Disability Equality Duty

About Disability Equality Duty

Since December 2006, there has been a legal duty on all public sector organisations to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. This duty is called the Disability Equality Duty; it requires public sector organisations (such as universities) to:

• Promote equality of opportunity between disabled persons and other persons;
• Eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Act;
• Eliminate harassment of disabled persons that is related to their disabilities;
• Promote positive attitudes towards disabled persons;
• Be pro-active in taking account of disabled person’s disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other persons.

The duty places positive responsibilities on us to work towards a more equal society by mainstreaming disability equality into the way in which we carry out our functions.

In April 2011 this public duty has been extended to cover all protected characteristics not just disability under the Equality Act 2010. The university no longer operates three equality schemes for race, gender and disability but incorporates all protected characteristics in a Single Equality Scheme that identifies our equality objectives. Our original disability aims and action plan have been incorporated into the new Single Equality Scheme. You can view these equality objects by following this link:

Single Equality Scheme Action Plan

The Disability Equality Scheme (DES) was designed to assist managers to review their services and to remove barriers to disabled people. These barriers may be attitudinal, informational, environmental, organisational or cultural. The university will continue to review its Equality Scheme with a view to removing these barriers wherever possible.

The university is committed to taking positive steps to eliminate discrimination in its policies, practices and procedures and this intention underpins the university’s Equal Opportunities Policy.