23/08/2011

The report was prepared for the Civil Service Task Group on Disability earlier this year, but has never been published.

The report, obtained by Disability News Service, also reveals that many disabled civil servants, who are no longer eligible for support from the Access to Work (ATW) scheme, are facing a ‘real fight’ to secure the workplace adjustments they need to do their job.

One of the key issues raised is the failure to secure reasonable adjustments in the workplace. Participants in the focus groups spoke of having a ‘real fight’ to get any workplace adjustments, even if the cost was small and the potential impact was high. Significant numbers’ of disabled civil servants had reported ‘consistent and repeated failures’, in providing reasonable adjustments, with many of those failures due to ‘budget constraints’.

Government departments have not been able to use the Access to Work scheme to fund such adjustments since October 2006, and the leaked report says this has resulted in civil servants receiving a ‘second class service’ compared with the private sector and the rest of the public sector.

Despite the serious concerns raised in the report, the Cabinet Office refused to comment because the document was leaked and not intended for publication.

Source: Disability News Week www.disabilitynewsservice.com