Disability Equality Scheme

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was a landmark in equality legislation, making it unlawful to discriminate against someone because of his or her disability. It also required organisations to make 'reasonable adjustments' so that a disabled person could take a job, continue to work for an organisation or access services.

The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 amended the 1995 legislation. It introduced the duty to actively promote disability equality. The Code of Practice produced by the Disability Rights Commission (now superseded by the Equality & Human Rights Commission) states that the “overarching goal of the duty is to promote equality of opportunity”. In many cases the disadvantage and discrimination that disabled people experience arise from attitudinal and environmental barriers. The duty to promote disability equality aims to overcome these barriers.

In this section you should find a range of information on what the Council does to promote equality between people with disabilities and those without. The Council published its first Disability Equality Scheme in 2006, which details specific actions that the authority will take in order to make equality of opportunity a reality for disabled people in the Borough.

Our Disability Equality Scheme 2006-09 has been extended to cover the period up to September 2011.

You will notice that there is a ‘listen’ tab at the top of the screen that enables users to listen to the website contents. We are continually working to try to make this website more accessible. Watch this space for further developments.