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A government scheme designed to encourage employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with health conditions, ‘Disability Confident’, claims to be creating a ‘movement of change, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people’.
Disability Confident has replaced the ‘Two Ticks Positive About Disabled People’ scheme. It is a voluntary scheme with three levels of accreditation: ‘1: Disability Confident Committed’, ‘2: Disability Confident Employer’ and ‘3: Disability Confident Leader’. Organisations join the scheme at the lowest level and can then progress through the levels.
The first level – ‘Committed’ – requires agreement by an organisation to five commitments concerning the attraction and recruitment of disabled employees and to undertake one of the prescribed activities such as providing work experience, apprenticeships or job shadowing. The second level – ‘Employer’ – requires self-assessment against a list of criteria for employing disabled people which highlights the attraction of those with disabilities and keeping and developing them within their role. The third and final level – ‘Leader’ – requires external challenge and validation of self-assessment by a disability organisation or a disabled-person user-led organisation, providing a short statement committing to being a Disability Confident Leader, and a requirement to report on disability, mental health and wellbeing.
Despite the latest Office for National Statistics figures indicating that between Q1, 2017 and Q1, 2022 the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million, the scheme has been met with significant criticism.
Over 17,700 employers have signed up, according to the list published by the Department of Work and Pensions, but the scheme doesn’t appear to be encouraging when looking at number of disabled people in employment. Disability News Service discovered through a freedom of information request that the 13,600 employers signed up to the scheme by 13 September 2019 had pledged to provide just 8,763 paid jobs for disabled people between them, an average of 0.64 jobs per employer (‘ DWP scraps plan to strengthen Disability Confident… after just four days’ Disability News Service, 7 November 2019).
It cannot be overlooked that little more than six years ago, the DWP declared itself a gold-standard employer of disabled people under the newly launched scheme – securing the status of ‘Disability Confident Leader’ – just days before being found guilty of ‘grave and systematic violations’ of the UN Disability Convention (Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Inquiry Report CRPD/C/15/4 November 2016).
So how is the scheme reflected at the Bar? How have chambers responded to the accreditation, if at all? And most importantly, is it working to improve accessibility and representation?
According to the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB’s) latest report on diversity at the Bar, of the 60.4% of barristers who provided information on their disability status, only 6.3% disclosed a disability. This is substantially lower than the percentage of disabled people in the employed working age UK population which is estimated at 11.3%.
When excluding those who had not provided information, 6.8% of the Bar, 7% of non-KC barristers, 8.7% of pupils and 3.9% of KCs had declared a disability as of December 2021. The figures also suggest that the percentage of those with a declared disability may decrease as level of seniority increases (Diversity at the Bar 2021, BSB).
To date, the Bar Council, the BSB, Ministry of Justice and various police forces and law firms have signed up to the accreditation, but few chambers have done the same.
One key issue is that the barriers to increasing representation of disabled barristers are greater than the scheme has been designed to tackle and kick in earlier than practice. The BSB in collaboration with its Disability Taskforce held its first event in December 2022 with the aim of ‘reviewing and improving routes into the Bar, making it a more accessible and inclusive profession and improving the culture at the Bar to strengthen the retention of disabled barristers’ (see BSB press release here).
There is increasing awareness of the lack of diversity and representation of barristers with a disability. Success in widening representation hinges on enabling disabled students and aspiring barristers to reach their full potential. This scheme, however, clearly does not cater for those in study and is unable to assist them in pursuing their ambitions.
The scheme is certainly a good starting point, in that it prompts dialogue on the issues affecting disabled practitioners, be they disabled when entering practice or acquiring a disability later in their career. But does it go far enough? Two perspectives on this are shared here. Daniel Holt views the scheme from the perspective of disabled aspiring barristers (see box one, below) and Mark Henderson considers whether the scheme can be leveraged to suit the Bar (see box two, below).
Level 3 accreditation relies heavily on input from either a disability organisation or a disabled-person user-led organisation, which should encourage the building of ties between the corporate world and associations designed to assist the disabled community. However, as the scheme is discretionary, the majority of those signed up are within the public sector and it’s simply not reaching expectations in the corporate sphere.
Another fundamental flaw is that the scheme does not require a disabled person to be employed by the organisation in order to satisfy its requirements. A survey found that just under half (49%) of scheme members reported they had recruited at least one person with a disability, long-term health or mental health condition as a result of the scheme. This rose to 66% among larger employers. (See Disability Confident scheme: summary findings from a survey of participating employers, DWP, November 2018).
A significant problem in accessing or remaining in employment for working age members of the disabled community is tokenism. Some disabilities may be more palatable for potential employers than others. Discussions surrounding equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) invite dialogue on matters surrounding race, sexual orientation and gender (and increasingly gender identity) but disability remains a footnote. Discussions on disability are challenging and tough and require more than just gestures. Rather, frank discussions must be had on ableism, stereotypes and biases.
For a scheme promising to go beyond the notion of simply box-ticking, it places much weight on the positive PR benefits that come from gaining accreditation. But this is just marketing, not an overhaul of antiquated notions about what disability is, who disabled people are and their role in the workforce. That certainly goes beyond the scope of what the accreditation requires. And as for the Bar, a profession steeped in tradition and custom despite the important advances in EDI, the representation of disabled practitioners still has a colossal way to go.
View from the perspective of disabled aspiring barristers
Doughty Street’s experience and the benefits of signing up to the Bar Council’s pilot scheme for specialist support
A government scheme designed to encourage employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with health conditions, ‘Disability Confident’, claims to be creating a ‘movement of change, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people’.
