Mar 31, 2023
In this episode, we focus on a powerful example of when the numbers alone are simply not enough. The most recent Census has told us how many people have some form of disability but to really understand the nature of those disabilities and the needs of people reporting them we need to do a lot more work.
Guiding us through this work, is Helen Colvin, joint lead for Census and Disability Analysis at the ONS; Shona Horter, Head of Qualitative Research at the ONS Centre for Equalities and Inclusion; David Ainslie, Principal Analyst in the Analytical Hub of ONS and Matt Mayhew, Senior Statistical Officer in the Policy Evidence and Analysis Team.
Transcript
MILES FLETCHER
Hello and welcome again to another edition of Statistically Speaking, the Office for National Statistics podcast.
In this series, we've spent a lot of time explaining how statistics can brilliantly illuminate important issues, and this time we're focusing on a powerful example of when the numbers alone are simply not enough.
The most recent census has told us how many people have some form of disability and where they live. It's a good place to start of course, but to really understand the nature of those disabilities, and the needs of the people reporting them, we need to do a lot more work and that work is the subject of today's discussion.
Here to guide us through it we have Helen Colvin, joint lead for Census disability analysis at the ONS; Shona Horter, head of qualitative research at the ONS Centre for equalities and inclusion; David Ainslie, Principal Analyst at the analytical hub of ONS; and Matt Mayhew, senior statistical officer in the policy evidence and analysis team.
Helen to
start with you, I mentioned the census there and those numbers
showing us the scale of disability as defined by Census. Is it fair
to say that census remains the sort of statistical bedrock
of our understanding of disability - the single most important
source?
HELEN
COLVIN
Yes that’s right. I'd agree with that.
So it's the main source that covers the
whole of our population.
So it's the best truth that you have, if
you like, of what our population is like, and the proportion of
disabled people within our population.
MF
And these were
people, responding in their
households, to the question which
said what precisely?
HC
It said: Do you have any physical or
mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or
more? And if people answered yes to that, they were
asked:
Do any of your
conditions or illnesses reduce your ability to carry out day to day
activities? A lot, a little, or not at all.
MF
What did you have to answer to
that to be classified as disabled?
HC
To be classified as
disabled - If you answered that you had
a
long term condition which affects
your
day to day activities a lot or a little
then we regarded that as somebody as disabled. And the reason for that is
that at
ONS we
measure disability against the Equality Act definition of
disability and that really identifies somebody as disabled if they
have a
long term condition, and if it limits their
day to day activities. And we do that so that
we're
able to report
against the progress on the Equality Act in the
UK.
MF
And the key element it would seem
that -
obviously
we're
talking about
disability - is your ability to do day to day
tasks and a sustained limitation.
HC
That's right, that needs to
be...
to be disabled under
the Equality Act there needs to be a
long term thing which affects you for up
to 12 months or more. And it needs to be something which
does impact you on your ability to carry out
day to day activities. And that's really something that is
arguably
focusing on the medical model of
disability, so focuses on how you
can't
do things because of
your impairment because of the environment around
you.
MF
Now that question is slightly
different from the one asked in 2011. Why was that
changed?
HC
So in 2011,
we asked a very similar question, but we did remove a
prompt which asked people to include problems specifically related
to old age and this really was about bringing it more in line with
the Equality Act, which doesn't have that
emphasis.
Problems
related to older ages still classified as disability, but it
wasn't
making it the same
kind of focus of the question, and another part that we changed
was to remove the word disability because of course, disabled means
different things to different people. And we tried to measure it
slightly more objectively by using our own definition rather than
asking about people's own opinions if they were disabled. And this
time we also included mental health within the question, and we
think that that could have influenced the raises that we saw
among younger people.
MF
But how big an influence do we think
that?
HC
So in census
2021, we did see an increase among younger people being classified
as disabled compared to 2011. And this did stand out particularly
for females slightly more than males. We think there was also
possibly a real change in population at that time down to the
pandemic, with more people showing signs around depression and
mental health problems, particularly at the period that the census
was conducted.
