Regulating for Equal Employment Opportunities: The Case of the Disabled Quota

Abstract

In recent years there has been considerable political controversy surrounding the quota employment scheme for disabled workers. In a report published in 1981 the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) proposed that the quota scheme should be abolished, and replaced by an obligation upon employers to take reasonable steps to promote equality of employment opportunity for disabled people.' A similar proposal to abolish the quota was made in 1973 by the Department of Employment, which at that time had responsibility for its administration, but the proposal then was dropped because of the political opposition it met. On the latest occasion the MSC proposal has been opposed by the Disability Alliance, among others, who have argued vigorously for the maintenance of the quota in the field of recruitment as a supplement to a code of practice in the fields of promotion and career development.2 In some ways the timing of the MSC's proposal is surprising. With the publication of the Scarman Report there has been considerable public interest in the use of a system of quota hiring in order to improve employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups.3 Of course, not all the public interest shown in the idea of quota hiring has been sympathetic, and in principle there is no reason for there to be less diversity of view on quota hiring in Britain than there is in the United States, where the enforcement of goals and timetables under 1964 Civil Rights Act has sparked off considerable public controversy.4 Yet, like a classical French tragedy, the MSC's proposal represents merely the spoken report of action taking place elsewhere. In this paper we should like to portray that action directly. In particular, we have three purposes. The first is to describe in outline the background to the MSC's proposal in terms of prevailing trends in the