Disability

More people are living with a disability now than in the past because we’re living longer and improved medical treatments are enabling more people to manage long-term health problems. Disabled People are less like to view our city as a great place to live than the wider population.

In Plymouth the Census records that just over 57,000 our residents met the Equality Act definition of disability, 12.1 percent (32,394) of residents whose day to day activities were limited a little and 9.4 percent (25,001) whose day to day activities were limited a lot. Disabled people make up a greater proportion of our resident population that is the case for the Southwest region or England. Over a quarter of households in the City (33,487) included at least one person with a disability and nearly 1 in 10 (9,636) included 2 or more.

Disabled people are more likely to live in the City’s more deprived wards. Around a quarter of residents in our 4 most deprived wards, St Peters and the Waterfront, Devonport, Honicknowle and St Budeaux, meet the Equality Act definition of a disability, compared with around 15 to 20 percent of those living in more affluent areas such as Compton, Plymstock Radford, Peverell and Plympton Chaddlewood. Residents in our most deprived wards are nearly twice as likely to say their day to day activities are limited a lot. 

It’s not just disabled people who are socially excluded, but also the people who care for others on an unpaid basis, as opposed to people who are paid, such as care workers and home helps. In Plymouth 4.2 percent of residents (10,646) provided less than 19 hrs care per week, 2.1 percent provided 20 to 49hrs per week (5,267) and 3.2 percent provided 50 hrs or more per week or more (8,043). There were 1,825 young people under the age of 25 providing unpaid care in June 2021.  In the 2024 School Census in Plymouth there were 730 young carers identified in primary and secondary schools.

In 2017 the UK government was the subject of a critical report from the United Nations Committee for the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRDP) to which the UK is a voluntary signatory. In a recent (2024) monitoring report, “Seven years on” the UN concluded that no significant progress has been made and that the Uk had failed to take appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination. The report called for the UK Government to:

• Develop a nationally consistent strategy to address the causes and impact of the labour shortages across disability and mental health services, particularly the shortage of personal assistants
• Take comprehensive measures to ensure that persons with disabilities are adequately supported through social security payments, benefits and allowances.
• Reinforce its efforts to avoid the institutionalization of persons with disabilities, prevent the use of restrictive and unsafe practices
• Ensure all measures taken to implement the Convention obligations are underpinned by the human rights model of disability

Education

In the 2023/24 academic year the achievement of pupils with SEN (those with an EHCP or receiving Special Educational Need (SEN) support).

• 20.1% of Plymouth SEN pupils achieved a 'good level of development'.  This has decreased from the figure of 21.6% in 2022/23. Benchmarking averages show Plymouth to be above the national figure of 19.7%, but below the SW regional (21.6%) and statistical neighbour (20.7%) figures.
• The percentage of SEN Plymouth children achieving the pass rate in KS1 phonics screening was 48.2%.  This is 4.5pp higher than the LA average for 2022/23.  Plymouth sits above the national (44.1%), regional (44.9%) and statistical neighbour (43.9%) benchmarks.
• 22.9% of SEN pupils achieved the expected standard at KS2 for reading, writing and maths. This is higher than the revised National average (by 1.4pp), higher than the regional average (by 4.4 pp) and 3.3pp higher than the statistical neighbour average.
• 20.1% of Plymouth pupils with SEN achieved a grade five or higher in English and Maths.  This is above the national average of 17.5% (+2.6pp), the regional average of 17.3% (+2.8pp) and statistical neighbour average of 15.5% (+4.6pp). 

A quarter (24.9 percent) of disabled people aged 21 to 64 years had a degree or equivalent as their highest qualification, compared with 42.7 percent of non-disabled people amongst the youngest age group (21 to 24 years), this falls to 17.8.

Work

In 2022, the most recent year for which data is currently available, nearly one in four of the working-age population were classed as disabled and nearly one in three people classed as being disabled one year were no longer classed as being disabled the next. The number of people reporting a long-term health condition or classed as disabled continues to rise. The increase is associated with an increase in people reporting mental health conditions and “other health problems or disabilities”.

People with disabilities experience significant barriers to getting and keeping jobs. The most recent local data says that 58% of people (37,500) who are ether work limiting disabled or have a disability meeting the Equality Act definition are ‘in employment’. The overwhelming majority being employees (26,800) and a smaller proportion who are self-employed (3,800). The Federation of Small Business report Business without Barriers published in 2022 says that 25% of small business owners are disabled or have a health condition. The proportion of economically inactive disabled people who wanted a job in 2021/2022 was 22.0%.

At national level the disability employment rate was 53 percent in Q2 2024, compared to 81.6 percent for non-disabled people. This has resulted in a national disability employment gap of 28.6 percent points in 2023/24. This means that the disability employment gap has improved slightly since reaching a 5 years high in 2022.

Data published by the Government in 20324 says that people with disabilities are more likely than non-disabled people to:

• be working in Health, Education and the public sector
• be working in lower-skilled occupations
• be working part-time (and subsequently fewer hours) or on a zero-hour contract
• be working in low pay or in a job with fewer career opportunities
• be underemployed (looking for and available to start another job or work longer hours)

Living standards

People with disabilities continued to have poorer well-being ratings across all four well-being measures (life satisfaction, feeling that things done in life are worthwhile, happiness and anxiety) .Locally residents who were ‘limited a lot through a health problem/disability’ had an average score of 5.0 with life satisfaction compared with those ‘limited a little’ 6.2 and those with no disability/health problem 7.0.

