People with Disabilities

Data on disability, and the type of disability where relevant, is collected for all staff. However, the low reporting rate on disability type has meant that the figures are too small to analyse. This affects the quality and usefulness of the data and is an issue that the State Services Commission hopes to address in future data collections. Nonetheless, there has been much more consistency in the definition of disability used in the Public Service, and a higher level of data held on disability status for Public Service employees since a standard definition was introduced for the June 1998 collection of Public Service statistics.

The definition of disability, recommended by the World Health Organisation and adopted by Statistics New Zealand is, "restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being." That is, a disability is a functional problem at the person level. An example of a disability is difficulty walking up a flight of stairs. In addition, the condition or health problem causing the limitation must have lasted six months or more (or be expected to last six months or more).

The representation of people with disabilities in the Public Service has been declining over the last three years. In 2001, 8% of staff reported that they had some disability based on the Statistics NZ definition (down from 10% in 2000). This decline needs further investigation (for example, whether it shows a 'real' decline in the proportion of staff reporting disability, or whether it is due to departments cleaning up their data).

Some of the decline in representation of people with disabilities is an artefact of better classification and better data. A further explanation was found in examining the inflows of people with disabilities, who have generally been declining as a proportion of appointments over the last five years. As at June 2001 they represented less than 3% of all appointments. Again some of this may be due to the improvement in the data and also the relatively younger age profile of 'recruits' overall. However, even when this is taken into account the data shown in Graph 12 also suggest that people with disabilities have been leaving the Public Service in higher numbers than they are being appointed.

There were no particular salary or occupation variations for people with disabilities compared to the rest of the Public Service.

Graph 12: Cessations and Appointments of People with Disabilities 1995-2001 (as at 30 June)

Graph 13 shows that people with disabilities had higher levels of representation in the older age groups. This may have had an opposite effect on the pay distribution to that shown earlier for the younger age profiles of Maori and Pacific peoples.

Graph 13: Age Distribution by Disability Status - June 2001

Table 23 shows the distribution index scores for people with disabilities. These indicate that people with disabilities are more highly represented in the higher salary ranges for most occupations than staff overall, with the exception of the managers and professionals occupation groups.

Table 23: Distribution Index Scores for People with Disabilities in the Public Service June - 2001

* Numbers are too small to include.