New labour-market policy initiatives for people with disabilities (2008:9)
Summary of the publication De nya insatserna för funktionshindrade inom arbetsmarknadspolitiken - en utvärdering av trestegsmodellen
On behalf of the Swedish Government, the Swedish Agency for Public Management has followed up and evaluated the labour-market policy initiatives, introduced on 1 January 2006, for people with disabilities. The Agency’s assignment included evaluating, as far as possible, the effects of the new measures; comparing the measures with other initiatives for people with disabilities; and clarifying how they have been implemented.
Background and purpose
In its Budget Bill for 2006 the Government stated that, for certain people, more robust support than payroll grants (translator’s note: lönebidrag, a government employment subsidy in the form of a salary contribution for people with disabilities) was required and that it was imperative to boost the effectiveness and specific impact of various measures for people with disabilities. The Government therefore introduced a three-stage model containing three new labour-market policy programmes: In-depth Assessment and Counselling Guidance; Development Employment; and Security Employment. The new initiatives reflect three phases in the endeavour to find suitable employment for these jobseekers.
In-depth Assessment and Counselling Guidance (FKV) is a coherent initiative providing assessment and guidance over a period of up to 12 weeks. The programme may be described as an umbrella measure that may include a range of concrete inputs. The people referred to this programme do not need to have a defined disability; instead, the existence of an unclear situation and the need for multipronged assistance are sufficient grounds for participation in FKV.
Development Employment is the second programme in the new model. This kind of employment involves working for an employer, and the participant receives pay but is not covered by the Swedish Security of Employment Act (Lagen om anställningsskydd, LAS). One implication is that the employer does not need to offer continued work when a person’s Development Employment comes to an end. The employer receives financial support that takes into account the scale of the individual’s impairment of work capacity.
Security Employment caters for unemployed people with disabilities that impair their work capacity and whose needs cannot be met through other measures. The individuals in the target group are the same as those assigned to sheltered employment at Samhall. This group comprises people with heavily reduced work capacity for whom both a high employment subsidy and long-term support need to be provided.
With the advent of Development Employment and Security Employment, there are now five different kinds of employment subsidy for people with disabilities involving impaired work capacity. When it comes to the new assessment and guidance initiative, FKV, there is a clearly comparable option in the form of ‘Work-oriented Rehabilitation’. The main difference between the two measures is that Work-oriented Rehabilitation can continue for roughly twice as long, i.e. six months.
Importance of the new initiatives
The evaluation carried out by the Agency for Public Management shows that the staff of the Swedish Public Employment Service (PES) regard the new initiatives as ways of supplementing the Service’s existing approach and programme range for people with disabilities, not as a new model on which to base their inputs. The existence of several other, similar initiatives for the group targeted by the three-stage model has also influenced the development and scale of the new measures.
FKV used only on a limited scale
The number of people referred to FKV has been very limited. The primary reason for this is that the PES offices assign people to Work-oriented Rehabilitation instead, since this programme affords more time for coordinating and organising the concrete steps that need to be taken.
Results of Development Employment good
Both the interviews and the statistical analyses performed by the Agency for Public Management show that Development Employment is an important measure. Half of the people who took up this kind of employment during 2006–07 had been registered with the PES for at least three years, and one in three belonged to one of the ‘priority groups’ of people with disabilities. Three months after their Development Employment, most participants had found a long-term solution, often in the form of a payroll grant or Security Employment. The impact evaluation of the new programme that the Agency has carried out also shows that the favourable results of the Development Employment scheme are largely attributable to the initiative itself, and not to other factors.
The proportion of participants who, 12 months after their Development Employment, had obtained a job of some kind was appreciably higher than the corresponding proportion of other, equivalent jobseekers.
One of the key reasons for these good results appears to be the fact that Development Employment is not covered by LAS. Since employers do not need to offer further employment after the programme, they venture to employ people who would otherwise have been relegated to trainee positions. The latter is an inferior option, according to most of the PES officers interviewed by us. This is because the implications of a genuine job include greater responsibility, enhanced self-respect and a clearer sense of fellowship with the other employees — factors with a major bearing on the individual’s personal development. Overall, then, Development Employment generates opportunities and outcomes that, with present-day regulations, cannot be achieved with any other labour-market policy programme.
Security Employment a key supplement to sheltered jobs at Samhall
The evaluation carried out by the Agency for Public Management shows that the Public Employment Service uses two different measuring methods to report on the proportions of the two priority groups of people with disabilities: those in Security Employment and those in sheltered jobs at Samhall. Information about the latter is based on what the PES staff report, by filling in a paper form, when a jobseeker starts a job at Samhall. When it comes to measuring the proportion belonging to these two groups taking up Security Employment, the PES proceeds on the basis of what is documented in its own computer registers. Accordingly, the information in the Swedish National Labour Market Administration’s annual reports for 2006 and 2007, in terms of proportions belonging to the two priority groups (people with disabilities in Security Employment and in sheltered Samhall jobs respectively) are not comparable.
