Recent government figures show that 15.9% of the working-age population are disabled within the meaning of the Equality Act but only 46.6% of them are in employment compared with 77.6% of people who are not disabled.
Whilst the number of disabled people in work has very slowly risen over the last ten years there are still many who are not in employment but wanting to work. The Coalition Government is keen to encourage disabled people in finding employment and to support them in work. There is an active debate as to whether this is to save money by transferring people from Incapacity Benefit/Employment and Support Allowance to the less costly Jobseeker’s Allowance or whether there is a real commitment to give adequate support to people with disabilities to find work.
Against this backdrop of encouraging disabled people into work it is perhaps disappointing that, in general, the tax and national insurance rules themselves give little additional and specific support for people with disabilities.
Such help as there is comes in three ways:
- Small adjustments to the tax rules to acknowledge disability.
- Assistance through the Access to Work scheme.
- The extra payments included in tax credits for those with disabilities.
Each of these is covered in our commentary that follows.
