Most Lithuanian disabled people are unemployed: the state allocates most of the support for their employment to social enterprises

The results of the audit “Social integration of people with disabilities” were presented by the National Audit Office on Tuesday.

“The purpose of the audit was to assess whether people with disabilities have the opportunity to live independently in the community, fully participate in public life and integrate into the labor market,” said Neringa Raglienė, Chief State Auditor of the Audit Department of Public Welfare of the State Audit Office.

There was no increase in employment

According to the State Audit Office, in 2019, 8 percent. the country’s population had a disability: more than 200 thousand people.

According to N.Raglienė, the state spends about 1 billion LTL on financial support, services and social assistance. euros. Eighty percent of these funds go to benefits and compensation.

“However, they do not protect people from poverty if social barriers are not eliminated,” emphasized the representative of the State Audit Office.

However, they do not protect people from poverty if social barriers are not removed.

The majority of people with disabilities, 158,000, were of working age last year. However, only 29 percent worked, a number that has not increased in the last five years.

“Not all unemployed disabled people participate in the employment support system,” noted N. Raglienė.

According to the results of the audit, only 7% request labor assistance from the Employment Service each year. (11 thousand) people of working age with disabilities.

According to N.Raglienė, the employment services provided to them are insufficient.

According to the audit of the State Audit Office, the proportion of people working in the open market has decreased to 22.6% in the last year.

N.Raglienė noted that state aid is more focused on the closed labor market. 82 percent. funds to support the employment of people with disabilities, 40 million. it was assigned to social enterprises, which employed 3 times fewer people than in the open labor market.

No adapted vehicles

The State Audit indicates that the audit found that some people with disabilities do not receive comprehensive services that meet individual needs, because care needs are identified in different institutions, there is no coordination and exchange of information between them, and it is not observed whether assistance helps to live independently.

The results of the audit case study show that only 13% of received special services in the municipalities from people identified as needing assistance.

35 percent of people with disabilities did not seek help and the municipalities did not have information about them.

The data provided by the municipalities show that more than half of them (32) do not ensure that at least 30% of the public buildings that provide social, educational, health and cultural services are adapted for people with disabilities.

Public transport for the disabled was not adapted in 34 municipalities.

Public transport for the disabled was not adapted in 34 municipalities.

In the five largest cities, accessibility is increasing to 56 percent. The audit of the State Audit Office showed that in other municipalities the renewal of transport is slow and accessibility is only 12%.

The State Audit audit showed that state and municipal websites for people with disabilities need to be adapted by September 2020, but in 2019 only 3.4% of them were adapted and the adaptation of mobile applications was not evaluated.

The situation does not improve

Richard Dubick, president of the Association for Independent Living, said few public vehicles are adapted for people with disabilities.

This makes it difficult for them to move. And if a person cannot get to and from the workplace, it limits job opportunities.

Additionally, R. Rubickas mentioned that people with mobility problems often simply cannot access buildings because they are not adapted for that purpose.

“In general, the infrastructure in the regions is practically nil”, emphasized R. Rubickas.

According to him, the situation does not improve as a result.

The example of Estonia

According to the Auditor General Mindaugas Macijauskas, a third of people with disabilities are at risk of poverty.

This indicator is 10.7 percentage points higher than the general at-risk-of-poverty rate (20.6%).

M. Macijauskas explained that to reduce this gap, comprehensive individual care and an environment adapted to people with disabilities are important.

However, the results of the State Audit Office audit showed that disabled people do not have sufficient opportunities to live independently in the community and receive individual services according to their needs.

The Deputy Auditor General Živilė Simonaitytė stated that the purpose of the audit was to see how a person with a disability can act independently.

In his opinion, the saddest thing and where the most effort should be made in Lithuania is the poverty among people with disabilities, whose rate is much higher than the average poverty in the country.

“One of the ways to reduce that poverty is to really help people of working age to integrate into the labor market and have those jobs. Unfortunately, in Lithuania, as already mentioned, the percentage is 29. This is less than a third of people of working age. Perhaps not everyone can, it should not be 100 percent. At this point, I would like to mention Estonia, which had a very similar percentage five years ago and after the reform By changing its employment system for people with disabilities, it increased this percentage to 40 percent ”, emphasized Ž. Simonaitytė.

One of the ways to reduce this poverty is to help those of working age as much as possible, to help them integrate into the labor market and to have those jobs.

Many reasons

The Deputy Minister of Social Security and Labor, Vilma Augienė, acknowledged that one cannot disagree with the conclusions of the audit of the State Audit Office.

He explained that there are many reasons why relatively few people with disabilities of working age have a job.

“One thing, if you don’t leave home, what kind of work can we talk about? Because inappropriate is simply the place where a person lives. If I don’t even get on public transportation, I can’t get to that job. These are one of the obstacles. In fact, there are other obstacles. An open labor market, employers must also be prepared and motivated. And that motivation manifests itself in the need to dedicate more time, to prepare for a possible workplace, because still the disability speaks to the fact that there are some special needs that must be met first, ”said V. Augienė.

In addition, in his opinion, the financial system for job promotion is not working.

When asked why most of the support for the employment of people with disabilities is allocated to social enterprises, V. Augienė explained that an amendment to the law was submitted to the Seimas, which proposed to reject this type of subsidy, but chose a intermediate option.

“It just came to our attention then. I think those discussions are not over yet and more funds will be earmarked to maintain and subsidize open markets,” said the Deputy Minister of Social Security and Labor.

The Deputy Minister of Transport, Vladislovas Kondratovičius, acknowledged that public transport in municipalities mostly does not meet the requirements.

“Where there are cities, there is a newer fleet, maybe there is a better situation. But if we take the district municipalities, the situation is bad, “he said.

Where there are cities, there is a newer fleet, perhaps a better situation. But if we take the district municipalities, the situation is bad.

V. Kondratovičius explained that he wants to sign an agreement with the municipalities, possibly – business about it.

According to the Vice Minister of Transport and Communications, the goal is to increase the availability of public transport by 20 percent by 2026.