Whilst the British Social attitudes survey which measures public perception reported in 2023 that public satisfaction with care services were the lowest level recorded, with only 13% saying they were satisfied and 57% saying they were dissatisfied. Local service users continue to report high levels of satisfaction with their care. The proportion saying they were satisfied with personal care services increased from 86 percent in 2021/22 to 89.5 percent in 2021/22 whilst the proportion saying they were extremely satisfied decreased only marginally from 67% percent to 66.8 percent.

In the year ending March 2021, people with disabilities were more likely to report feelings of loneliness “often or always” (15.1 per cent) than people without disabilities (3.6 percent). Locally disabled people were more likely to agree, whether ‘limited a little’ (31 percent) or ‘limited a lot’ (42 percent) with the statement, ‘I often feel lonely’, than the wider population (18 percent).

In the year ending June 2021, people with disabilities aged 16 to 64 years in the UK were less likely to own their own home (39.7 per cent) than other people (53.3 per cent), and more likely to have rented social housing (at 24.9 per cent compared with 7.9 per cent).

Disabled people, including those ‘limited a little’ (28 percent) and those who were ‘limited a lot’ (43 percent), were more likely to agree with the statement, ‘the food that I buy just doesn’t last, and I don’t have money to get more’ than the wider community (15 percent).

Justice and personal security

Negative attitudes towards people with disabilities remain prominent in Britain, and people with a mental health condition, learning disability or memory impairment remain particularly likely to be stigmatised.

People with disabilities are often discriminated against and harassed and do not experience the same life opportunities. Research shows that 36% of pupils with SEND experience frequent bullying compared to 25% of those without SEND. In England and Wales, disabled people aged 16 years and over (43.4%) were significantly more likely to have experienced any ASB in the year ending March 2020 than non-disabled people (39%).

Disability hate crimes and non-crime incidents are acts which target a victim because of the offender's hostility to a disabled person or disabled people in general. In England and Wales there were 11,719 police recorded disability hate crime incidents in the 2023/24 reporting year, compared with 14, 285 in the previous year.

Locally 47 hate crimes were recorded against people with disabilities in 2024/25 up until February 2025. This is slightly fewer than the 56 recorded in the whole of 2023/24, or the 64 recorded in 2022/23.There was a change in the law on 3 June 2023 that increased the threshold ofr reporting non crime hate incidents.

Locally disabled people whether limited a little or limited a lot (38 percent and 41 percent respectively) were more likely to feel unsafe after dark than those with no health problem/disability (28 percent).

Participation

In the year ending March 2021, disabled people aged 16 years and over were as likely to have been involved in civic participation (45.7 percent), such as signing a petition or attending a public rally, as non-disabled people (43.0 percent). Similar proportions of disabled and non-disabled people were also involved in civic consultations, civic activism, and social action in 2021. Locally in 2022 no significant difference was found between disabled people and the wider population in their understanding of how to get involved in decisions in their local area.

Disabled people showed similar proportions of participation in either formal or informal volunteering (30.4 percent for formal and 56.6 percent for informal) to non-disabled people (32.9 percent and 55.6 percent respectively) in 2021. Locally in 2022 no significant difference was found in the ability of Disabled people to get involved in community groups or activities.

Locally disabled people were less likely to use the internet daily or almost every day whether limited a ‘limited a little’ (83 percent), or limited a lot’ (74 percent) than people with ‘no health problem/disability’ (93 percent).

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References

• Plymouth City Survey 2023 Data from the 2025 Plymouth City Survey is not available at the time of writing please check with the Policy and Intelligence Team for updated figures)
• Census 2021
• Census 2021
• Topic Summaries - 2021 Census
• Seven Years On: disabled people’s rights to independent living, employment and standard of living in the UK - United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UK Independent Mechanism 2024
• Employment of Disabled People 2022, 2024, Updated November 2024.
• Annual Population Survey for October 2023 – September 2024
• Annual Population Survey data for October 2023 – September 2024
• Employment of Disabled People 2024, Updated November 2024
• Employment of Disabled People2024, Updated November 2024.
• Employment of Disabled People 2024, Updated November 2024.
• ONS (2021) Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/disability/articles/outcomesfordisabledpeopleintheuk/latest
• Scored out of 10 - Plymouth City Survey 2023 (Data from the 2025 Plymouth City Survey is not available at the time of writing please check with the Policy and Intelligence Team for updated figures)
• Public satisfaction with the NHS and social care in 2023, Results from the British Social Attitudes Survey, the Nuffield Trust Published 27/03/2024.
• Personal Social Services Adult Social Care Survey – time series, England – published October 2024.
• Office for National Statistics – Annual Population Survey June 2021
• Plymouth City Survey 2023 (Data from the 2025 Plymouth City Survey is not available at the time of writing please check with the Policy and Intelligence Team for updated figures)
• Equality and Human Rights Commission (2017) Being disabled in Britain: A journey less equal Available online: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/being-disabled-britain-journey-less-equal
• Anti-Bullying Alliance (2017-2021) Do children with SEND experience more bullying? Available online: https://anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all-about-bullying/at-risk-groups/sen-disability/do-children-send-experience-more
• Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) data released in February 2022
• Data from Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, Plymouth BCU Diversity Team, Feb 2025
• Plymouth City Survey 2023 (Data from the 2025 Plymouth City Survey is not available at the time of writing please check with the Policy and Intelligence Team for updated figures)
• ONS - Community Life Survey 2021
• Plymouth City Survey 2023 (Data from the 2025 Plymouth City Survey is not available at the time of writing please check with the Policy and Intelligence Team for updated figures)
• Plymouth City Survey 2023 (Data from the 2025 Plymouth City Survey is not available at the time of writing please check with the Policy and Intelligence Team for updated figures)