- We know how to activate people with disabilities socially and vocationally. There is a lack of coordination. We should not only provide and maintain employment for these people, but make work dignified and subjective," said Robert Jagodzinski, president of the Active Rehabilitation Foundation, during a debate on rehabilitation and activation of people with disabilities. Meanwhile, an audit by the Supreme Audit Office indicated that the effectiveness of measures in this regard is low.
Activation measures for people with disabilities are ineffective, assesses NIK
Published April 20, 2023 15:44
fot. Piotr Wójcik
According to NIK auditors, the funds allocated for vocational and social rehabilitation of people with disabilities are insufficient. In 2019-2021, PFRON transferred more than PLN 3.8 million to local governments for these purposes. However, these funds did not meet the needs arising from applications and offers made by beneficiaries. The effectiveness of Occupational Activity Establishments was also low.
- Annually, about 2 percent of participants moved to the open labor market, and among those leaving ZAZs, it was always less than 20 percent. There are few ZAZs in Poland, and they employ only about 3.5 percent of disabled people enrolled for subsidies. Measures should be taken to improve the flow of people from occupational therapy workshops to ZAZs and later to the open labor market," said Konrad Kostępski, chief state control specialist at the NIK's Department of Labor, Social and Family Affairs.
Another problem highlighted by the Supreme Audit Office is the lack of continuity in the implementation of commissioned tasks. Local governments commissioned them only after receiving information from PFRON about the amount of funds they would receive. Most often it was February or even March. Then they adopted resolutions of the local government. Competitions were announced only in the second half of the year.
- The implementation period of the tasks in the audited local governments ranged from 29 to a maximum of 131 days. While this may make sense in the case of integration or cultural events, in the case of rehabilitation activities the effectiveness of initiatives carried out for two months a year is questionable, Konrad Kostępski added.
- Questions have been raised repeatedly as to why PFRON cannot transfer these funds either at the beginning of January or in the way the Labor Fund does, that is, already at the end of the previous year? PFRON transfers the funds to us late. In 2020, we received them after Easter and by the time we went through the proper procedures, July had arrived. When we signed the contracts, foundations were tearing their hair out and didn't know how they were supposed to carry out the tasks they had scheduled for each month. It cost us a lot of discussion, but the Voivodship Board eventually set aside funds that allowed us to provide resources for these organizations for the first half of the year," said Aleksander Kornatowski, director of the Mazovian Social Policy Center.
- We do not have a systemic vocational rehabilitation offer for people with disabilities. We need to create a new system that will allow us to effectively introduce these people to professional work," assessed Prof. Bartosz Molik, rector of the Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw.
The result of ineffective measures is the employment gap for people with disabilities, i.e. the difference between the number of economically active people with disabilities and the number of economically active people without disabilities.
- Data for 2021 indicate that this gap is about 33 percent in Poland for men and women together. This is 10 percentage points higher than the average in the European Union. We are even further apart from Scandinavian countries or the UK," pointed out Professor Iwona Kowalska-Bobko, director of the Institute of Public Health at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Jagiellonian University Medical College.
