Consultation outcome

UCL Public Policy and UCL Grand Challenge Justice & Equality response

Updated 23 March 2020

1. Who we are

This response has been put together by University College London (UCL) Public Policy and UCL’s Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality, in the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research) at UCL.

UCL Public Policy supports engagement between a diverse range of researchers and policy professionals in order to enhance the use of evidence and expertise in policy and decision making.

UCL’s Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality convenes and fosters cross-disciplinary research, partnerships, and initiatives across UCL and with external partners. Our programme of activities examines the barriers people face to justice and how societal structures perpetuate and sustain inequalities.

We have led the Exploring Inequalities: Igniting research to better inform UK policy project. Amongst our project members are government, academia, third sector, non-governmental organization (NGOs), policy and business. In particular, the Resolution Foundation, Scope, Crisis, Fawcett Society, Clarion Housing, Runnymede Trust, CBI, and Shelter.

Please see the annex for the project summary.

Based on this work, we believe that change in society can only be achieved by changing who designs society. We therefore welcome this opportunity to contribute to DWP’s thinking on how to engage with disabled people in formulating policies and processes that affect them.

2. Summary of key recommendations

We recommend that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP):

• Takes action to ensure true representation of diverse voices in consultations, from the setting of objectives, the analysis of responses, and through to acting on the results.

• Takes into consideration the intersectional nature of inequalities when formulating policy.

• Provides comprehensive guidance on gathering data on people with different protected characteristics, setting out how data should be analysed, future-proofed, published and used to ensure improvements in equalities culture over time.

Our detailed responses are set out below and focus on areas where we can contribute our knowledge and expertise.

For more information please contact xx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxx xx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxx at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

3. Question 11

Please tell us about other engagement you have had on disability issues with public sector or other organisations outside of DWP?

3.1 Question 11 response

Over the past year, UCL and the Resolution Foundation have collaborated on a study that brings together broad strands of evidence, culminating in a final report ‘Structurally Unsound’. For this study we have had extensive engagement with third sector organisations, disability rights campaigners, and those with lived experience of being disabled.

On the issue of intersectional inequalities^{[footnote 1]} and employment, in particular we have engaged with experts from government, academia, third sector, NGOs and business to understand their process for engagement.

Despite overall UK employment rate’s upward trajectory in recent years (notwithstanding the current COVID-19 crisis), employment rates have not increased for disabled people.

While we welcome the crucial support the government provides through its Access to Work scheme, our study shows that employers are unaware of this support, employees experience long delays in support and equipment being provided, and there are concerns regarding the quality of equality impact assessments (deemed generic and not always fit for purpose).

Employment history gaps are common for those with disabilities and long-term physical and mental ill health. Our engagement highlights that progression, retention and recruitment of disabled people is often undermined by worries surrounding disclosure, and this is compounded by attitudes of employers.

Positive organisational culture is therefore essential to enable and foster disclosure, which in turn is necessary in order for adequate support to be provided. Improved training and guidance for employers also has a role to play in addressing related inequalities.

Our engagement with a range of organisations on disability issues has brought to our attention the increasing use of incentives to promote equal opportunity in social policy and welfare reforms. These incentives have sought to increase choice based behaviours for individuals, in an attempt to encourage preferable life outcomes. Such incentives, however, can compound existing inequalities as they shift the focus from societal need to individual choices, and obscures structural impediments.

Without intersectional analysis of the inequalities faced by disabled people, understanding of the constraints that determine ‘true’ choice for disabled people across a range of domains, including the gig economy, education and the housing market cannot be achieved.

For example, more in-depth analysis is needed to examine the extent to which disabled individuals are concentrated within particular sectors due to a lack of choice (or perceived lack) of employers open to meeting their needs. Understanding choice constraints is a crucial part of better understanding the changing shape of the UK labour market and structural inequalities within it.

To mitigate this, we recommend that DWP should collaborate with research providers and those with lived experience to:

• understand whether disabled individuals are faced with a true choice regarding the opportunity to seek work in the gig economy, or if this is because other sectors of the economy are closed off; and how best to address this if so.

• examine the extent to which disabled individuals are concentrated within particular sectors due to a lack (or perceived lack) of choice of employers open to meeting their needs.

4. Question 13

What would be your minimum expectations of who the department should consult, and how that consultation should take place, to provide reassurance that decisions taken by the Department are well-informed and credible?

4.1 Question 13 response

We welcome this consultation as a valuable step forward to ensuring equality, both in the stakeholders and individuals with whom DWP engages, and in the departmental culture. However, a number of fundamental changes are required if we are to move beyond the ‘usual suspects’ problem, whereby certain groups are overrepresented in consultation responses (see for example, statistics for evidence submitted to Parliament).

It will be crucial to ensure that the outcomes of this consultation lead to implementation of policy changes that make tangible, and ideally measurable, differences to those with lived experience. We would encourage DWP to evaluate the impact that such policy changes have on disabled individuals.

True representation of diverse voices in consultations and in the setting of objectives requires DWP to deliberately build diverse representation. This should involve not only providing consultations in accessible formats, but also ensuring appropriate durations for responses, and communicating with a wide audience.

Consulting individuals and stakeholders affected by policies should be recognised as a key part of the policymaking process. DWP should therefore build in involvement of disabled people at the design, administration, analysis and decision making phases, in a way that their lived experiences are valued and central to the process.

Representation of different groups of individuals should also reflect the proportions of these groups in society, and aim to reduce the burden on individuals having to speak for whole populations. In addition to different voices being heard, it is crucial that they are listened to.

As a minimum, we would expect DWP to ensure representation is incorporated into its consultation, by ensuring diversity of voice, thought and representation in responses to this consultation, and throughout the evidence gathering, analysis and decision making processes. Those with lived experience and who identify as disabled should be engaged throughout the consultation and at every stage of the Department’s work going forward.

5. Question 14

Is there any other evidence on this subject you would like to add?

5.1 Question 14 response

We commend DWP for undertaking this consultation and for seeking to ensure disabled people are involved and engaged through the Department’s work. We welcome the Department’s clear commitment to equality and to ensuring its practices are inclusive and considerate of disabled people. Holding such a consultation and setting Department objectives that promote positive change are an essential part of the battle to tackle inequalities in UK society.

To strengthen DWPs approach to engagement even further, we would encourage greater emphasis on the intersectional, cumulative and multiple nature of inequalities. This emphasis would set DWP as a sector leader and reflect the true lived experience of disabled people.

We would recommend incorporating an intersectional approach to the DWP’s consideration of equality. At present, we believe there is a lack of emphasis on the structural nature of horizontal inequalities (that is, those that apply to entire groups such as women, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) individuals, and people of colour rather than just at the individual level) within the consultation and we recommend addressing this as follows:

• Applying an intersectional lens to all policy domains and related statistics for which DWP has responsibility, for example household incomes, in order to demonstrate the full extent of structural inequalities in the UK.

• Likewise, the consultation should acknowledge the nuances within broad characterisations such as ‘disabled’.

• We recommend that DWP further develops the evidence base – both in terms of more accurately capturing nuances in defining disability, and better understanding what works when it comes to policy interventions.

6. Annex: Project summary: ‘Exploring Inequalities: Igniting research to better inform UK policy’

Choose any year at random over the past fifty years and you would be almost certain to find at least one piece of equalities focused legislation enacted in that year. And there is much to show for this effort. Yet large inequalities remain.

The proportion of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) adults in work lags behind the rate recorded for the white population by 10.6 percentage points. Other examples abound - the disability employment gap remains stubbornly high at around 30 per cent, while single-parent households face the highest rates of poverty. The structural nature of these horizontal inequalities (that is, those that apply to entire groups such as women, disabled people, LGBT individuals, and people of colour rather than just at the individual level) mean that legislative responses are not sufficient on their own.

It is fundamentally important not to create a hierarchy of protected characteristics. To do this, it is vital to adopt an intersectional approach. Taking an intersectional approach means recognising that the inequalities faced by women of colour are not simply those faced by white women with a racial element ‘added on’: they are fundamentally different. Too often that distinction remains under-appreciated.

Over the past year, UCL and the Resolution Foundation have collaborated on a study that brings together broad strands of evidence, culminating in a final report ‘Structurally Unsound’. The report stresses the importance of taking an intersectional approach, in order to devise appropriate, sophisticated and nuanced policies. Likewise, it emphasises the need to diversify voices within who submits evidence and ensure representation amongst those shaping and designing UK society; arguing that society can only be changed by changing who designs our policies.

We provide 5 cross-cutting approaches for equality, and encourage research and policymaking communities working to tackle structural inequalities to consider them:

• Language: recognise that language matters

• Opportunity: shift the focus onto equity

• Understanding Evidence: ensure diversity of evidence informs research and policy agendas

• Voice: change the structure of society by changing who designs it

• Place: adopt a place-based approach

1. Intersectional inequalities are those faced by individuals who fall into more than one underrepresented or minority group (such as being BME and a woman). Taking an intersectional approach means recognising that the inequalities faced by, for example, women of colour are not simply those faced by white women with a racial element ‘added on’; they are fundamentally different. ↩