Disability Confident - Commissioner for Public Appointments

Disability Confident’s purpose is to support and encourage employers to attract, recruit, retain and promote disabled people. It has been developed with support from: disabled people, disability organisations and employers and is designed as a journey, providing employers with free advice, guidance and information.

Aims for Disability Confident

Engage and encourage employers to become more confident so they employ and retain disabled people
Increase understanding of disability and the benefits of employing or retaining disabled people
Make a substantial contribution towards getting 1 million more disabled people into work over the next 10 years

Facts about disability

250 people begin losing their sight every day.

Less than 10% of disabled people use wheelchairs.

Over half of workplaces are missing out because they are excluding disabled talent.

Hearing loss is a major public health issue affecting 10 million people.

As at July 2020, there were 4.1 million working age disabled people in employment in the UK.

The working age disability employment rate was 54% in in July 2020, up by 10 percentage points since 2013.

6% of new public appointments were made to individuals declaring a disability (compared with 7% in 2017/18 and 6% in 2016/17)

Case Studies

Further Guidance

There is information available for employers around offering an interview to disabled people (PDF, 2 pages, 217KB) and what the process means for applicants.
You can find government guidance on inclusive communications
GOV.UK also has guidance on employing people with disabilities and health conditions and more case studies and videos.
Visit the Disability Confident website to find out more about the scheme, and what it means for you as an employer, employee, or applicant.