A spokesman said: "Being disabled or having a long term health problem can act as a badge of exclusion in Britain’s workplaces.
"Our survey of small and medium sized businesses - published today - found that three out of four employers have no procedures for managing staff with mental health problems.
"We also found that managers are more reluctant to provide workplace adjustments for new staff with a mental health condition than they are for existing employees.
"With so many people on benefit and wanting to work - 40 per cent of whom have a mental health problem – bolstering employers' confidence is a key and crucial way of getting more disabled people into work.
"The DRC’s five point plan - also published today - calls on the government to provide practical support for employers such as a free helpline, more and better training for Jobcentre Plus staff and better access for people with mental health problems to training in the skills employers need."
A full press release can be found here.
Stakeholder Response: British Retail Consortium
A spokesman said: "The UK retail sector is a service industry whose business success depends on providing a good experience to the consumer.
"The nine million disabled people in the UK are an important part of the industry’s customer base and retailers are extremely keen to provide them with an accessible and responsive service.
"The retail sector is also a major UK employer, accounting for 11% of all UK employment and as such is committed to ensuring disabled people access employment and to raising staff awareness within their organisations.
"By promoting diversity and operating effective equal opportunities policies retailers have been able to attract and retain a diverse workforce.
"As part of its commitment to equality of access, The British Retail Consortium in association with the Disability Rights Commission produced a guide for the retail sector on compliance with the Disability Discrimination Legislation."
A copy of the guide can be found here.
Stakeholder Response: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Dianah Worman, CIPD diversity adviser, says: "There is a clear business case for recruiting a diverse workforce which includes opening doors to disabled people, such as reflecting a broader customer base, improving products and services to meet more diverse needs and improvements in the recruitment and retention of talent.
"A diverse workforce – recruiting people regardless of disability, background, gender, and age – will help employers to adapt to the challenges organisations face in today’s highly competitive and complex global marketplace, enabling them to find opportunities to grow new business ideas, identify new markets and keep ahead of competitors."
"There is a real need to raise awareness to alert employers to the importance of diversity issues, why it makes business sense to address diversity, how to do it, and how to implement policies and manage."
"There is a perception that people with disabilities are more likely to take time of work due to sickness absence than able bodied people and CIPD research shows that employers are wary when it comes to hiring people with a history of health problems, especially those who have been jobless and on incapacity benefits for long periods of time which can include people with disabilities."
Stakeholder Response: United Response
A spokesman said: "United Response welcomes David Cameron's call for employers to recruit more disabled people.
"We also welcome the many steps which this government has already taken to tackle discrimination, including the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act.
"People with learning disabilities often face significant barriers in the job market. Rates of employment among people with learning disabilities are currently below 10 per cent.
"Although demographic trends suggest that employers will need to recruit from groups they may have previously passed over, more needs to be done to communicate to employers the benefits of employing people with learning disabilities and how to support them in the workplace.
"United Response’s experience of providing job support, employment and training programmes shows that employers value the contribution which people with learning disabilities can make to their businesses, and we would like to see these kinds of programmes expanded.
"Employment is an important source of independence, self esteem and inclusion for many of the people we support with learning disabilities.
"However, many of those who would like to work have no opportunity to do so. Higher priority should be given by government to facilitating employment for people with learning disabilities.
"At the moment there is a lack of suitable programmes to enable them to enter employment.
"The JobCentre Plus programmes which do exist are generally time-limited to 13 weeks: people with learning disabilities are likely to need longer than this to be ready to work independently.
"For people with learning disabilities some form of ongoing support is often the key to successful employment but is rarely provided within government welfare to work programmes.
"The new Pathways to Work programme within New Deal for Disabled People does allow for ongoing support, but it is targeting mental health, muscular skeletal and cardiovascular cases – not learning disabilities.
"Generally people with learning disabilities have low priority within the welfare to work programme.
"The current level of the Access to Work budget earmarked for adaptations and support for disabled people in employment is too low to allow nationwide rollout of ongoing employment support for people with learning disabilities.
"We would like to see a specific budget in every local area for employment support for people with learning disabilities."
