About the Civil Service
Civil Service Disability Consultation
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Report on the outcome of the Disability Consultation
Analysis of responses
Q3. If you agreed with question 2, what is your organisation's view about the level of data that individual Civil Service departments and agencies should be collecting, for their own internal monitoring purposes?
Question 3 asked those respondents who agreed with question 2 to select from three possible options what departments and agencies should collect for their own internal monitoring of disabled staff. Respondents could pick one or more of the three options if they thought that was appropriate. The three options were: the broad range of categories currently in Cabinet Office's Mandate specification; information on reasonable adjustments; or, an alternative set of categories such as an approach that incorporates the social model of disability rather than the medical model. Tables 3 to 5 show the level of support for each of these three options. Overall 70 respondents, 87.5 per cent, agreed with the recommendation in question 2.
| Response | Frequency | Per cent |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 70 | 100.0 |
| Yes | 32 | 45.7 |
| No | 37 | 52.9 |
| No response | 1 | 1.4 |
Table 3 shows that 32 of these 70 respondents, 45.7 per cent, were in favour of departments and agencies continuing to use the Mandate categories for disability monitoring.
| Response | Frequency | Per cent |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 70 | 100.0 |
| Yes | 46 | 65.7 |
| No | 23 | 32.9 |
| No response | 1 | 1.4 |
Table 4 shows that 46 of the 70 respondents who agreed with question 2, some 65.7 per cent, were in favour of departments and agencies collecting information on reasonable adjustments.
| Response | Frequency | Per cent |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 70 | 100.0 |
| Yes | 32 | 45.7 |
| No | 37 | 52.9 |
| No response | 1 | 1.4 |
Table 5 shows that 32 of the 70 respondents who agreed with question 2, around 45.7 per cent, were in favour of departments and agencies adopting a social model as opposed to a medical model for the purposes of disability monitoring.
These findings show that there is a diversity of opinion and practice in terms of what departments currently collect and would like to collect through disability monitoring. In terms of future choices, there is no overwhelming favourite from the three options. However, the collection of information on staff who require reasonable adjustments is preferred by two thirds of respondents, and this is generally considered to be information that should be very useful to departments in their day to day practice.
| Response | Frequency | Per cent |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 70 | 100.0 |
| Mandate only | 9 | 12.9 |
| Reasonable adjustments only | 11 | 15.7 |
| Social model only | 11 | 15.7 |
| Mandate and reasonable adjustments | 17 | 24.3 |
| Mandate and social model | 3 | 4.3 |
| Reasonable adjustments and social mode | 15 | 21.4 |
| All three | 3 | 4.3 |
| No response | 1 | 1.4 |
Table 6 shows the range of permutations that respondents selected, which reflects the fact that consultees were given the opportunity to select more than one.
The most commonly preferred permutations were for the Mandate categories and reasonable adjustments at 24.3 per cent and the social model and reasonable adjustments at 15.7 per cent. The lack of a clear overall preference is likely to be indicative of the range of practices in operation across the Civil Service. The view of Cabinet Office as expressed in the consultation document is that departments and agencies should be free to collect more detailed data on disabled staff, if they so wish. It is not intended that Cabinet Office prescribe a one-size fits all approach to disability monitoring. However, there will be follow-up work done after the consultation outcomes have been reported on. This work will have two strands.
The first will have the express aim of working up the practical details of how a social model would operate in practice. This work will be carried out by Cabinet Office in conjunction with the Disability Working Group.
The second is that Cabinet Office will be producing a toolkit to promote best practice in the different methods of disability data collection and monitoring. This work will be carried out by Cabinet Office, through the Disability Working Group and in close conjunction with the Disability Rights Commission (DRC), who have already indicated that they are beginning to consider producing guidance on employment monitoring. This is likely to become particularly relevant when a duty to promote disability equality is introduced in the public sector (as in the draft Disability Bill). The DRC have invited interested parties, including Disability Working Group members, to an informal seminar to discuss some of the issues raised by disability monitoring. One area where the DRC is particularly interested to have our views is whether monitoring should be broken down according to categories of disability (or barrier) and if so, what these should be.