MF
And there remains of course, underlying all this.
This is census data. This is people's own assessment of their
ability. How is that benchmarked perhaps against
other
sources?
HC
So it's obviously a different measure
from other sources. Other data might be more medically based,
so GP records, that kind of
thing, which
is more based on actual conditions as opposed to
disability.
MF
And do we think that some
people perhaps consider
themselves disabled
who might not be defined as disabled under other
circumstances?
HC
Absolutely. I think disability
means different
things to different people and some people who might be regarded as
disabled under the Equality Act specifically wouldn't want themselves to be looked at
that way. And conversely, some people which may not be captured by
that definition, may want themselves to be, so there are many
different ways you can conceptualise and define
disability.
So this is
one way to try and do that and to measure disability in a slightly
more objective way.
MF
And being defined as disabled within
that census definition that you've set out for us, how does that
match against other criteria of disability, perhaps when it comes to gaining
access to benefits or services?
HC
So it has a
different definition and a different way
of being
assessed.
So for
instance, if somebody wanted to access benefits, then
there's
a completely
different threshold and set of criteria that they would
need
to meet through Work
and Pensions.
MF
There's a tension there
isn’t
there, perhaps between
people who answered
in the affirmative on this on the Census but then
wouldn't
qualify as a
disabled in the eyes of officialdom for want of a better
word.
HC
Possibly, but we don't have that data within the ONS or
around the DWP benefits data for this kind of
use,
to look at the match
between our definition and the DWP assessment
criteria.
MF
So you’ve shown us a complex picture
there,
tell
us about the
harmonisation work that's been going on across
ONS to really develop and
refine our understanding of disability as a
concept.
HC
Yeah, so there's an ongoing programme of work,
taking place to review the current harmonised standards and update
them so that they can be more aligned with current
conceptualization of disability impairments and conditions and try
and ensure that they really relate to and reflect people's
experiences. There's been a programme of research and
engagement to find out the ways in which the standards are not
currently performing, and what some of
the
key issues and gaps
are,
and
that's
due to be published
in the end of March. And then the next step will be to outline in
detail the plan over the coming year. So so
far, the engagement
activities have included speaking to data users, a variety of
different organisations, government departments, charities, really
including everyone across the spectrum, who are people who would
use and engage with those harmonised standards to understand a bit
more about the needs. And like I said, the kind of priorities and
gaps and then the next step will be undertaking research to think
about how best
can we change
and update those standards so that they, like I said, are really
reflective
and
current.
And one
thing in
particular that needs to be looked at being
included is adding neurodiversity as a potential category.
So at
the moment that's not currently listed within the
impairment categories. And
so feedback
has been that many people who are neurodiverse don't identify with the current kind
of categorization and wording that's used. So that will be
really
important going
forward.
MF
And that’s also an important reflection of the
constantly changing perception of what disability is in
society. And from that the challenge of assessing and measuring it,
Helen on the Census we've recently published our results
as we've already mentioned in this
discussion, but would you like to unpack those for us? We know that
the number of disabled people went up since
2011.
HC
Yes, that's right.
So the number
of disabled people went up, but the actual overall proportion of
disabled people fell in the population. And it's important to state that we standardise this
data. And that's a statistical method which
enables us to, to kind of compare
like with like,
so it accounts for the different population age structure
between 2011 and 2021.
So in 2021,
we saw a slight fall in the proportion of disabled people in the
population.
So it's currently 18% in England falling
from 19% in 2011. And in Wales, it's now 21% falling from 23% in
2011.
MF
And what were the drivers of
that? That's a fascinating
find.
HC
That’s right.
So some
people might be slightly surprised by that, but it is a small
decrease which we might expect to find in a population where people
are living
longer and
healthier life expectancy is improving. And there may have been
other influences such as the pandemic.
So
asking people how
they feel about their health and disability during the pandemic may
have affected how they responded as well.
MF
But how does the data break down
by region, and by age and by
gender?
