On the 5th February 2024 the Disability Action Plan was published by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The draft plan is the proposals for the Government and Parliament to improve accessibility in 14 main areas with the goal of improving disabled individuals’ lives.
The plan covers several different areas including:
- Disabled people being elected to public office
- The inclusion of disabled people’s needs in emergency and resilience planning
- To include disabled peoples needs in climate-related policies
- Improve information available for families with disabled people
- Making playgrounds accessible
- Help business to understand the needs and deliver improvements for disabled people
- Explore if the UK could host the special Olympics World Summer Games
- Support people who have guide and assistance dogs
- Help the government measure how effective services are for disabled people
- Research issues facing disabled people
- Making communication from Government more accessible
- Improve the understanding of the cost of living for disabled people
- Promote a better understanding of the United Nationals Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities across Government
- Monitor and report the progress of the Disability Action Plan.
The report was created following a consultation with disabled people, experts, and charities. These respondents felt that there needed to be more disabled people involved in a policies development and implementation and greater consideration for the impact of any polices on disabled individuals.
The main concerns which the consultation found for disabled people is the lack of accessible housing, social isolation, and lack of sufficient and suitable social care.
The report details 32 points to improve across the 14 areas with the aim to make the UK the most accessible country in the world. However there remains a level of speculation and concern across disabled people and campaigners.
It is felt although a step in the right direction the plan fails to address a number of fundamental issues which disabled people face when accessing daily living. There is also speculation on how the plan will be carried out and the weight it has in terms of enforceability.
The disability action plan contains recommendations for improvement but this has not been confirmed by the introduction of further legislation and it does not allow for cases to bought against businesses and services for failing to follow the guidance. This remains the role of the Equality Act 2010.
The full Disability Action Plan document can be found on Gov.uk and includes a number of accessible formats including BSL and audio versions.
Ringrose Law continue to be dedicated to support disabled individuals and our dedicated team of legal advisors are more than happy to assist and offer support and advice if you or anyone you know has experienced disability discrimination.