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Good morning, and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2024 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. I have received apologies from Colin Smyth.

Our first item of business is the second evidence session of the committee’s inquiry into the disability employment gap in Scotland. This morning, we will focus on employers and the support that they need in order to make workplaces and recruitment practices more inclusive.

I welcome Heather Fisken, who is the chief executive of Inclusion Scotland; Vikki Manson, who is deputy head of policy at the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland; Angela Matthews, who is the head of policy and research at the Business Disability Forum; and Chirsty McFadyen, who is the knowledge exchange associate at the Fraser of Allander Institute.

As always, it would be helpful if members and witnesses could keep their questions and answers as concise as possible.

I will come first to Chirsty McFadyen with a question that I will put in some form to all the witnesses this morning. Could you talk briefly about the barriers that disabled people face in accessing and retaining employment and about where progress has been made? We are interested in examples of where and how progress is being made. What works?

Thank you. I come to Angela Matthews, who is here from the Business Disability Forum. Angela, in our papers it says that you recently carried out a survey with employers and employees. Will you talk us through that a bit and talk about the barriers and challenges that were found through that?

To go back to questions on data, is it not the case that we cannot tell from it how many people do or do not need such support?

Perhaps we could follow up on that point.

I will have to look back at the papers for last week’s meeting, but we will follow that up. I thank you all for being generous with your time this morning.

That brings us to the end of our public session, and I move the meeting into private session.

Yes—that is fine. Do you want to comment on the balance between voluntary and paid work, and whether there is a prevalence for disabled people to be expected to do voluntary rather than paid work?

Thank you, Vikki.

I now turn to Heather Fisken from Inclusion Scotland. Heather, I would be interested in finding out whether you know of any additional barriers that have not yet been identified. I also note that, in previous work, the Fraser of Allander Institute has suggested that we are making quite good progress with certain disabilities, but not such good progress with those who have a learning disability or a neurodivergent condition. Do you want to comment on that, too?

This will definitely be the final question. At last week’s meeting, we heard from local authorities that they record disability data in a framework database that the Scottish Government has established. I cannot remember the name of it right now, but do you know whether employers also feed into that?

Has there been anything recently that has improved the offer that you make? One thing that we are thinking about is whether the Government understands where it needs to do more. Is it introducing the right policy measures in order to address those challenges?

Our next item of business is the first evidence session of the committee’s inquiry into the disability employment gap in Scotland. The committee undertook some initial work in the area last year, as part of which we visited Enable and Dovetail Enterprises in Dundee and the National Autistic Society in Glasgow. This month, the committee welcomed young people and staff from The Usual Place in Dumfries and we visited the Giraffe cafe and Push reuse centre in Perth on Monday to hear directly from disabled people about their experiences of accessing the labour market. I thank all those we have met so far for giving up their time and giving us the benefit of their experience as we begin our inquiry.

This morning we will hear evidence from two witness panels, focusing on employability services for disabled people. I welcome Elizabeth Baird, who is joining us online, representing the Inverclyde local employability partnership; Dave McCallum, head of career information advice and guidance operations with Skills Development Scotland; Philip Ritchie, representing the Edinburgh local employability partnership; and Alasdair Scott, representing the Scottish Borders local employability partnership. Thank you all for attending this morning. If members and witnesses can keep their questions and answers focused, we will make good progress.

I have a broad opening question and I will come to Elizabeth Baird first. What progress has been made to reduce the barriers that disabled people face when accessing and retaining mainstream employment in Scotland? We have a commitment from the Government to close the disability employment gap and part of our inquiry will scrutinise whether we are on track to do that. Could I have your reflections on what progress has been made?