HC
Say for gender, we saw that
females were more likely to be disabled than males. And we had a
particularly interesting finding around older people.
So there was
a big decrease among older people who've been disabled in 2021 Compared
to 2011. And that was particularly true among those who were
limited a lot by their disability. Obviously, we've talked about the question change
where we removed a prompt, which then include problems related to
old age, so that may have reduced the number of older people
thinking of their conditions as a part of a
disability. But we did see that that data was the same for the
health question which preceded it as well.
So we do
think it's a real change in the population.
And another aspect of that may have been due to Coronavirus.
So we did
very sadly see a lot of deaths among disabled people during COVID.
But that wouldn't fully account for the changes
that we've seen.
So we
think there's also an improvement in health of
older people more generally as
well.
MF
Oh,
that's
a reflection of the
healthy life expectancy that we've discussed in other podcasts already,
perhaps over
and
above the COVID
factor that you mentioned.
HC
Yes, that's right.
MF
A greater
prevalence of disability among younger people, and that was very
much reflected, perhaps
unsurprisingly, in deprived
areas.
HC
Yes, that's right.
So the change
that we saw for younger people, again was stronger for
females than for males. It was true for
both
genders, but females saw slightly higher
proportions of disability than males. And that had increased
particularly in the 20 to 24 age group, and the surrounding age groups
to that, and that corresponds with some
another analysis we've done where we found higher
proportions of people with mental health
problems,
such as depression
in those age groups. And we have the same outcome for
health in general as well, where there is a correlation
between that age group showing poorer health
and more
disability.
MF
So overall, is disability
remaining
fairly
static from
census to census?
HC
That's right. Well, we have seen the
numbers of people have increased but the proportion as a population
has stayed reasonably
static. There
are small falls, which does tally with the kind of improvements in
health, but overall, it is showing the sorts of trends that we
would expect, but we do see one in five people in the population as
disabled, which is quite stark and does make us remember that we
really need to think about how to improve the inequalities for this
population. You mentioned just now about deprivation and
deprivation among younger people, and that was an interesting
finding we've had from the census data as
well. It's not really a surprise to see
that in deprived areas more people are likely to be disabled. But
what we also found is that that occurs for younger age groups. So
younger people in deprived areas are more likely to be disabled
across all
of the age
groups than
non-disabled people.
MF
That's the strength of the census of
course, that you can get that
really, really
local picture
of where disabled people
are,
as well as their
overall numbers.
HC
Yes, and the index of Multiple
Deprivation enables us to understand those areas that
are
more deprived or
less deprived, so that we can look at those
at a
more aggregate level as
well.
MF
Helen, thank you for taking us
through the insight, fascinating
insight, produced by the
Census.
But
Shona,
there
is much
more
to the
ONS’ work on understanding
disability. Could you set out some of that for
us?
SHONA
HORTER
Yeah, of course. And I can start by
just giving some brief background, there was an independent group
of experts who were convened, following the request of the national
Statistician in 2020, to look at the inclusivity of data and
evidence across the UK more broadly, and to make recommendations as
to how we can make a step-change to really ensure that
everyone counts and is counted within data and evidence and that
programme of work identified disability as one key area that we
really need to ensure that questions and concepts are accurately
reflecting the experiences of individuals. They also identified the need for more qualitative
approaches as part of this. So, we need that alongside our
quantitative data. We also need to be really speaking to people and
understanding their lived experiences
MF
Because statistics and
numbers,
and to really
understand people's experience of disability, we need to hear from
them directly.
SH
Exactly, exactly. And the
qualitative can also help us to understand the how and the why
beyond the numbers, so we can understand more about
the lived reality of people's experiences, the barriers that people
face in daily life and people's views as to what could help to
improve things going forward. But also, we can understand where we might
see patterns in the data, we can actually
look at what
is the social context beyond what's happening on the ground that
might be shaping those experiences.
So it's a really, really
important thing that we include alongside
our statistics.
