Recruitment and retention plan for disabled people: 2019

1. Executive Summary

The Scottish Government Recruitment and Retention Plan for Disabled People (“the Plan”) sets out the actions we will take as an employer to support more disabled people into work in Scottish Government and to enable existing disabled employees to thrive and succeed at work. 

It has been developed in partnership with the Council of Scottish Government Unions, with advice and insight from Disabled People’s Organisations and, importantly, through dialogue and engagement with disabled people who work for the Scottish Government. We will continue this engagement as we take action to deliver the Plan.

The Plan sets four outcomes which define the actions we will take:

Outcome 1. We become an employer of choice for disabled people with strong representation of disabled people at all levels of our workforce.

Action to deliver this outcome includes improving the recruitment experience for disabled people applying to the Scottish Government and setting a target for external recruitment that, over the next 7 years, on average 25% of successful candidates will be disabled people. This aims to ensure we are on track to fulfil our ambition to be representative of the people of Scotland by 2025. 

Outcome 2. We have an inclusive and supportive culture where disabled people can be themselves at work.

We will achieve this by working to build knowledge, confidence and skill in our managers and greater awareness across our workforce through focused communications and a range of learning and development offers. We will implement our new wellbeing strategy to raise awareness of mental and physical disability and we will offer mutual mentoring for senior leaders and disabled colleagues.

Outcome 3. Our corporate policies and practices work well, and work well together, to enable disabled people to thrive at work.

We will commission research on the collective impacts of our policies to understand better what makes a difference to disabled people being successful at work. We will work to improve our disability impact assessments when developing new or revised policies. We will ensure policies and guidance are accessible – easily located, formatted for accessibility, using inclusive language and written in plain English. 

Outcome 4. We create accessible workplaces where everyone can thrive at work.

Work to achieve this outcome will include reviewing our approach to workplace adjustments to deliver a consistent, efficient and expert service for disabled colleagues. We will test Disability Passports to enable adjustments to move with the person as they move to different jobs within the Scottish Government. We will be taking every opportunity to make our working spaces more accessible and supportive of success for disabled people.