Essential Guide to Disability Issues for the Voluntary Sector
Introduction
Welcome to the latest edition of Disability Action in Islington's disability access bulletin, funded by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund.
The bulletin aims to further enable voluntary sector organisations to create realistic and sustainable ways of becoming more accessible to disabled people both as service users and employees.
In this bulletin, we focus on the employment relationship and the duties owed by employers towards employees. However, disability discrimination is a vast subject area and extends far beyond the employment relationship, for example to duties owed by educational establishments and provision of services to the public. These matters are dealt with in Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005.
We have also provided a handy guide to ensuring that your organisation is accessible to wheelchair users, some information about Acas Equality Services and an invitation for you to us join us at a free training seminar we are running on 26th October 2005 on the DDA.
All of our information, including this bulletin, is available in Braille, large print, disc and audio formats. Please use the contact information at the end of this bulletin to request information in different formats.
This bulletin is designed to give you the tools to enable you to operate according to the social model of disability.
The Disability Discrimination Act and Employment
Did you know that under the DDA it is unlawful for an employer (or prospective employer) to:
- discriminate against a disabled person in employment
- fail to provide any necessary reasonable adjustments for disabled employees and applicants subject a disabled person to harassment
- subject a disabled person to victimisation because they have brought, or given evidence to information in connection with, proceedings under the DDA
- undertake disability-related discrimination.
Various Codes of Practice issued under the DDA are available on the Disability Rights Commission website http://www.drc-gb.org/ . These are important when considering matters relating to disability and employment and they will be taken into account by courts and tribunals where relevant.
Enforcement of the DDA has been through a gradual process of evolution. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (Amendment) Regulations (SI 2003/1673) came into force on 1 October 2004 introduced certain key amendments to the DDA, including:
- Removal of the small business exemption for employers with fewer than 15 employees.
- Extension of protection to certain categories of employment.
- Requiring the employee to establish facts from which it may be presumed that discrimination has taken place, after which the burden of proof is placed on the employer to establish that there has been no discrimination.
- Specific prohibition of harassment based on disability.
- Removal of the justification defence in direct discrimination cases where the reason for that treatment is based merely on the fact that the person has a disability rather than on a consideration of the individual's abilities.
- Extension of protection in certain circumstances beyond the end of the employment relationship from acts of discrimination (including harassment).
- Removal of the justification defence in respect of a failure to make reasonable adjustments.
The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 will come into force in December 2005 with some provisions not being fully in force until December 2006. It is related to disability generally and extends outside the area of employment. However, some provisions will relate to employees. The new provisions will, for example, make publishers liable for disability discriminatory advertisements, extend the definition of disability to cover persons with progressive conditions of HIV, multiple sclerosis and cancer, and make sure that people with mental illness are protected in the same way as everyone else by removing the requirement that their illness be clinically recognised.
Recommendations for employers
Good practice in the employment of people with disabilities, employers should:
- Conduct a review of all employment policies and practices to determine how they are affected by the provisions of the DDA.
- Provide appropriate training, development and guidance to employees and subcontractors to assure understanding about the way unfair discrimination occurs and how it can be avoided.
- Explain the concepts of 'reasonable adjustment' and 'justifiable' discrimination and the importance of flexibility in working practices and general policies.
- Make sure all employees and representatives of the organisation, especially line managers, know what their personal responsibilities and accountabilities are. (The survey found the hardest thing to change was the attitudes of fellow employees.)
Initiate programmes which encourage job applications from people with disabilities. - Provide training and development which actively supports the recruitment and retention of people with disabilities, including extending workplace training to avoid harassment and to cover disability issues.
- Consult people with disabilities to find out about the effects of their disability and job requirements.
- Seek expert help (ie the Disability Services Team Representative at your local job centre, Royal National Institute for the Blinds or Royal National Institute for the Deaf) in assessing disability and exploring possibilities for appropriate and practical adjustments.
- Check job specifications to make sure they are not likely to lead to discrimination.
- Guard against the inappropriate use of medical checks and information for people with disabilities.
- Ask candidates before interviews if they have specific requirements and make necessary reasonable adjustments in advance.
- Take care to ensure that people with disabilities are given the right conditions to do tests and take part in other selection processes.
- Concentrate on abilities to do the job during interview and only ask about a disability if it has a bearing on the person's ability to work.
- Not require higher standards of performance and conduct of a person with a disability than you would of any other employee.
- Consider modifications to job qualification requirements if a person could not achieve it due to disability but, nonetheless, would perform the job well.
An action plan
In addition to meeting the duties required of an employer by the DDA and averting legal action you should:
- Make sure that the employment and retention of people with disabilities is an integral part of the organisation's diversity and equal opportunities policies and practices.
- Take specific actions to raise the awareness of people in the organisation about disability and make sure key staff are fully informed and know about their personal role responsibilities in making sure unfair discrimination does not occur.
- Get senior management backing and support.
- Ensure the working environment does not prevent people with disabilities from taking up positions for which they are qualified.
- Check that job advertisements and job descriptions are not unfairly discriminatory and ensure that application forms are easy to use if a person with a disability has a particular need.
- Always take steps to ensure that people with disabilities have fair chances to develop their potential and compete.
- Support employees who become disabled by offering leave for adjustment to the disability and consult them and other relevant specialists to identify their needs in the workplace.
- Involve people with disabilities in work experience, training and education or industry links.
- Ensure that all training courses are fully accessible to disabled delegates and train trainers in disability awareness.