MF
So what sort
of patterns have we been seeing from the data?
Helen?
HC
Similar in ONS we collect quite a range
of data that encapsulates different
disabled people across some of the different data sources that we
collect. So, one of the main surveys that we
do is the annual population survey which captures people across the
UK.
Every year we collect data
from about 320,000 people. And the picture that we're having from that data is,
unfortunately that disabled people tend to fare less well across
the things that we measure, say for instance, they're less likely to be happy,
they're
less likely to see
their life as worthwhile, life satisfaction is poor
and they're likely to be more anxious
than non-disabled people. And we've also seen from other surveys,
like the Community in Life Survey that
shows that disabled people are more likely to feel lonely.
So these are
all not positive outcomes. But some of the more positive ones that
we have seen around education data, for instance, is showing that
the proportion of disabled people with a degree has been steadily
climbing since 2014. And the proportion of those who have no
education has been steadily falling. It's not as in-line with non-disabled people. So disabled people are
still less likely to have degrees than their non-disabled
counterparts, but it's still a positive trend that we
do see, but that does unfortunately, then feed into things like
employment data, which we'll talk about more shortly, but
with disabled people less likely to be employed.
They're
also less likely to
own their own homes and more likely to live in social housing. And
when we look at the Crime Survey for England and Wales, we
also see that disabled people are more likely to experience things
like antisocial behaviour and problems with nuisance
neighbours than non-disabled
people.
So
it's
unfortunately not a
positive picture when we look at the data more generally for
disabled people.
MF
Nonetheless, that statistical picture fleshes out
quite considerably the understanding we get from
the
census.
So
far, we've discussed a variety of different
insights on the outcomes for disabled people, but we
haven't
looked at their
experience in the workforce and how being disabled can come
with additional costs. David, what are our data telling us
about that experience in the workplace and the restrictions as well
as the opportunities?
DAVID
AINSLIE
So data from
the Labour Force Survey shows in the last three months of 2020 to
the latest data, and considering just working age
adults, about half of disabled adults are in employment, so
that's
around 5 million
disabled adults. So, this compares with about
8
in 10
when you consider non-disabled adults, the gap and rate
between these two groups has decreased slightly over the last
decade. In 2013, the earliest
comparison we can make is that 4 in 10 disabled adults are
employed compared with around three quarters of
non-disabled adults. Some analysis
from the Department for Work and Pensions suggests
there's
a range of factors
that contribute to why this gap has decreased only slightly in the
last decade, the largest factor probably being
the overall
disability prevalence itself has increased over the last decade.
This tends to suggest that more people in work are becoming
disabled than necessarily disabled people becoming employed. And
there are other factors too, like overall changes in the size of
the working population and general employment trends over the
period.
MF
So this is
more a question really, of people being able to hang on to their
jobs despite having a limiting condition?
DA
So yes, to an extent, there are
some quite stark findings in analysis of longitudinal data from the
Labour Force Survey, and this has suggested that disabled
workers tend to move out of being employed over an annual
period at around twice the rate
of
non-disabled
workers, to about 9% compared to 5%. By contrast,
disabled people not in employment tend to move into being employed
over a
12 month period at around a third of the
rate of non-disabled people. So, 10% versus 27% here.
MF
So what's the evidence of the ability to
work from home as encouraging more disabled people into the
workforce?
DA
So
the general trend of
a slightly closing employment gap has actually
stalled a bit
since the start of the COVID pandemic. More research is
definitely
needed here
to see what the impact of the pandemic has been as well as to look
at if there's an impact of an increased
ability to work from home. It's worth noting that the pattern of
occupations that disabled people and non-disabled people tend to work in look a
little different. So in the latest data, data again from the Labour Force
Survey, working disabled people were less likely to be working in
things like management in professional occupations
than
non-disabled people, but more likely
than
non-disabled people to be in occupations that
might have been shut down during the pandemic or those where you
might have had to work closely with people.
