On disability policy and resilience. An interview with Philip Connolly.

The last two weeks have been something of a whirl wind, from an idea I had on 6th February to launching the Business Success Network for Disabled Entrepreneurs on 8th and hitting 100 members 13 days later (more on that in my next blog), I don’t think my feet have touched the floor since!

It’s been amazing the response I’ve had from people when I’ve told them that I want to create a supportive community — including from Phillip Connelly, the founder of the Disability Resilience Network — who checked me out as soon as I contacted him, and just happened to be in my neck of the woods the week after and wanted to meet.

We talked about the realities of being a disabled entrepreneur and my own story of getting here, but as for the interview questions themselves — as I want everything to be partly community led, I asked them what they would like to know.

The conversation was interesting.

All right, first thing I want to know is, what was it that made you decide to set up the resilience network?

Well, I felt that these people were members of communities, but there was no community. I felt there wasn’t enough union and unison, and I wanted to make a contribution to that, but I felt that if I was to set up an organisation, it would then become a test of loyalty. Do you support your own organisation or this new organisation? And I didn’t want to put people through a test of loyalty, so I created a network and said you could join anything, almost anything you could be a member of, but you could also be a member of our network. And so, there was no conflict. It was more bringing people together.

And it wasn’t requiring people to believe anything except that more change was possible and that we could be self-supporting more. We could be more supporting to one another. And so, I decided to create the network, because I felt that in a network it’s easier. Everybody has equal status in the network and the network exists wherever people exist.

It and so it was more egalitarian. And I felt like the beauty of a network was that it was possible to go and talk to your CEO in the network, where you might not be able to do that in a workplace, and your CEO might come and talk to you in the network, but they probably would never do so in the workplace, and particularly in organisations that are very hierarchical, like the military. Or often charities are often modelled on military. They’re often modelled on that because often they were founded by people who were leaving the military. So, in charities often have long chains of command, local government does. I thought by creating a network, we make it easier for people to talk to each other on an equal basis. And the only thing that’s really important is the merit of the idea.

There was a question about access to funding and why is the timing not sensible? Like the length of time to process claims on things like access to work is quite prohibitive and it can mean business owners can’t either offer their services or they want to hire new staff and everything’s waiting. Do you know of any support around this that would really help employees or employers?

That’s a very good question. Access to work. I’ve done a lot in recent years to speed up the process of making a claim and in fact they would claim they could deal with quite a high proportion of claims within a month. I’ve been to meetings where I’ve seen them planning for that. How often they can deliver that, I don’t know. In the whole history of access to work, it’s been bedevilled by claims of delays. And there’s no doubt, historically at least, that there were a lot of delays.

I think the current wait is about 18 weeks.

That is unacceptable, unacceptably long. And I think the administration of access to work, because it only really happens in three centres in the whole country, is underfunded in order to deter applications, which is ridiculous.

A lot more people know about it now as well, so I think that might be impacting it.

Yes, and we’re in quite a buoyant labour market and so there may be more applications, but they should set some kind of minimum standard and resource that to be able to deliver on that more than 90% of the time.

People should lobby their MPs on how long access to work applications take or copy their MP in when they enter to correspondence. So, the MP can see that anything they can do to nudge the speed, so it’s going to meet their correspondence wishes or preferences. I would urge people to copy their MP and correspond with access to work with the expectation that they should deliver much quicker. And beyond that, access to work gives big employers, notably the post office, and those kinds of groups, and some of the banks too, I believe a kind of national contract, in the expectation that they’re going to be taking on staff very frequently. And so there ought to be some kind of speed up process on access to work applications.

If you’re big enough, you can negotiate your own terms. And that does happen, or at least has happened. So why not for an area or why not for a business? Try it. Because government is supposed to want to see small businesses flourish in the same way in which to give support to the very largest businesses. So, test that. Test that.

You sound like you’ve been sort of involved quite a bit, in finding out about access to work. Do you know why their first offer is always so low and it takes between two to five renegotiations to get something you can actually work with, with what you’re asking for?

