‘Improving lives’

In November 2017, the white paper Improving lives, the future of work, health and disability took a different direction, concentrating mainly on disability and on getting people into employment. It set out a 10-year strategy to improve the employment prospects of disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, pointing out that people with disabilities are twice as likely to move out of work and almost three times less likely to move into work compared with non-disabled people.

But it also flagged up potential policy changes which, if implemented, would affect sick pay and absence management more generally. These concerned aspects of the Fit Note scheme (see page 37), the Fit for Work assessment scheme (see page 37), Access to Work (which provides money to support workplace adjustments, see page 45) and to Statutory Sick Pay.

The white paper also confirmed the influence of a number of other contemporary reports that have addressed aspects of health and sickness absence, in particular Thriving at work: the Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers (see page 16); Good Work: The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices (see page 91); and Dame Carol Black’s An independent review of the impact on employment outcomes for drug and alcohol addiction and obesity (see page 18).