There have been a lot of headlines recently about a young autistic man who had been volunteering in Waitrose, but who then wasn’t offered paid work to do the same thing.
This really resonated with me, as I had spoken recently to several families where they had had different experiences, but all of which demonstrated that there isn’t enough support for autistic people, particularly where they have greater support needs.
That was the reason for getting a debate in Westminster last week on making sure that we get the proper support in place for autistic people to get into work.
As a liberal I want to ensure that people are viewed as individuals, that they are given a platform to be the best version of themselves, and that we give our fellow citizens opportunities, not barriers, that we ensure that we are not limited by someone’s view of a category in which they happen to fit.
But what I have heard from my residents is the opposite experience.
My constituent Bradley is autistic and has a speech and language condition. And he is capable, reliable and determined. I was really pleased that he and his mum came to see me at my advice surgery a few weeks ago. He’s now on Universal Credit, including the disability element, but tells me that what he wants is the independence and dignity that comes with having a paid job.
For Bradley, the problems he faces is getting over the hurdle of having a chance to prove his worth. He’s applied for over a hundred jobs, he’s been given interviews, passed tests, and yet he’s never given the job. All too often, he tells me he hears the same refrain: “We have another candidate who we feel best suits the post.”
And while this is said to anyone who applies for a job and they’ll hear it from time to time, it’s the fact that Bradley hears the same thing every time, after every interview and after every successful test.
Another constituent has had issues in his workplace where attempts to help have been carried out in a way that has made things even worse. A performance enhancement plan – intended to be supportive – was implemented with no time to put in improvements. So instead of helping, they fed into his anxiety, and led to “autistic burnout” and left him on medication, and needing support from his family.
And Katie was allocated funding for a virtual assistant through access to work payments. But when a caseworker retired, her case wasn’t reallocated and she was left facing mounting bills. In order to resolve it, she was forced to pursue her funding through a labyrinthine process. And were it not for her fantastic mum advocating on her behalf and then further support from my superstar casework team, she would not have got it sorted out.
As her mum said, the process to claim completely failed to recognise her disability. It was like “asking someone in a wheelchair to get out and walk up the stairs”.
When someone has communication issues, layering inaccessible processes on top causes a struggle that is cruel. The irony is that Katie was caught out by this when she was setting up a company helping people with neurodivergent conditions, and in a further twist, it was systems designed to help people like Katie into work that failed to take account of her autism.
All too often we are building employment practices and processes which are one size fits all and that size is “too small”.
Schemes like Access to Work, Connect to Work or Disability Confidence certainly exist, but my inbox suggests that there are too many people with skills and talents who are falling through the gaps.
The Government has had recommendations from an Independent Panel of Academics, led by Professor Amanda Kirby, but still needs to publish their response to it.
The Government must do more to make it easier for employment to work for autistic people; whether that’s businesses employing autistic people who can bring so much to a workplace, or changing processes so that autistic people can work for themselves in a way that suits them and gives them a platform to thrive.
The Government must do more to make it easier for employment to work for autistic people
