We wrote this in July 2024, days after Labour’s landslide general election win made Keir Starmer the first Labour Prime Minister since 2010. Many neurodivergent people hoped a new government would bring real change. This post sets out the problems the community faced at that point, and what neurodivergent campaigners inside the Labour movement had been asking for.
One thing to be clear about up front. The proposals summarised below come from a manifesto written by Neurodivergent Labour, a group of neurodivergent Labour Party members. They are campaign demands. They are not official government policy.
The challenges in 2024
Diagnosis and waiting lists
Awareness of neurodivergence has grown hugely over the past decade, and demand for assessment has grown with it. In April 2024 the Nuffield Trust estimated that up to 1.2 million people in England are autistic and up to 2.2 million have ADHD. In December 2023, 172,022 people had an open referral for a suspected autism assessment, the highest number ever reported. The median wait for a first appointment was more than nine months, and in the slowest area it was over two and a half years. There is no national data on ADHD waits at all.
Nobody needs a diagnosis to be supported at work, and not everyone wants one. But long waits leave many people without answers, and without the support a diagnosis can open up.
Work
Employment outcomes have been poor for a long time. Office for National Statistics figures for the year to June 2021 put the employment rate for autistic disabled people at 29%, among the lowest of any group of disabled people. Employers already have a legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments, but many neurodivergent people still meet barriers at application, at interview and in their day-to-day work. Our guide to reasonable adjustments and your legal responsibilities explains what the law asks of employers.
Cost of living and local services
Rising living costs put extra pressure on neurodivergent adults and on the parents and carers of neurodivergent children. At the same time, squeezed council budgets affected SEND services and the local support many families rely on.
What Neurodivergent Labour has called for
In 2020 Neurodivergent Labour published a Manifesto for Autistic and Neurodivergent People’s Rights and called on the party to adopt it in full. It is built on the social model of disability and the neurodiversity approach. These are its main demands.
Diagnosis and support
Timely, universal access to diagnosis, including for women and girls, who have often been missed, followed by proper support afterwards.
Independent living and welfare
Reversing cuts to services, properly funding councils, scrapping the Work Capability Assessment, better benefits and social housing, and neurodivergent people on local autism boards.
Education
Smaller classes, a wider range of teaching methods, neurodiversity training for school staff and reversing cuts to SEND support.
Work
Accessible recruitment and interviews, a requirement for employers to have neurodiversity policies, removing the cap on Access to Work and extending anti-discrimination protection to volunteers.
Justice and legal protection
Neurodiversity training for justice staff, an end to criminalising harmless unusual behaviour, regulation of harmful “cures” and therapies, and making neurological status a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.
What employers can do now
Employers don’t need to wait for any government. Most of the workplace demands above, from accessible interviews to clear neurodiversity policies, are already good practice, and a lot of it is already covered by the duty to make reasonable adjustments. The organisations that act early will find it easier to attract and keep neurodivergent talent. Our overview of neurodiversity in the workplace is a good place to start.
Policy has moved on since we first published this. For more recent developments, read our posts on disability pay gap reporting and trade unions, neurodiversity and the Employment Rights Act.
How Enna can help
For HR and People teams, a neuroinclusion audit checks your policies, recruitment and everyday practice against what neurodivergent employees actually need, and our neuroinclusion maturity assessment gives you a quick benchmark of where you stand. If you’d rather talk it through, book a call with our team.
If you’re neurodivergent and looking for work, the Enna jobs board lists roles with employers committed to inclusion.