Disability Confident has replaced the ‘Two Ticks Positive About Disabled People’ scheme. It is a voluntary scheme with three levels of accreditation: ‘1: Disability Confident Committed’, ‘2: Disability Confident Employer’ and ‘3: Disability Confident Leader’. Organisations join the scheme at the lowest level and can then progress through the levels.
The first level – ‘Committed’ – requires agreement by an organisation to five commitments concerning the attraction and recruitment of disabled employees and to undertake one of the prescribed activities such as providing work experience, apprenticeships or job shadowing. The second level – ‘Employer’ – requires self-assessment against a list of criteria for employing disabled people which highlights the attraction of those with disabilities and keeping and developing them within their role. The third and final level – ‘Leader’ – requires external challenge and validation of self-assessment by a disability organisation or a disabled-person user-led organisation, providing a short statement committing to being a Disability Confident Leader, and a requirement to report on disability, mental health and wellbeing.
Despite the latest Office for National Statistics figures indicating that between Q1, 2017 and Q1, 2022 the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million, the scheme has been met with significant criticism.
Over 17,700 employers have signed up, according to the list published by the Department of Work and Pensions, but the scheme doesn’t appear to be encouraging when looking at number of disabled people in employment. Disability News Service discovered through a freedom of information request that the 13,600 employers signed up to the scheme by 13 September 2019 had pledged to provide just 8,763 paid jobs for disabled people between them, an average of 0.64 jobs per employer (‘ DWP scraps plan to strengthen Disability Confident… after just four days’ Disability News Service, 7 November 2019).
It cannot be overlooked that little more than six years ago, the DWP declared itself a gold-standard employer of disabled people under the newly launched scheme – securing the status of ‘Disability Confident Leader’ – just days before being found guilty of ‘grave and systematic violations’ of the UN Disability Convention (Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Inquiry Report CRPD/C/15/4 November 2016).
So how is the scheme reflected at the Bar? How have chambers responded to the accreditation, if at all? And most importantly, is it working to improve accessibility and representation?
According to the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB’s) latest report on diversity at the Bar, of the 60.4% of barristers who provided information on their disability status, only 6.3% disclosed a disability. This is substantially lower than the percentage of disabled people in the employed working age UK population which is estimated at 11.3%.
When excluding those who had not provided information, 6.8% of the Bar, 7% of non-KC barristers, 8.7% of pupils and 3.9% of KCs had declared a disability as of December 2021. The figures also suggest that the percentage of those with a declared disability may decrease as level of seniority increases (Diversity at the Bar 2021, BSB).
To date, the Bar Council, the BSB, Ministry of Justice and various police forces and law firms have signed up to the accreditation, but few chambers have done the same.
One key issue is that the barriers to increasing representation of disabled barristers are greater than the scheme has been designed to tackle and kick in earlier than practice. The BSB in collaboration with its Disability Taskforce held its first event in December 2022 with the aim of ‘reviewing and improving routes into the Bar, making it a more accessible and inclusive profession and improving the culture at the Bar to strengthen the retention of disabled barristers’ (see BSB press release here).
There is increasing awareness of the lack of diversity and representation of barristers with a disability. Success in widening representation hinges on enabling disabled students and aspiring barristers to reach their full potential. This scheme, however, clearly does not cater for those in study and is unable to assist them in pursuing their ambitions.
The scheme is certainly a good starting point, in that it prompts dialogue on the issues affecting disabled practitioners, be they disabled when entering practice or acquiring a disability later in their career. But does it go far enough? Two perspectives on this are shared here. Daniel Holt views the scheme from the perspective of disabled aspiring barristers (see box one, below) and Mark Henderson considers whether the scheme can be leveraged to suit the Bar (see box two, below).
Level 3 accreditation relies heavily on input from either a disability organisation or a disabled-person user-led organisation, which should encourage the building of ties between the corporate world and associations designed to assist the disabled community. However, as the scheme is discretionary, the majority of those signed up are within the public sector and it’s simply not reaching expectations in the corporate sphere.
Another fundamental flaw is that the scheme does not require a disabled person to be employed by the organisation in order to satisfy its requirements. A survey found that just under half (49%) of scheme members reported they had recruited at least one person with a disability, long-term health or mental health condition as a result of the scheme. This rose to 66% among larger employers. (See Disability Confident scheme: summary findings from a survey of participating employers, DWP, November 2018).
A significant problem in accessing or remaining in employment for working age members of the disabled community is tokenism. Some disabilities may be more palatable for potential employers than others. Discussions surrounding equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) invite dialogue on matters surrounding race, sexual orientation and gender (and increasingly gender identity) but disability remains a footnote. Discussions on disability are challenging and tough and require more than just gestures. Rather, frank discussions must be had on ableism, stereotypes and biases.
For a scheme promising to go beyond the notion of simply box-ticking, it places much weight on the positive PR benefits that come from gaining accreditation. But this is just marketing, not an overhaul of antiquated notions about what disability is, who disabled people are and their role in the workforce. That certainly goes beyond the scope of what the accreditation requires. And as for the Bar, a profession steeped in tradition and custom despite the important advances in EDI, the representation of disabled practitioners still has a colossal way to go.
View from the perspective of disabled aspiring barristers
Doughty Street’s experience and the benefits of signing up to the Bar Council’s pilot scheme for specialist support
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