So occupations such as in caring
and leisure, or in sales and customer
service, type occupations. This will of course have had some
impact on people's ability to work from home. Lastly
on
this,
of people who are in
work at
the moment,
the latest data from our opinions and lifestyle survey,
show it's actually
a fairly
similar proportion of disabled and
non -disabled adults report working
from home, hybrid working or indeed
travelling to work.
MF
So not a fantastic
picture perhaps for those with lifetime limiting
conditions. But what did the data tell us about pay between
disabled and non-disabled people Matt, what is the earnings
gap?
MATT
MAYHEW
So
there's a similar sort
of negative picture here as
well.
So the latest
data we have on the annual population survey from 2021, showed that
disabled employees on average were paid around 14% less than
non-disabled employees. The gap
appears to have widened slightly since 2014, whereas this was about
12%.
If
you
tally this
in pounds and
pence terms using the latest data, the average pay was
around £12.10 pence per hour
with
disabled adults, compared to about
£14.03
per hour for
non-disabled
adults.
MF
And David, what evidence do we have about
how
different
types
of disability
affects your chances of being in work and earning
money?
DAVID
AINSLIE
So the
definition of disability of course covers a wide range of
people
impacted by a whole variety of physical
and mental health conditions and to different
extents.
So the
averages we've described cover
a
really broad
group. But we've explored the Labour Force Survey
data further, we've looked at both employment rates
and pay by a variety of factors that are
important to these things, such as the severity of
disability, the number of and types of health conditions people
report having, as well as some other things. But for example, in
the latest data, the lowest employment rates were seen among those
who reported they had severe or specific learning difficulties,
autism or any mental health conditions with employment rates around
about 25 to 30%. At the other end of the scale, disabled adults
whose impairments were due to hearing, or skin
conditions or allergies, had the highest employment
rates,
around 60 to
70%.
MF
And is this a similar picture with
pay,
Matt?
MATT
MAYHEW
So when we
look at pay, there's a similar sort of
variation.
So
the largest pay gap
is for disabled boys reporting autism as their main health condition, who
have been paid an average of about a
third less than non -disabled employees without any health
conditions.
Whereas the
next largest pay gap is with those with depression with 18%
less. By contrast, on the other side of
the scale, for those reporting difficulties with seeing, there was actually
no
pay
gap
observed between the two groups. And in
fact, we observed for those difficulties in
hearing, were on average paid about 5% more than non-disabled
employees. Severity of impairment
is important too.
So the pay
gap between disabled people who are limited a lot in their
day-to-day
activities
and non-disabled
adults is
about 20%, whereas those where their condition limits
them a little, about 12%.
Lastly, it's important to remember that when
considering both pay and employment, that disabled
and
non-disabled people have patterns of
other characteristics creating difference
between
them,
such as age,
sex,
where they
live,
and the type of
occupations they have, and they are quite often quite
different.
To look at
this on the pay side we have modelled what the differences between
the average pay of a disabled and non-disabled employee might look
like,
if
the two groups have
the same patterns or personal characteristics, similar ages, same
sex distributions and job characteristics such as doing the same
jobs, to see what effect
that has. When we do this, the differences
in the average pay between disabled and non-disabled employees are
narrower but
still
persist between the two
groups.
MILES
FLETCHER
Shona, it's all very well to talk about a
superimposed definition of disability, statistics tend to bring two
issues, but our qualitative work
has
actually
thrown
up some fresh
insights on what sort of
characteristics make up disability?
SHONA
HORTER
Yeah, and we've undertaken two quite large
qualitative studies over the last year. One looking at the
experiences of disabled adults accessing and engaging with
activities, goods and services in the private
sector and the other looking at the educational experiences of
children and young people with special educational needs and
disabilities. And through both those studies, we found a really a
huge variation in people's experiences of disability or impairment.
Many people have invisible impairments or conditions. People can
have multiple impairments and comorbidities that can
interact.
So for
example, physical conditions can be accompanied by mental health
difficulties. And there can be a cyclical relationship that people
describe as being catch-22. If you're struggling with your physical
health, and that can exacerbate mental health, which can then
cycle back into other challenges.
