Campaigns

Disability Discrimination Act (2005)

Summary: Summary of Disability Discrimination Act(2005)

• Summary of what the Act will do
• Other measures
• Other documents

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The Disability Discrimination Bill that has been going through Parliament received Royal Assent on 7 April and is now law. We are delighted that it has completed its journey through Parliament and welcome the government's delivery of their 2001 manifesto commitment to extend disabled people's civil rights with measures 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.

RNIB worked on the then Bill as part of the Disability Charities Consortium (Leonard Cheshire, Mencap, Mind, RADAR, RNIB, RNID and Scope).

Read the DCC's press release welcoming Royal Assent of the Bill.

Summary of what the Act will do

Transport

Currently transport services are not covered under part three of the Disability Discrimination Act (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, where they enable or facilitate disabled people’s access.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Extending who is protected by the DDA

The Act extends the 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..

Duties on 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.

We warmly welcomed the government's confirmation that the duty will cover schools as well. 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.

Private clubs

They are not covered under the 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.

Other measures

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.

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.

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.

General qualifications bodies

The Act extends the DDA's protection to cover GCSE's, A levels and other non-vocational qualifications, and their Scottish and Welsh equivalents.

Other documents

RNIB’s individual submission to the Joint Committee (Word)

Disability Charities Consortium (Leonard Cheshire, Mencap, Mind, RADAR, RNIB, RNID, Scope) written evidence (Word) to the Joint Committee considering the Bill

Content author: campaign@rnib.org.uk

Last updated: 20/11/2008 11:13