The public authority Disability Equality Duty becomes law

Today the so-called "Disability Equality Duty" becomes law in the UK. This applies to all UK public bodies, of which there are over 45,000. The Disability Rights Commission has been campaigning for public authorities to "Do the Duty".

The new law is contained in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, which amends the 1995 Act. This sets out the general duty. This is supplemented by regulations which set out specific duties. I outline both in this note.

General duty
This is that public authority must have due regard to:

• the need to eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act
• the need to eliminate harassment of disabled persons that is related to their disabilities
• the need to promote equality of opportunity between disabled persons and other persons
• the need to take steps to take account of disabled persons' disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other persons
• the need to promote positive attitudes towards disabled persons; and
• the need to encourage participation by disabled persons in public life.

Specific duties
The specific duties are basically how to put the general duty into practice. Public authorities must:

• publish a Disability Equality Scheme - this is how the public authority intends to fulfill the general duty
• involve disabled people in producing the Scheme
• demonstrate they have taken actions in the Scheme and achieved appropriate outcomes
• report on progress
• review and revise the Disability Equality Scheme

A Code of Practice outlines how public authorities should go about complying with the specific duties. The Disability Rights Commission website also gives guidance on how public authorities should take things forward.

Enforcement
The Disability Rights Commission is the enforcer of the Disability Equality Duty. Where the Commission feels that a public authority isn't complying with a specific duty, it can issue a notice:

• requiring compliance with the duty; and
• requiring the public authority to give it details of what measures it has taken, within 28 days of the notice.   

If the public authority doesn't comply with the notice, the Commission can seek a Court order requiring compliance.

Comments

[Andy Robinson]

I only hope that the disabled will recognise that they are in the driving seat and not a passive passenger of where the authorities will go on this one and insist they are involved and not dictated too by the bureaucrats who consider they know better.

[Alex Newson]

Thanks for your comment Andy. That's a good point. Hopefully the Disability Equality Schemes themselves will include consultation of those with disabilities. We'll have to wait and see what the published Schemes themselves say and I will probably write a follow-up to this story about the Schemes that emerge.

PAS 78, the BSI/Disability Rights Commission standard on commissioning websites, recommends that website owners consult those with disabilities. See my article on PAS 78:

http://impact.freethcartwright.com/2006/08/pas_78_commissi.html