That’s a very good question. I didn’t know that. What I do suspect is that it’s because they’re trying to stretch the budget. The budget for access to work is demand led. So, in theory, there are no limits, though we always suspect in practise there are limits and they may be working to some kind of a global figure and they’re told to increase the number of applications and the only way they can do that is to reduce the size of the offer, the support package. But again, that should be tested, because ultimately, it’s not supposed to be about the size of the support package, but the effectiveness of the support package.

Yeah, I’d imagine it also doesn’t help with delays when you have to go back to them, too.

Yes. Especially if you’re running a business and you’re self-employed. Is it going to affect the credibility of your business? And it’s going to affect the viability of your business. And this has to be pointed out, I guess, usually the answer to most things is make more complaints, which shouldn’t be needed. Shouldn’t be the case. Why should you have to complain? But often that’s a skill set as well. There’s a woman called Helen Dewdney. Who’s written a book called the Complaining Cow.

I don’t know if she’s local to this area, I don’t remember where online, but I have met her. And I got her to chair an event for me a few years ago and she sent me a free copy of her book, the Complaining Cow. I think she runs a website. Put her thinking to the test and make more complaints, because access to work should be more efficient than it is.

(Note: Helen Dewdney’s brand is The Complaining Cow, her books are “How to Complain:The Essential Consumer Guide to Getting Refunds, Redress and Results!” and her second book “101 Habits of an Effective Complainer” Use the code latest20 to get 20% off both books.)

And it should be more generous than it is. And a large proportion of typically about 37,000 people get support. But off that 37,000 or thereabouts, a lot of them are existing customers, so around 20,000 are existing customers. So, the number of new people that they’re serving year on year is ridiculously small. And yet it’s a very popular scheme. So, use the popularity to drive the improvement, too.

In theory, it should help the disabled business owners in being a better business, making more money, serving more people and helping grow the economy, which should only be a good thing.

I’d be tempted to say this is the letter I’m going to send to my MP and the newspapers, praising access to work, but I can’t send it at the moment because of whatever good idea.

I may have to document it when I do go through that process.

Always keep very detailed records of correspondence with government departments. Always have the ability to quote back to them.

Do you know if there are any CPD or other courses on offer that take into account neurodivergence or other support that such people might need during those courses?

If you’ve got a named condition that does make a big difference in the benefit system, particularly for the work capability assessment and particularly for mental health conditions. Whether there are courses that take into account neurodiversity, there are courses that are supposed to do. And there are places, believe it or not, like Wembley Stadium and the BBC, who I believe, claim that they’re making provision for people with neurodiversity. Again, I’ve not seen any statistics on this. I’ve not seen any case studies. I don’t know if it’s a true story. But neurodiversity, particularly where it’s a named condition, has the same merit as a physical disability. It’s a disability. You’re protected by law, at least in theory. You’re entitled to access to work and you’re entitled to all other entitlements uncovered by disability legislation.

Whether all this works in practise, because neurodiversity is like the new frontier on disability. And so only the people who are experiencing it could tell us. But in theory, there should be support out there, no matter what course and things you’re doing. And you can ask for reasonable adjustments. The design of courses and the testing of courses is all covered by disability legislation, so you could ask for reasonable adjustments and if you don’t get them, you could initiate legal action?

Do you know if there is support for disabled people with things like tax returns, fines or legal issues specifically, which they may struggle to understand.

I found HMRC as one of the best departments. I personally have found them really empathetic. I think that they’re a department that got great courtesy and good customer care skills. I’ve almost never came across a complaint about HMRC. It’s very different to DWP. I mean, I’m used to complaining about government almost every day of my life, but HMRC seemed quite exceptional to me. And you think of the volume of cases caseload they must be dealing with. They seem very exceptional. Considering what they’re doing on the stuff they have; their performance seems exemplary.

Personally, what is your biggest challenge and how did you conquer it?

I guess my biggest challenge is trying to see the chancellor and I haven’t conquered it. I don’t think the minister for disabled people is a serious player in the debates. I don’t think it’s serious. I think it’s a cosmetic role.