The Agency for Public Management, unlike the PES, has applied a single method to measuring the proportions of people belonging to the priority groups with disabilities: those in sheltered Samhall jobs and in Security Employment. This method is based on what is documented in the PES computer registers, and corresponds to how the PES estimates the priority-group proportion among all those in Security Employment. The estimate shows that in 2006–07, the priority groups made up 53% of those in Security Employment. When it comes to sheltered Samhall jobs, the corresponding proportion is 28%. The latter figure is lower than the 40% of people with sheltered Samhall jobs who were found to belong to a priority group. If the PES had estimated and reported on the proportions of those belonging to priority groups among people given sheltered employment at Samhall in the same way as they did for those in Security Employment, it would thus not have been feasible to show that the objective had been attained. In particular, however, the Agency for Public Management has revealed by its survey that the introduction of Security Employment has been highly important, not least for people with the most severe disabilities. The Agency’s interviews also show that the PES officers are generally of the opinion that Security Employment is a valuable supplement to sheltered jobs at Samhall, since in many locations this company has difficulty in recruiting new staff in view of its inadequate order intake, insufficient access to assignments or restrictions on the number of recruits permitted.
The Agency’s proposals
The Agency for Public Management considers that there is no reason to persist in calling the model with the three initiatives a ‘three-stage model’. Instead, a model for the endeavour to provide guidance for people with disabilities, develop their skills and find long-term solutions for their employment must comprise all the programmes that directly cater for the target group in question. The Agency also makes a number of recommendations aimed at reforming and partially modifying efforts to implement some of the measures for people with disabilities, and the regulations governing these measures.
Abolition of FKV and reform of Work-oriented Rehabilitation regulations
It has not been possible for the Agency to identify any obvious differences between the individuals assigned to Work-oriented Rehabilitation on the one hand and those assigned to FKV on the other. What distinguishes the two programmes, above all, is their potential duration. Given the findings of our report, the Agency recommends the abolition of FKV as a labour-market policy programme and the use by the PES of Work-oriented Rehabilitation to survey and guide people with disabilities or facing an unclear situation in the labour market. In order to make Work-oriented Rehabilitation as coherent, brief and effective as possible, the Agency recommends that the programme should normally not last for more than three months. However, there should be scope for extending the decision for a further three months if this is deemed justifiable in order to enable participants to benefit from the requisite measures, and for the programme to have the desired result.
Abolition of payroll grants of more than four years’ duration
Many payroll grants are awarded for more than the four years referred to in the main rule in the current ordinance. The Agency for Public Management considers that, if the disability is such as to require support for more than four years, payroll grants are not the measure that should be the natural form of support: rather, this should be Security Employment. With this system, it would be clearer which applicants have jobs in which the grant is considered possible to phase out within four years and which of them need support for longer periods. The Agency therefore recommends that current regulations should be amended so that payroll grants can henceforth be provided for only four years at the most.
Extended scope for awarding arranger’s grant for jobs with payroll grant
The evaluation of the Agency for Public Management shows that the PES considers that the ‘development measures’ implemented within the framework of Development Employment are highly important for the outcome of this initiative. These development measures are financed largely by means of the ‘arranger’s grant’ that can be awarded in connection with Security Employment and Development Employment. On the other hand, this kind of support can be awarded only in special cases when it omes to employment is by means of payroll grants. With the procedure recommended above, in which payroll grants are phased out after four years, it becomes clearer that payroll grants should be seen as a development measure. There are therefore grounds for facilitating the initiation of development inputs in employment with payroll grants as well. The scope for these grants to be phased out at a faster rate is thereby also enhanced. Accordingly, the Agency for Public Management recommends that employment with payroll grants should henceforth be subject to the same regulations governing arranger’s grants as Development Employment and Security Employment.
Extending Security Employment to a broader target group
If, in the future, payroll grants cannot be awarded for longer than four years, it may cause problems for people who need support for longer periods but whose disabilities are not such that they are included in the target group for Security Employment. The Agency therefore recommends partially changing the target group for Security Employment and reducing the requirements for assignment to the programme. Henceforward, it should be possible for this measure to be approved for people who need long-term support, even if their disabilities as such are not particularly extensive. One key effect of such procedure would be that certain individuals with disabilities entailing long-term limitations will enjoy increased security. Although payroll grants for these people have often, in practice, been extended year after year, the annual renegotiations represent a source of insecurity that does not favour the individual’s development. Moreover, the Agency’s recommendations will help to bring about greater transparency and to enhance the specific impact of the grants approved by the PES.
Changed calculation of proportion belonging to priority groups
Regarding the proportion of people in a priority group who obtain sheltered employment at Samhall, information published by the National Labour Market Administration in its annual reports is not based on what the Administration has documented in its computer registers. The current method of estimation, which is based on manual handling of data, therefore means that a comparison with the size of the corresponding proportion in Security Employment is not adequate. The Agency for Public Management therefore recommends that the proportion of priority-group Samhall employees recruited should henceforth be recorded and reported on the basis of the documentation contained in the Public Employment Service’s computer registers.