Page 4373 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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Secondly, our capacity to report levels of employment of people with disabilities is limited by the number of people who choose to disclose that they have a disability. Anecdotal evidence suggests that actual levels of employment of people with disabilities may be significantly higher than are reported. Many people who choose not to disclose their disability status do so due to concerns relating to the possibility of discrimination or adverse impact resulting from the disclosure of a disability. In some instances, people simply do not see themselves as having a disability, nor see any benefit in disclosing the fact that they have a disability.
These points, together with the recommendations provided in Making diversity work, tell us that in order to be successful our strategy will need to approach the problem of low levels of disability disclosure and employment opportunities in a more holistic manner. It is not enough to simply offer jobs. We need to ensure that our staff have the knowledge and capacity to engage effectively with agencies that represent job seekers with a disability. We need to ensure that our workplaces and practices are capable of successfully accommodating the needs of employees with disabilities and that disclosure of disabilities and requests for reasonable adjustments are met with sensitivity.
We need to work towards the development of a culture in which our staff feel confident about disclosing the fact of a disability. We need to ensure that the employment experiences of people with disabilities are positive ones so that our existing staff are encouraged to stay and others are attracted to work with us. In short, we need to develop into a “disability confident” employer. Both the strategy and the associated action plan will focus on the development of the ACT public service as a “disability confident” employer—that is, an employer that provides not only employment opportunities for people with disabilities but also opportunities that are matched by the confidence and expertise to support the development of sustainable and successful careers.
Work on the development of a new ACT public service disability employment strategy is well underway, including consultation with key stakeholders. This strategy will reflect the objectives of the ACT public service attraction and retention framework and will specifically focus on the attraction of employees with disabilities to work in the ACT public service; retention of existing ACT public service employees who have a disability; improving capability, in terms of both the development of individual employee capability, along with organisational and systemic capability; and developing organisational capacity to assess and report on our progress in implementing the strategy. It is our intention that the strategy will be a living document. Whilst the strategy itself will have a life of five years, the action plan which supports it will be refreshed every two years to evaluate and build on our progress.
Inclusion of people with all types of disabilities, spaning physical, intellectual, learning and episodic disabilities, including chronic illness and mental illness, is a clear focus of the strategy document. We recognise that some types of disability are particularly under-represented in the ACT public service workforce profile and that specific employment programs may be required to promote inclusion of these groups.
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