We have a period at the moment where some people debate whether we still even have one. Now, though there is. Mims Davis supposedly plays that role. But when you look at the performance of government, particularly other departments to DWP, disabled people don’t really feature. So, when disabled people are not in the levelling up strategy, except as a problem, they’re not in the growth strategy, they’re not in the job strategy. 36 of the 38 local enterprise plans don’t include disabled people. There are only two references to them in the industrial strategy.

So, disabled people are almost missing, completely missing from all aspirational government policy. And so, there’s no storyline on success, no policy storyline on success for disabled people. So, the idea that there is a government minister going around Whitehall, telling all the Whitehall departments to pull their weight and see that disabled people get an advantage somewhere is a fallacy. There’s no evidence for it. I resolve not to see the minister for disabled people who I have met on many occasions.

But to try and see the chancellor because somebody else has to play a meaningful role here, and I haven’t succeeded in that. I’ve written 13 times. My biggest achievement has not happened yet. I’m still trying to see the chancellor.

I hope there will be a change of government and the previous chancellor will pay a high price for having ignored 9.4 million disabled people in England alone. There’s still time for Jeremy Hunt to change his mind. I will still be writing to him until the day stops being chancellor. But I believe they’ll pay a high price because they’ve ignored so many people.

What is your biggest challenge and how did you conquer it in regard to your network?

In regard to the network, my biggest challenge with the network is I don’t really know enough about the people are connecting with me. So, I know I’m followed by all the premiership football teams. I don’t know why. I know I’m followed a lot by Indian IT specialists, but I don’t know why. I know that a lot of business strategists follow me, but I don’t really blog on business strategy, only very occasionally. I’m not a frequent blogger on business strategy, but business strategies follow me. I think that’s got something to do with the purple pound, which I coined. And I’m followed a lot by people with neurodiversity. And obviously that’s very interesting to me because, as I say, I think that’s the frontier of disability policy. But again, I don’t know enough about the people who are following me and how do they become aware of me. But what really is gratifying, I think, is I’ve got a very widespread of people following me and that feels like some kind of breakthrough.

Because what I’m really interested in is, in a sense, is not disability is a specialist concern, but disability is a window on universal values. I’m really interested in what does disability teach us about the human condition. What does it teach us about our resiliency? What does it teach us about our socialisation? Rather than this idea that there’s special needs, special forces, everything being special, because in that direction tends to lie exclusionary practises and separation, whereas in the direction I’m interested in, it tends to lead towards integration. And so, I’m interested not so much in disability especially, but disability is a window on the human condition.

If you could give one takeaway to people of disabled community, what would it be?

That as well as asking, having more expectation of government, we should have a bit more expectation of ourselves. So, what can we do? In addition to what we’re asking government to do, or anybody who’s a so-called decision maker, in addition to that, what can we do? And I think there are forces in society, technology, business modelling and culture being three of them, that give us ways of influencing the future before anybody else gets to the future. So, the future is accessible and includes us. So how do we get to the future before anybody else? I think that the things that help us to do that mean that we shape the world, rather than asking somebody else to shape it in our interest. Only we know how it affects us. We should be driving the change. We should be actually in charge. Rather than arguing for equality, we have to argue for more than that to be equal. Equity. So that’s what I’m interested in. I ran a technology project once and the hypothesis was this, if in 1990, we’d have trained young disabled people to use personal computers, let’s say 1985, we would have trained young disabled people to use computers. The chances are that in 1990, they’d be first people with those skills, they’d be getting the jobs with those skills.

What can we train people in in 2025, such that by 2030, they’re the first people to get their jobs with those skills? So, let’s think about making sure all our policy is future proofed and it catapults us into the future before anybody else gets there. That’s what we should be thinking. What will catapult us into the future before anybody else gets there?

I want to thank Philip for taking the time to talk to me and just to say I hope his answers are valuable to the community.

If you are a disabled entrepreneur or someone who supports them, why not come and join the community?