Legislation
Disability Descrimination Act 1995 - Part 5
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LEGISLATION AND THE TRADER
Following on from Part 4, we now look at a summary of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005. The Disability Discrimination Bill 2005 received Royal Assent on 7 April 2005 and is now law and extends disabled people's civil rights with the measures contained in this Act. Different parts of the Act will come into force this year and next, with many of the most significant parts becoming active in mid and late 2006.
WHAT THE ACT WILL DO
[1] TRANSPORT: Currently transport services are not covered under part three of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), meaning that disabled people can be discriminated against. For example, a bus driver could refuse to let someone onto a bus with their guide dog. Currently the DDA provides no means of challenging this kind of blatant discrimination. The Act includes most transport operators within the DDA, meaning they will have to make reasonable adjustments to policies, practices and procedures that discriminate against disabled people and also provide auxiliary aids and services, like accessible information, wheelchair ramps, etc. where they enable or facilitate disabled people’s access.
[2] RAIL : The government have announced that 2020 will be the date by which all older inaccessible rail vehicles will have to be taken out of service. In the House of Lords Peers pressed the government to put this date in the Bill so that it cannot be put back if rail operators struggle to meet the deadline and they have agreed.
Exemptions: Currently around 50 per cent of rail vehicles have some form of exemption from accessibility regulations because they are not fully compliant with accessibility standards. Any new exemptions will have to be approved by Parliament and also be listed in an annual report that will now be produced by the government listing exemptions. This is a welcome extension to the exemptions system and will enable us to be vigilant regarding operators who are not meeting accessibility rules.
Refurbishment of older trains: Between the time when the Act comes into force and 2020, when older trains are removed from service, all trains that do not comply with accessibility standards will have to have audio-visual information systems fitted when they are refurbished. This will be of huge benefit to people with sight problems and also people with hearing impairments.
[3] AVIATION AND SHIPPING: These two areas are not included in the Act as they are being dealt with separately. The Department for Transport will publish a review at the end of 2005 on whether these sectors are adhering to voluntary codes of practice on disabled people’s access. The review will make recommendations on whether these sectors should be brought within the DDA if compliance is inadequate.
[4] SERVICES OF PUBLIC AUTHORITIES: Some organisations such as the Highways Agency or the Benefits Agency have ambiguous status under the DDA, meaning that discrimination cases are hard to prove against them. The Act brings all their public services under the DDA and in future taking goods and service cases against them will become possible.
[5] RENTED ACCOMMODATION: Currently there is no protection for disabled people from landlords who unreasonably refuse to let them make changes to their own accommodation in order to make it more accessible and also to communal areas that are inaccessible.
The government has agreed to set up a working group, chaired by a senior civil servant to look at how the issue around communal areas can be tackled.
They have also agreed that the current legal protection under the 1927 Landlord and Tenant Act is not clear, and needs to be updated so that the Disability Rights Commission can issue Codes of Practice on standards expected of landlords and also help individual disabled people take cases if they feel they have been discriminated against.
The Act will also require landlords and letting agents to provide blind and partially sighted people with contracts in a format they can read, such as large print, audio tape or Braille, or at least to read out contracts.
[6] EXTENSION OF THE 2005 ACT: The Act extends the 1995 DDA to cover people who have some forms of cancer, HIV/AIDS and Multiple Sclerosis. We were disappointed that the government did not accept the case for giving people with depression greater protection by including them within the definition of who has a disability under the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.
[7] DUTIES OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR: The Act places a duty on the public sector to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people and to eliminate discrimination. This duty is anticipatory, meaning that public authorities will have to review all their policies, practices, procedures and services to make sure they do not discriminate against disabled people and ensure that all their services are planned with disabled people’s needs fully considered in advance. Public bodies will have to produce Action Plans on how they intend to meet their duties and review their progress annually.
The government has confirmed that the that the duties will also cover schools . Previously they had argued that the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) provides adequate protection for disabled students. However, a recent Ofsted report blew a hole in this argument by demonstrating widespread failure in schools to plan for disabled students' access needs.
[8] PRIVATE CLUBS: They are not covered under the 1995 DDA at present, meaning that a disabled person wishing to join a private members’ club would not be able to challenge a refusal of their membership request or less favourable treatment because of their disability. The Act proposes coverage of all private clubs (clubs that have proper membership application procedures) with 25 or more members.
[9] COUNCILLORS: Disabled Councillors will now be covered by the DDA in the execution of their main duties. This means, for example, that a blind councillor will have a right to receive papers, agendas and minutes in an accessible format. It also means that other reasonable adjustments will have to be made to make council premises accessible to Councillors.
[10] VOLUNTEERS: The government has asked the Disability Rights Commission to produce a voluntary Code of Practice for employers on meeting the access needs of disabled volunteers. The voluntary Code will be reviewed within two years of being released and recommendations made on whether legislation may be necessary to give disabled volunteers greater protection.
[11] DISCRIMINATORY ADVERTISEMENTS: The Act makes it an offence for a third party, such as a newspaper, to publish an advert (such as a job advert) that is discriminatory against disabled people. If the third party has not secured a statement from the person placing the advert that the text is lawful, and it turns out to be unlawful, then they are liable for a fine up to £5,000 on conviction.
As promised, this is a brief summary of the 2005 Act and for information refer to the websites shown in Part 4 of these series of articles.
In the Part 6, we will suggest a few ideas that may be able to assist ‘service providers’ with their efforts to accommodate the provisions of the two ‘Acts’ and at the same time perhaps reduce the funding required to comply with those provisions
In Part 7, will we will turn our attentions to legislation that has been released in the last twelve months that affects both disabled people and ambulant people alike
Full information on how the legislation affects your business as well as details on all matters that affect disabled and the elderly can be found on their website at www.lawandbenefitreview.co.uk
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