David loves it for the amusement of watching his LinkedIn feed fill with posts from companies about how they embrace neurodiversity – when he, a neurodivergent man, has experience of suing the same organisations because they badly failed his autistic clients or ADHD-ers, often refusing to offer them even the most basic or inexpensive of adjustments.
Happy neurodiversity week from the Labour Government, you big bunch of skivers!
But this misses a crucial point, which is that it’s often not the case that autistic people don’t want to work; it’s that the world of work doesn’t want autistic people.
It was the easiest gig ever. One social media post and the emails came thick and fast – people did not stop getting in contact for days. Several people sent us spreadsheets revealing the hundreds of jobs a year they had applied for, to no avail.
To be invited somewhere new for a meeting either without structure (or at least a known structure), and where you may be asked ambiguous questions is a textbook example of how to increase autistic anxiety.
square BEN KENTISH
It increasingly looks like there's a new 'nasty party' in Downing Street
Read MoreThere is one positive, however. A panel has been assembled to look at this and other issues preventing neurodivergent people from working, led by Sir Stephen Timms, and involving Professor Amanda Kirby, a person who is respected in the neurodivergent community. But it is hard at this point to have full confidence that the panel will lead to real change.
Were the Government to say: we will spend three years getting businesses sorted and implementing the recommendations we have received so they don’t screen out neurodivergent employees or sack them (according to US research, ADHD people are 60 per cent more likely to be sacked) and only then will we take the benefits away, then I would think: fair enough.
Trust us, the Government says, as it demonstrates time after time that it hasn’t even grasped the basics.
Forcing disabled people to jump when they may land in a heap on the floor, is neither moral, nor in their best interests.
Jessie Hewitson is Contributing Money Editor at The i Paper, a director of NeuroUniverse, providing training for companies to understand neurodivergent employees, and the author of Autism: How to Raise a Happy Autistic Child
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