How can legislation help to enhance employment opportunities for people with disabilities?
I have done an analysis of the different types of interventions across Europe and there is a broad range. Finland has a salary subsidy, the Czech Republic has salary subsidy and a quota system, Germany has a quota system and they use money from that to create social firms. It is different everywhere. In the UK, we have got absolutely nothing. However, there is a danger that too much subsidization kills the entrepreneurial flare. And I think that flare is vital to the sustainability of those businesses. If they get too complacent with subsidies, they are not really businesses. I think what we need is support and encouragement to develop social firms at national level but also to enable purchasing from social firms – to promote the fact that these are businesses, but businesses with social objectives. We need public procurement to include social so that individual social firms can access big procurement opportunities without feeling they are sidelined. We need a different approach to inv
