Employment: Young People

Question

We are committed to halving the disability employment gap between disabled and non disabled people and have introduced a number of measures to further the support available to young people with disabilities, and long-term health conditions.

A Taskforce, led by Paul Maynard MP, has been looking at issues around apprenticeships for people with learning difficulties or disabilities. On 11 July the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the Department for Education published their response to the task force accepting all their recommendations including adjustments in English and maths requirements for those with learning disabilities. The publication can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apprenticeships-improving-access-for-people-with-learning-disabilities.

This Department has also developed a portal for young people with disabilities and health conditions to signpost them to available support. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/help-and-support-for-young-disabled-people-to-find-and-stay-in-work/help-and-support-for-young-disabled-people-to-find-and-stay-in-work.

Young disabled people and those with health conditions may also be supported by DWP’s specialist disability employment programmes such as Work Programme, Work Choice, Specialist Employment Support and Access to Work, subject to meeting eligibility criteria. Access to Work can provide support for young people participating on Traineeships or Supported Internships as well as those in work including apprenticeships. In 2015/16 Access to Work supported 2,830 young people aged 16-24, An increase of 12.7% over the previous year and the highest number since 2007/08 (beginning of our current records).

In addition, we have expanded Access to Work’s Mental Health Support Service to conduct a two-year trial of targeted support for apprentices with mental health conditions.