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The Origins of the Disabled Persons Employment Quota and its Symbolic Significance*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Helen Bolderson
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Abstract

This article explores why some of the arrangements for the employment of disabled people are so resistant to change despite their evident shortcomings. From historical data it is argued that the negotiations which shaped the Disabled Persons Employment Act 1944 were motivated by sectional concerns which were detrimental to the interests of disabled people but that the legislation subsequently became symbolic of deeply felt and widely shared values. The implications of this for current policy options are discussed. An attempt is made to show how an analysis of the relationships between motives, actions and values in the policy-formation process can help to explain why some policies are both more ineffective and more persistent than others.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1980 , pp. 169 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 See The Quota Scheme for the Employment of Disabled People: A Discussion Document, Manpower Services Commission, London, 1979.Google Scholar

2 Ibid. paras 68:1 and 68:3.

3 See Jordan, David, A New Employment Programme Wanted for Disabled People, Disability Alliance and Low Pay Unit, London, 1979Google Scholar; and Walker, Alan, ‘Quota for Disabled’, Letters, New Society, 14:6 (1979).Google Scholar

4 For a fuller account of this, see Bolderson, Helen, ‘Work Incapacity and Rehabilitation: Some Problems for Social Policy’, Papers for the Symposium on the Place of the Disabled Person in Modern Society, Ditchley Park, 1971.Google Scholar

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12 The Quota Scheme for the Employment of Disabled People, paras 68:1–68:3. Surveys commissioned by the Manpower Services Commission for this report showed that although employers did not want stricter enforcement of the quota because of the inequities which might result there was nevertheless ‘a strong feeling that present legislation should be retained in order to remind employers of the needs faced by disabled people and to counter prejudice among less responsible employers’. Amongst disabled people there was ‘strong support for both the idea of special laws to help disabled people and that of a quota system’ – Manpower Services Commission, Summary of Survey of Employers Attitudes to the Employment of Disabled People, London, 1979Google Scholar, para. 13; and Manpower Services Commission, Summary of Survey of Attitudes of Disabled People to Employment Legislation, London, 1979Google Scholar, para. 10.

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14 Ibid.

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42 Disabled Persons (Employment) Bill, Clause 7(i).

43 Statutory Rules and Orders (1945), no. 938.

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49 See de Leon, op. cit.