Your Rights

Disability equality duty (DDA) for the public sector

Summary: Duties of public sector bodies to promote equality for disabled people.

• What is the Disability Equality Duty about?
• What difference will it make to people with sight problems?
• How can blind and partially sighted people use the Disability Equality Duty?
• About this guide
• More information

---

What is the Disability Equality Duty about?

The Disability Equality Duty provisions of the DDA aim to put disability at the heart of the public sector and to ensure that equality for disabled people informs everything the public sector does.

The 'general' Disability Equality Duty

There is a general duty that applies to all public authorities covering the need to:

• promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people
• eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act
• eliminate harassment of disabled people that is related to their disability (for example, disability-related hate crime, harassment by neighbours)
• promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
• encourage participation by disabled people in public life
• take steps to take account of disabled people’s disabilities, even if this requires more favourable treatment than others – this recognises that equality of opportunity for disabled people cannot be achieved by treating everyone the same. Reasonable adjustments will often need to be made to ensure true equality.

Primary schools in England and Wales are required to publish a Disability Equality Scheme which will help them to meet obligations within their overall general duty. This duty applies in England, Scotland and Wales.

Organisations covered by the duty

The general duty applies to all public authorities (apart from a small number which have specific exemptions). It includes:

• government departments
• executive agencies and ministers
• local authorities
• schools
• governing bodies of colleges and universities
• governing bodies of schools
• NHS trusts and boards
• police and fire authorities
• the Crown Prosecution Service
• the Crown Office
• inspection and audit bodies
• certain publicly funded museums.

The Disability Equality Scheme

There are also specific duties that certain listed authorities have to carry out to support them in achieving the outcomes required by the general duty. The main focus of the specific duties is the production of a Disability Equality Scheme, and relevant organisations are required to produce:

• a statement of how disabled people have been involved in developing the scheme
• an action plan – the steps that the authority is going to take to fulfil its general duty to promote disability equality
• arrangements for gathering information about the performance of a public body on disability equality
• arrangements for assessing the impact of the activities of the authority on disability equality
• details of how the authority is going to use the information.

Authorities will have to put into effect their action plan as well as their arrangements for gathering and using the evidence that they gather. They will also have to report annually on this implementation.

What difference will it make to people with sight problems?

These duties should have a significant impact on the lives of blind and partially sighted people, ensuring that public authorities think in advance about the effect of their decisions and policies.

How can blind and partially sighted people use the Disability Equality Duty?

The Disability Equality Duty does not provide people with individual rights, as do the other provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act. However, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) can enforce a failure to comply with the specific duties by means of a compliance notice. The general duty, ie where an authority is failing to have due regard to the need to promote disability equality, can be enforced by means of judicial review in the high court.

About this guide

The Disability Equality Duty provisions of the DDA were introduced in December 2006.

More information

Download our Disability equality duty (DDA) for the public sector: DDA Factsheet 13 (Word)

Useful Links

• Sources of information about the DDA
• What to do if you experience discrimination.

• Public authority functions under the DDA.

• EHRC Statutory Codes.

Return to DDA homepage.

Content author: DDAEnquiries@rnib.org.uk

Last updated: 06/08/2008 18:40