The Government’s Disability Action Plan: Its history and content

Last week saw the publication of the UK government’s Disability Action Plan. The purpose of the Disability Action Plan was to provide short-term measures that the government can achieve during 2024, in the run up to the next general election. The government has stated that the Disability Action Plan and the longer-term National Disability Strategy were always intended to complement one another. Although they are separate documents, it is clear they are intrinsically linked. This is evident in their similar themes and actions, but also in how the Disability Action Plan frequently refers back to the National Disability Strategy throughout its pages.

A non-employment action plan

On one level, it is encouraging to have a policy document from government that doesn’t see disabled people merely in terms of their contributive value to the labour market; the Disability Action Plan does not include any welfare or employment-related actions. The government has said this is due to employment and welfare policy being covered elsewhere, namely in the health and disability white paper. The Plan instead addresses a range of different areas of disabled people’s lives which rarely get strategic, political attention: for example, disabled people being included in the government’s emergency and resilience procedures; understanding disabled customers’ experiences when accessing services; and ensuring disabled people get adjustments to apply for and participate in elected office.

On another level though, we question the omission of employment from the Action Plan. Work – good work – is a key life opportunity which at the moment is out of reach of far too many disabled people. For people who can work, good work can drive inclusion and a sense of identity as well as bring financial security. To make work a reality for more disabled people, we need greater investment in vital programmes such as Access to Work, yet this is missing from the Plan. We also need to see urgent reform to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to allow people to make a phased return to work. The current ‘all or nothing’ approach to SSP means that employees often feel forced to return to full hours before they are ready, which can then lead to further periods of sickness.

Missing the voice of businesses

In other areas of the Disability Action Plan, decisions which centre on the role of business appear to have not included them at all. For example, there is a whole section on supporting businesses to understand the needs of disabled people. However, much of the content of that section was not included in the consultation proposals. New content includes the government saying they will publish research in spring 2024 on how accessible private sector products and services are. This is an action that first appeared in the National Disability Strategy and at the time we offered to contribute to this and share the breadth of practices and experiences in our among our member organisations. The Plan also says the government will look into the effectiveness of customer service training that businesses provide as well as looking at the end-to-end customer journey, although there’s no indication of how this will be done or the methodology that will be used. As a business membership organisation, we believe the right solutions and, indeed, the best solutions are achieved with government, business and disabled people being involved equally at each stage of developing a solution to a problem and we will be urging the government to take this approach.

What BDF will do next

We are continuing to speak to the government to urge it to engage with businesses thoroughly on these actions.  We have offered to work with our members and feed back to government on projects relating to the accessibility of websites in the private sector, businesses’ resilience and emergency planning procedures, and what disability inclusive customer service looks like in different sectors, including the challenges and barriers that prevent them from doing more. We will also be encouraging our members to develop their own actions related to the Plan through our Customer Taskforce.

In the meantime, we have written a briefing and analysis of the Disability Action Plan which includes:

• The history and relationship between the National Disability Strategy and the Disability Action Plan.
• What the government has committed to in the Plan.
• What BDF thinks is missing in the Plan.
• What businesses can do about the Plan now.

Read our media response to the publication of the Disability Action Plan.