Disability Equality Duty

The ODI supports central government departments to implement the Disability Equality Duty

On 4 December 2006 the Disability Equality Duty came into force.

The Disability Equality Duty (DED) represents a real opportunity for the public sector to address the inequalities that millions of disabled people face in their day-to-day lives and in their chances for the future.

The DED is made up of two components – a general duty and specific duties.

The general duty

The general duty recognises that disability equality is not an added extra and should be usual in all areas of public bodies' work. The general duty requires every public authority when carrying out their functions to give due regard and the need to:

promote equality of opportunity for disabled people
eliminate unlawful discrimination
eliminate disability-related harassment
promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
encourage participation by disabled people in public life
take steps to meet disabled peoples needs, even if this requires more favourable treatment

The specific duties

The specific duties require listed public authorities to publish disability equality schemes that set out how they will carry out their general duty, monitor, and report on progress and how they have involved disabled people in developing their scheme. The ODI is responsible for keeping the list of public authorities up to date.

Annual Reports

Each year following publication of a schemes, an annual report needs to be produced. The report should contain a summary of the steps the authority has taken to fulfil the duty, the results of the information gathering exercise it has undertaken and how the information gathered has been used.

Secretary of State Reports

Key Secretaries of State are also required to publish a report setting out progress towards disability equality across their policy sectors and proposals for co-ordination of future work by relevant public authorities to bring about further progress. The first set of Secretary of State reports were published in December 2008, with subsequent reports required to be published every three years.

The Secretary of State reports are a unique aspect of the DED. It is intended to prompt a high level strategic approach to address inequalities that cut across organisational boundaries.

In common with other elements of the duty, the ODI is supporting departments that fall under the requirement.

The central government departments are:

Business, Innovation and Skills
Children, Schools and Families
Communities and Local Government
Culture, Media and Sport
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Health
Home Office
Justice
Transport
Work and Pensions

ODI also supports the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Government in production of their reports.

Disability Equality Duty Secretary of State Reports: Getting Started

Guidance for Departments

This guidance is intended to supplement the Statutory Code of Practice produced by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) .

Read the Guidance for departments:

Guidance

To help civil servants understand the obligations of the DED, the ODI produced 'Disability equality: a priority for all' guidance.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has guidance for public bodies and disabled people on their website. Find out more n the Equality and Human Rights Commission website (links to EHRC website).

Compliance

In March 2007, the ODI published findings of the compliance audit report with the requirement for public bodies to produce a Disability Equality Scheme. The report gives information to support the Disability Rights Commission's initial enforcement strategy.

Public Bodies’ Response to the Disability Equality Duty: An Audit of Compliance with the Requirement to Publish a Disability Equality Scheme (PDF, 26 pages, 480 KB)

The Disability Rights Commission was merged into the Equality and Human Rights Commission (links to the EHRC website) in October 2007, which now has responsibility for enforcing the legislation.

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