The Government is going backwards in meeting its own main target for improving disabled people’s lives, new official figures suggest.

Ministers say they want to halve the so-called “disability employment gap” by 2020 – the difference between the number of people in work with disabilities work and the number of people without them.

This would mean getting 63 per cent of disabled people into work by the end of the Parliament.

However new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show it is making reverse progress on the metric.

While the number of disabled people in work is up 121,000 since last year, non-disabled people are the main beneficiaries of employment growth and moving into work faster than their disabled counterparts.

The employment rate for people who are not disabled increased by 0.9 per cent compared to 2015, while disabled people’s employment only increased by 0.6 per cent.

As a result, rather than closing, the gap is widening – up by 0.3 per cent to 33 per cent.

Mark Atkinson, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said the overall increase in employment was positive, but that the Government clearly needed to change strategy to reach its goal.

“An increase in the number of disabled people in work is clearly positive news,” he said.

Disabled protestors demonstrate past the Houses of Parliament, in central London (Getty Images) (Getty)

“However, a closer look shows the gap between the employment rate of disabled people and the rest of the population has widened.

“The Government has made a bold pledge to halve this disability employment gap by 2020.

“The new Secretary of State has committed to consulting with disabled people and disability organisations on employment support.

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Show all 7 1 /7 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Closing Remploy factories The Work and Pensions Secretary called time on Britain’s system of Remploy factories, which provided subsidised and sheltered employment to disabled people. People employed at the factories protested against their closure and said they provided gainful work. “Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?” Mr Duncan Smith said at the time, defending the decision. “I promise you this is better.” The Remploy organisation was privatised and sold to American workfare provider Maximus, with the majority of the organisation’s factories closed. The future of the remaining sites is unclear 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Scrapping the Independent Living Fund The £320m Independent Living Fund was established in 1988 to give financial support to people with disabilities. It was scrapped on July 1 2015, with 18,000 often severely disabled people losing out by an average of £300 a week. The money was generally used to help pay for carers so people could live in communities rather than institutions. Councils will get a boost in funding to compensate but it will not cover the whole cost of the fund. This new cash also doesn’t have to be spent on the disabled 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Cut payments for the disabled Access To Work scheme Iain Duncan Smith is bringing forward a policy that will reduce payments to some disabled people from a scheme designed to help them into work. The £108m scheme, which helps 35,540 people, will be capped on a per-used basis, potentially hitting those with the more serious disabilities who currently receive the most help. The single biggest users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and hearing. The cut will come in from October 2015. The charity Disability UK says the scheme actually makes the Government money because the people who gain access to work tend pay tax that more than covers its cost. The DWP does not describe the reduction as a “cut” and says it will be able to spread the money more thinly and cover more people 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Cut Employment and Support Allowance The latest Budget included a £30 a week cut in disability benefits for some new claimants of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The Government says it is equalising the rate of disability benefits with Jobseekers Allowance because giving disabled people more help is a “perverse incentive”. The people affected by this cut are those assessed as having a limited capability for work but as being capable of some “work-related activity”. A group of prominent Catholics wrote to Mr Duncan Smith to say there was “no justification” for this cut. Mental health charity Mind, said the cut was “insulting and misguided” 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Risk homelessness with a sharp increase disability benefit sanctions Official figures in the first quarter of 2014 found a huge increase in sanctions against people reliant on ESA sickness benefit. The 15,955 sanctions were handed out in that period compared to 3,574 in the same period the year before, 2013 – a 4.5 times increase. The homelessness charity Crisis warned at the time that the sharp rise in temporary benefit cuts was “cruel and can leave people utterly destitute – without money even for food and at severe risk of homelessness”. “It is difficult to see how they are meant to help people prepare for work,” Matt Downie, director of policy at the charity added 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people Sending sick people to work because of broken fitness to work tests In 2012 a government advisor appointed to review the Government’s Work Capability Assessment said the tests causing suffering by sending sick people back to work inappropriately. “There are certainly areas where it's still not working and I am sorry there are people going through a system which I think still needs improvement,” Professor Malcolm Harrington concluded. The tests are said to have improved since then, but as recently as this summer they are still coming in for criticism. In June the British Psychological Society said there was “now significant body of evidence that the WCA is failing to assess people’s fitness for work accurately and appropriately”. It called for a full overhaul of the way the tests are carried out. The WCA appeals system has also been fraught with controversy with a very high rate of overturns and delays lasting months and blamed for hardship 7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people The bedroom tax The Government’s benefit cut for people who it says are “under-occupying” their homes disproportionately affects disabled people. Statistics released last year show that around two-thirds of those affected by the under-occupancy penalty, widely known as the ‘bedroom tax’, are disabled. There have been a number of high profile cases of disabled people being moved out of specially adapted homes by the policy. In one case publicised by the Sunday People last week, a 48 year old man with cerebral palsy was forced to bathe in a paddling pool after the tax moved him out of his home with a walk-in shower. The Government says it has provided councils with a discretionary fund to help reduce the policy’s impact on disabled people, but cases continue to arise

“This is a welcome move. Current measures to support disabled people into employment aren’t working.

“If the Government is to achieve its ambitious target, it must overhaul the system.”

Disability charities warned that previous government policies – including a £30-a-week cut to some new claimants on the Employment and Support Allowance benefit - would make it harder for disabled people to get into work.

Ministers were earlier this year pushed into ditching a plan to cut support for disabled people in need of specially adapted appliances and who claimed the Personal Independence Payment – after sustained criticism from charities.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, resigned over the cut, arguing that the Government was balancing the books on the back on the back of the most vulnerable in society.

However other cuts – including the abolition of the Independent Living Fund and caps on payment to Access To Work support – were voted through by Conservative MPs.

In a report today the Trades Union Congress welcomed the Government’s targets, but said funding for Access To Work needed to be increased.

It also proposed changes to the Work Programme, the reversal of ESA cuts, an extension of the Work Choice scheme, and a more collaborative approach involving trade unions.

The new Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb has said he will try to work more cooperatively with disability charities in the coming months, with the Government set to unveil concrete proposals later this year.