- Recognise and respond to people with disabilities as customers, suppliers, shareholders and members of the community at large.
- Ensure the marketing department is aware of the numbers of potential disabled customers and that all parts of the organisation, services and products are appraised to improve accessibility to disabled people in practical ways.
- Encourage the participation of disabled people in implementing policy through regular consultation and ensure that, wherever possible, practices and procedures meet their needs.
- Monitor, review and benchmark good practice performance by conducting regular audits for consideration at senior level and publish the objectives, progress and achievements for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Useful contacts
Department for Work and Pensions, Disability Unit
Website: http://www.disability.gov.uk
Disability Rights Commission
Website: http://www.drc.org.uk
Employers' Forum on Disability
Website: http://www.employers-forum.co.uk/www/index.htm
Equality Direct
Website: http://www.equalitydirect.org.uk
National Register of Access Consultants
Website: http://www.nrac.org.uk/
Books
MONAGHAN, K. (2005) Blackstone's guide to the disability discrimination legislation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
EVANS, M.J. (2001) Employing people with disabilities. Good practice. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Journal articles
EVANS, M. (2001) How to recruit people with disabilities. People Management. Vol 7, No 18, 13 September. pp5051.
Experiences of disability. (2002) Equal Opportunities Review . No 110, October. pp19-21.
Going beyond the DDA. (2002) IRS Employment Review. No 758, 19 August. pp9-13.
JARVIS J. and HOOLEY, A. (2004) Access all areas. People Management. Vol 10, No 24, 9 December. pp40-42.
How do know if my premises are wheelchair-accessible?
Some basic rules:
Access must be step-free
Gates and doors should be 750mm clear opening width (measure the actual available space, not the space between the door frames)
Corridors should be 1200mm wide
Wheelchair users need 1500mm diameter circle (or a 1400mm x 1800mm elipse) in places where they need to turn round
Wheelchair-accessible WCs need to have a min 2m x 1.5m cubicle size, (pref 2.2m x 1.5m), measured internally. Unless much larger than this, the door must be outward opening. The WC pan must be located on the shorter wall, and close enough to the wall for users to be able to reach the grab bars whilst seated. There must be a clear space between the pan and the opposite wall (wheelchair transfer space). This should be 1m from the midline of the pan to the wall.
Acas Equality Services (AES) in London
What does AES do?
AES' main job is to provide free and confidential strategic advice to employers so they can draw up and apply policies and practices for equality among their workforce. As part of that work, they can also run training sessions, for a fee, to raise awareness of equality issues. Six of their advisers are based in London, to ensure local expertise.
What AES is NOT
Acas Equality Service is NOT connected with any of the equality commissions and nor does it assist individuals with complaints of discrimination.
What topics does AES advise on?
They know that many of their clients want advice on equal opportunities across all aspects of diversity sex, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age so they give advice on equal opportunities issues generally.
Is AES solely concerned with legal compliance?
No. While they try to get clients to a position where they will be complying with the law, they also like to get them to a situation where they embrace current best practice in the equal opportunities field.
What is best practice?
Believing that fairness and dignity for all is central to the world of work, and acting accordingly. For example, it may be to do with totally transparent recruitment and selection procedures. The effect of best practice in a company may be seen in workforce that, at all levels, mirrors the community in which it exists and which it aims to serve.
How does AES work?
They write to a director of HR professional in a company to introduce our services and follow up with a telephone call to arrange a meeting. That meeting will be used to learn about the company generally and where they are with equal opportunity issues. They can find out what the company needs and wants, and discuss what we can do to help.
In summary
AES helps employers to formulate and introduce:
- equal opportunities policies
- fair and effective recruitment systems
- ethnic and other monitoring systems
- equality targets
- lawful positive action measures
- training programmes to support policy communication
- policies to combat racial and other harassment
For further information call Shanta Halai on 020 7396 5178 or visit www.acas.org.uk
Disability Discrimination Act (2005) Training Seminar
We are holding a free training seminar in our offices (address shown at the end of this bulletin) from 5pm until 7pm on 26th October 2005.
At this seminar we will explain the key aspects of the legislation and what it may mean for you and your organisation we will also be on hand to answer any questions you may have. To book a place on this training, please give us a call on 020 7354 8925 or email trainingandconsultancy@daii.org
The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) was passed in 1995 to end the discrimination that many disabled people face. It protects disabled people in:
- employment
- access to goods, facilities and services
- the management, buying or renting of land or property
education
Some of it became law for employers in December 1996. Others were introduced over time.
For service providers (e.g. businesses and organisations):
- since December 1996 it has been unlawful to treat disabled people less favourably than other people for a reason related to their disability
- since October 1999 they have had to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way they provide their services;
- since October 2004 they have had to make reasonable adjustments to the physical features of their premises to overcome physical barriers to access.
For education providers, new duties came into effect in September 2002 under Part IV of the DDA amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA). These require schools, colleges, universities, and providers of adult education and youth services to ensure that they do not discriminate against disabled people.
Under Part IV of the DDA amended by the SENDA, the duty to provide auxiliary aids, through reasonable adjustment, came into force in September 2003.
The DDA also allows the Government to set minimum standards to help disabled people to use public transport easily.
Our Contact details:
Disability Action in Islington
90-92 Upper Street
London
N1 0NP
Disability Infoline: 020 7226 0137
Office Tel: 020 7354 8925
Office Fax: 020 7359 1855
Minicom: 020 7359 1891
Email: info@daii.org