So it's really
important
to understand that
variety of experience and
also how
that can link to individuals' identity. So that can be a real
process of adjusting to a diagnosis or to living with an impairment
or condition and that can require adjusting one's own identity. And
can also be different if you've recently acquired a condition or
if
you've
had it for your
whole life. And that's also linked to the
social, so a lot of people spoke
about
anticipating judgement of
others, being seen as different
and
the
vulnerability that can come with that, and the anticipated stigma.
So there are
lots of reasons why people won't necessarily identify as
disabled, or reasons why people may not
identify with a specific condition, illness or impairment. And some young
people also talked about diagnostic labels that they saw themselves
as having such as dyslexia or autism. ADHD, that could help to
explain their learning and support needs. But
actually, many
really didn't want to have labels that were
used to justify any kind of different treatment, different
opportunities and some rejected the label
altogether.
So it's really
just
understanding that
nuance and the multifaceted nature of people's experiences and
identity around this.
MF
And you made an
interesting
point there about
disability
that
perhaps is invisible to others, unlike some
forms of disability, which then people benefit from a recognition of
that,
but then
others
perhaps
suffer
from not having the
disability recognised.
SH
Yeah, and that can
be
really
complex.
So we're working on a paper on that very topic at the moment that
we're planning to publish soon, that actually that's
another layer of, on the one hand, people describe
being able to potentially hide having a condition or impairment
that means that you might be able to avoid anticipated stigma, or
discrimination or kind of negative reaction of the public but also,
often people describe needing to disclose their condition or
impairment in order to access the support that means they would be
able to then access and engage with different areas of life so
there can be quite a lot of vulnerability around that and that can
also intersect with other characteristics.
So people
described the additional layers of vulnerability linked
to gender linked to ethnicity that can form multiple, multiple
layers of discrimination.
MF
And thereby we get to a much
more useful understanding of, say a wider pattern of disadvantage
generally.
SH
Yeah, and
also
really the need to
understand me, what came through so
clearly in both
of these
studies was the need
to be flexible and to listen to and understand people's different
needs.
MF
So this qualitative work
is
providing a much richer understanding of a
wider pattern of disadvantage of which disability is but one
factor.
SH
Yeah, and I think it
really, these studies have both really
highlighted the importance of having flexibility in listening to
and understanding people's different needs. What we saw from both young
people's perspectives and the perspectives of adults was really
that just having that need for additional support. That means that you can
fully and meaningfully participate in education and daily life in a
range of different activities, goods and services. One of
the
particular
difficulties
I think, around
invisible impairments that the findings presented was what people
described as a need to prove their
worthiness or prove their legitimacy of access to additional support needs. And that could bring
an
additional challenge, and
also
an
additional level of stigma and
vulnerability, that many people
described facing backlash when, for
example, having a lanyard or a badge that indicated the need for additional support. That there's that “disbelieveability”
around that as
well.
So I
think
it was really emphasised
through all our
studies how
important it is that there's increased awareness about people's
different experiences and needs and that there's increased
understanding and support for that put in
place.
MF
And so the knowledge base continues to grow. The time of recording this, we're beginning to be able to step back and look at the pandemic period. What do we understand of that at the moment, in terms of its impact on disabled people at the time of the pandemic, and perhaps some of the lasting impacts and effects of it?
SH
Yeah, and I can comment briefly on the qualitative research there and Helen, it would be good to hear more about the quantitative findings on this. We found a really mixed picture in terms of experiences through the pandemic. So in some ways, the increased move to online services, groups, and education classes really opened up the world for people and could facilitate and support access and engagement and also could really support social contact. So many people described being able to join groups and networks that they hadn't previously been able to do as a result of, for example, physical access barriers. So that was really, really positive. But on the other hand, there was a real disadvantage for those who are digitally excluded. And we know that disabled people are disproportionately digitally excluded. Also in other ways the pandemic contributed to increased fear, increased isolation, so people talked about having increased social contact online, but that didn't necessarily replace the real in person activities and social contact. Some also found it quite difficult to engage and focus with online format. So particularly describing the cognitive demands that could be difficult for those with memory and learning, understanding or concentration impairments in particular, and real difficulties in accessing the required support. So SEN support was said to be quite slow to return to schools, and some children and young people with physical needs couldn't return to school safely without that support. So there was a kind of lasting impact there as well.
