The Disability Action Plan

The Disability Action Plan

Welcome to our Disability Action Plan mini-hub. Here you will find media statements, consultation work, and briefings all related to the UK Government’s Disability Action Plan. All documents can be downloaded at the right side column of this page.

Our briefing on the history and content of the Disability Action Plan

We have created a briefing which outlines the following:

• The history of and relationship between the Disability Action Plan and the National Disability Strategy.
• What the Government has committed to in the Disability Action Plan.
• What we think is missing.
• What we are encouraging our members to work on now.

As a result of the content of the Disability Action Plan, we have created an ‘eight-point consideration and action plan’ for businesses.

Our eight-point consideration and action plan for businesses

1. Emergency and resilience planning. How have your emergency and resilience planning procedures for employees and customers included and accounted for the adjustments of individual disabled people? Know the policies you have in place and the procedures you train staff on to support and include disabled people in such situations.

2. Climate and sustainability-related initiatives. How do you know your sustainability and climate-related policies do not disadvantage or negatively impact disabled people, as your employees or your customers (including students, patients, and clients)? Disabled people told us many organisations make them feel “guilty” because they either cannot take part in an initiative, or it directly contravenes how they have to live their life with a specific disability. Ensure your narratives and initiatives are balanced and include the realities and experiences of disabled people.

3. Barrier-free services. Undertake a review of the end-to-end user journey that customers (including patients, students, and clients) experience when they use the services that you provide. Identify the barriers by involving disabled people with a wide range of disabilities and who use a wide range of adjustments and adaptations. Make this an ongoing review cycle, and not a ‘one off’ project.

4. Assistance animals. Do all customer-facing staff know what to do if, for example, an emotional support cat wanted to come into a public area of your organisation? Equip your staff upfront to know the diversity of assistance animals disabled people use as well as the range of tasks these animals do for and with their disabled humans. Ensure all customer-related feedback and complaints feed back into your organisation’s learning and development strategy to ensure customer-facing staff training ongoingly continues to address the very situations experienced by your disabled customers.

5. Priority schemes for disabled customers and carers. Does your organisation operate a priority scheme for disabled people? Such schemes are common in the utilities sectors to ensure anyone who is disabled or a carer who relies on (commonly) water or power because of their disability gets urgent notifications and attention in the event of an emergency. If so, ensure this scheme is promoted proactively to customers with clear and accessible formats of communication to increase uptake of these schemes.

6. Customer-facing staff training. How do you know your customer-related training for staff is effective? Ensure you are asking your customers (particularly disabled customers) for their feedback, and ensure you have an internal framework which measures the effectiveness of your customer-related learning and development initiatives. If disabled people’s experiences are not improving, consider how your learning and development provision in this area needs to change or expand.

7. Reducing extra costs for disabled people if you provide disability-specific products. If you provide disability-specific products for disabled people to purchase, clearly communicate, advise, and assist them to ensure they are not paying VAT where they do not need to. Further information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/financial-help-disabled/vat-relief

8. Find the right suppliers. While not directly mentioned in the Disability Action Plan, a key function pivotal to ensuring an inclusive, effective delivery of accessible experiences for disabled people is how you choose third-party suppliers and partners to deliver services on your behalf. Having an inclusive supplier framework that defines how you want suppliers and partners to deliver your services with the same values and accessibility and inclusion criteria, will help achieve a consistent inclusive experience for disabled people.

You can view our press response to the publication of the Disability Action Plan here.

If you have any questions, please contact the policy and research team at policy@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk