ISBE member Adrian Ashton was asked by the national small business community, Enterprise Nation, to be their expert adviser in relation to the government’s current consultation on how to support employers better recognise and retain unpaid carers in their workforces.
This consultation is being driven by a recognition that 600 people a day are having to quit work due to becoming unpaid carers for family members; and that this is leading to a loss of skills, productivity, etc across the wider economy that is costing in the region of £50bn lost GDP each year.
Adrian was invited to take on this role in recognition of his research and efforts over recent years that have raised the profile of small business owners and the self-employed who are also unpaid carers – a body of entrepreneurs previously hidden due to their being the only type of such carers not recognised in current policy and legislation as others are.
“At some point in our lives, we’ll all either need to receive care or receive it – probably both.” explains Adrian. “That’s what makes this consultation so important as a way to be able to help employers and small business owners to start to have more open and better conversations about how being an unpaid carer intersects with paid work, and better break the taboos that currently mean many unpaid carers in work hide this from their employer”.
www.adrianashton.co.uk /
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/make-work-pay-employment-rights-for-unpaid-carers-and-parents-of-seriously-ill-children