MF
And what's the future of the qualitative side of this work as well? Will that continue alongside the regular sources of overarching data?
SH
Yeah, I think it's important to continue to think about where we have gaps in our evidence and understanding and where there are questions that we can address qualitatively. And also considering having more mixed methods approaches. So where we can consider including qualitative components alongside our statistics to better understand some of these particular questions in more detail. So for example, one of the qualitative studies I've just mentioned was around the additional cost of disability. So, many people spoke about the additional financial costs like added premiums for insurance or for medical equipment compared to similar equipment that might be purchased by somebody who's not disabled, and we know that that's likely to become evermore difficult with the cost of living crisis. So whether that's an area that could warrant further exploration, I think it's just continuing to think about what are the key questions, evidence gaps and the needs for us to be addressing to ensure that we can inform policy and practice and make sure that our data is speaking to people's experiences and needs.
MF
Thank you, Shona. Helen, is there anything you'd like to add on that?
HELEN COLVIN
Yeah, absolutely. I think the work that Sona’s team have been doing around qualitative research with disabled people is so valuable for helping to really illustrate the findings that we tend to get from the aggregated data that ONS has been more traditionally producing this. So where during the pandemic those qualitative interviews really showed and highlighted the day to day situations that disabled people were living with, because alongside that we also ran a survey on the opinion survey about disabled people's access to products and services and the data that we had from that very much supported the sort of experiences that people were reporting to Shona. So we found that disabled people had more difficulty accessing products and services during the pandemic than non- disabled people, and much of that appeared to be down to difficulties using transport, having places to rest and with practical things like crossing the roads, crossing footpaths, and moving around buildings, which were evident in some of the sort of lived experience quotes that Shona’s team were picking up on as well.
MF
How to statisticians go about the whole question though of deciding whether it is disabilities that’s the driver here, or whether there are other factors that ought to be considered first?
HC
Yeah, good question. So we know that in a lot of the outcomes that we look at disabled people tend to fare worse than non-disabled people. This isn't likely to be down to just being disabled per se. We think it's more likely that no single factor is going to explain the kind of outcomes that we see. It's more likely that there is a range of disadvantages experienced by disabled people which lead to this difference for non-disabled and disabled people.
MF
Overall then, an awful lot of work is being done, a wealth of data and understanding, where's this work going now? And how it can inform really effective interventions and policies and services to support disabled people?
HC
As we
mentioned, we measure disability against the Equality
Act, and that's really
crucial for
us to be able to understand how as a country we are performing in
terms of monitoring and reducing inequalities for disabled people.
The data that we collect and publish then feeds directly to policy
makers.
So one of our
key stakeholders for my team is the Cabinet Office and working with
their disability units. We make sure that they have the
information they need to make policy but also thinking about local
authorities monitoring that policy
impact, monitoring the outcomes in their
area
and thinking about
what they can do in terms of planning to support disabled
people.
But
also our data
is used widely by the third sector and lobbyists to
hold government to account, to look at these inequalities
and say, what's happening here? What are you
doing about this and of course, it's really
valuable for
the citizen users and public interest to know what the situation is
for disabled people in our population.
MF
Well, that is it for another
episode of Statistically Speaking, thanks very much to all our
guests for another fascinating discussion. For news about these
podcasts, and
the work of the Office for National
Statistics, and to comment
or ask us
a question,
please find us on
Twitter at @ONSFocus. That’s it from me Miles Fletcher. Our producer at the ONS
is
Julia Short. Thanks for listening, and
until next time, goodbye.
ENDS