and boost the economy. We introduce a number of critical ‘engagement points’ as opportunities to refer individuals to the appropriate support programmes to keep them in work or return them to employment – working on the principle ‘the earlier the better’.

Taking forward the ideas set out in this paper would make an important contribution to the government’s economic growth mission. Demos’s analysis shows that returning to the pre-pandemic employment rate among disabled people would add 130,000 people to the UK’s workforce, and grow the economy by £5 billion in real GDP.