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Facts and figures
Disability status is recognised by a legal document of an official body, issued on the basis of different acts, like the Pension and Disability insurance Act, Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons Act, Act on Social Care of Mentally and Physically disabled Persons Act, etc., meaning that different persons may have disability status, but receive the 'invalid status' on the basis of different Acts and therefore, may have have different rights.
Data on employment indicate that:
Introduction of the quota system in 2004 was one of the bigger changes, aiming to motivate employers towards the increased employment of disabled persons. The quota was introduced in the Vocational rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled People Act (Official Gazette, 100/05- UPB1), along with a comprehensive system of measures for increased employment opportunities for the disabled people.
According to the data from the Employment Service of Slovenia (ESS), prior to the 2004 Act, in respective years 1995, 1999 and 2004, there were 617, 818 and 987 disabled persons newly employed, and after the quota introduction in 2005 and 2006, there were respectively 1,296 and 1,927 disabled people newly employed.
Latest data from the Fund for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People (established under 2004 Act, primarily to monitor fulfilment of the quota) indicate that there were, among all employed people in Slovenia (835,034 in October 2009), 32,490 disabled employees (3.89%). At the end of October 2009 there were 12,779 registered unemployed disabled persons.
More than 90% of employed disabled people are defined as work disabled (labour invalids) of 2nd and 3rd category. The 2nd category means that the person was
assessed as having remaining work abilities reduced by 50% or more; 3rd category means that person was assessed as not capable of working full-time, or that the remaining work ability is reduced by less than 50% or that person is unable to do their current job, but could be trained for another job; 1st category means that person is assessed as not being capable of work. People with moderate or severe intellectual intellectual impairments have no right to work.
In October 2009 there were 5,163 companies employing 20 or more people, of which 1,387 companies had fulfilled the quota defined by the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled People Act. 1,502 companies exceeded the quota and are thus entitled to financial incentives and 2,274 companies had not fulfilled quota and are thus paying the fine in the amount of 70% of minimum wage for each disabled person they fail to employ.
In 2008, open market companies submitted 858 contracts of business cooperation with ‘invalid' companies and employment centres (special companies and sheltered workplaces that employ disabled people), as substitution fulfilment of quota.
The Fund for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People, according to its report for the year 2008 still hasn't fully started implementing the possibilities and incentives for supported employment, envisaged by the 2004 Act, as the formal background and procedures for this incentives are not yet clear. As a result, only one work place adaptation was funded in 2008, and no support services.
Data on education indicate that:
According to data from the Ministry of Education and Sport, at the preschool level, there were, in 2006, two thirds of children with special needs integrated in regular kindergarten.
5,000 children with special needs went to mainstream elementary schools and had adapted implementation and additional support, and 1,600 children were placed in schools with lower educational standard.
Children with moderate, severe and profound developmental difficulties are educated in special programmes in segregated elementary schools, schools with adapted programmes or social and care centres. There were approximately 1,000 children placed in this programmes in 2006.
Schools are obliged to prepare an individualised programme for every child with special needs and monitor his/her progress. There are a lot of reports that show, that despite the legislative possibility of inclusionary education, the vast majority of teachers and other professionals did not get any special training for implementing inclusion. Many critics of the segregated education claim that by investing in the special education system the segregation practices are being promoted, instead of supporting teachers and other staff in mainstream schools for inclusionary practices and developing resource centres for the support of inclusion.
The condition for the placement in regular school in a local environment of a child is an ability to acquire knowledge standard set for elementary schools. This means that children with any sort of intellectual disabilities, can under no conditions be included in a mainstream school.
Even though inclusion is possible since 2000 or 2003, none of the old-special schools have been closed so far, and there are a number of special schools for children with sensory or physical impairments. They are promoted as a good choice for parents, as having the staff and equipment that can best meet the child's educational needs.
Data on accessibility indicate that:
The government committed itself to create an accessible environment with the national policy document accepted in 2005. The practice remains far from the goals set. The Annual report of the Ombudsman Office of the Republic of Slovenia for the year 2008 (published in June 2009) found poor accessibility of the Slovenian Railways (such as locked lifts in the Ljubljana main railway station).
In response to request from the Ombudsman Office, Slovenian Railways planned to correct the situation only after five years (regarded by disability activists as a violation of human rights).
Data from the MeAC accessibility survey (2007) showed that none of the selected public or commercial websites passed the manual accessibility evaluation.
The main emergency number was not accessible by text phone,
Both public television channels provided more national language TV programs with subtitling (around 40%), and some programmes with signing (but only about 1%). Neither provided audio description.
Neither of the two main commercial TV channels provided national language programs with subtitling, signing or audio description.
One of the two main banks had installed talking five ‘talking' ATMs and planned a small number of additional machines.
Data on poverty and incomes indicate that:
There is currently no reliable national data on the extent of poverty amongst disabled people and their families in Slovenia.
The main problem remains that there are different benefits for disabled people, awarded according to different laws. Actual benefits are connected to the disability status of a person and not to the needs of an individual, meaning that two persons may have similar assistance needs but receive very different benefits. Some of these benefits are very low and often do not ensure a decent living.
Data on attitudes indicate that:
The 2007 Special Eurobarometer on Discrimination in Europe showed that 55% of people knew someone who was disabled (compared to 55% EU average) and 81% acknowledged that being disabled tended to be disadvantage in society (EU average 79%).
Disability discrimination was viewed as widespread by 43% (EU average 53%); 36% thought that disability discrimination was more widespread than five years ago. 39% thought that not enough was being done to combat discrimination in general (EU average 51%).
61% thought that more disabled people should be in the workplace (EU average 74%) and 89% thought specific measures on equal opportunities were needed in this field.
In spite of the Employment Act examples of everyday discrimination are unofficially reported from persons with disabilities, but because of the lack of any comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation and enforcement, there are no officially reported cases of discrimination against disabled people.
Data on public spending indicate that:
Resolution on the National Programme of Social Protection 2006-2010 (ReNPSV06-10) gave some projection figures on public spending within social welfare.
The Resolution emphasised that because of the increasing elderly population public spending will be increased. In 2005 public spending was aprox. €241 million ), while the prognosis is that public spending in 2010 should increase to aprox. €293 million .
In 2006 Slovenia spent 8.5% of total social benefit expenditure on disability benefits compared to the EU27 average of 7.5% (European System of integrated Social Protection Statistics).
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