The Disability Equality Duty (DED) – a guide for deaf people

This factsheet is part of RNID’s your rights range. It will help you ensure that you challenge discrimination. We use the term ‘deaf people’ to refer to deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people throughout this factsheet.

Read this factsheet to find out:

This factsheet aims to give you information rather than specific legal advice. Please read our disclaimer at the end of the factsheet.

Please note: this factsheet only applies to Great Britain. There are separate laws in Northern Ireland under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. You can get more information from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland website (external link, opens new browser window).

What is the Disability Equality Duty (DED)?

The Disability Equality Duty (DED) is the way to promote equality for disabled people and to end institutional discrimination against them. It was created by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 (DDA) and came into force on 4 December 2006. It is a way for disabled people and public authorities to work together to create a more inclusive society with better services and careers for disabled people. At RNID, we believe that working together is the best way to achieve disability equality.

What does the DED aim to do?

The main aim of the DED is to help public authorities think about disability equality, plan how to achieve this and incorporate it into everything they do. The DED aims to help public authorities see where unnecessary barriers stop equal participation on the part of disabled people who use their services, as well as current or potential employees who are disabled. Public authorities need to understand these barriers, so that they can help make sure disabled people play a full role in society.

The DED will help stop disabled people being excluded or marginalised. It will help make sure public authorities work towards enabling disabled people to participate in all parts of society as equal citizens.

The DED will help public authorities to:

Why do we need the DED?

Disabled people do not always have the same opportunities and choices as non-disabled people because of barriers that society creates. These barriers can be physical or because of attitudes towards disabled people. These barriers prevent disabled people from participating fully in society and enjoying equal respect. We know that disabled people can face discrimination from public authorities.

The DED is a way of tackling these issues – to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. It is similar to the Race Equality Duty, which tackles institutionalised racism.

The DED also promotes what is called the social model of disability. This says that disability is not caused by someone’s impairment (such as a hearing loss). Instead, disability is caused by the way that society treats someone who has an impairment – for example, if society creates barriers to using services or getting into employment. In other words, it is the barriers to equal opportunities that create the disability, not the individual’s impairment.

Whom will the DED help?

All of us – both disabled people and public authorities. Public authorities have a huge impact on all our lives. They might be providing a service, employing us or just affecting us generally in society. So it means that they can make great positive changes and help make society more equal and fair for disabled people by removing barriers and changing attitudes. The DED is a way to help them achieve this.

Does the DED create new rights for individuals?

No. It aims to help public authorities improve their policies and services. We give you more information in Who enforces the DED?

Whom does the DED apply to?

1. Disabled people – the DED uses the definition of disability in the DDA 1995 (see our factsheet The DDA – what is meant by disability? (external link, opens new browser window)). This definition includes deaf and hard of hearing people.
2. Public authorities – these are public sector bodies, such as local and central government. We give you more information about public authorities below.

What does the DED include?

There are two parts to the DED:
1. the general duty
2. the specific duties.

What is the general duty?

This is a general framework that helps public authorities to achieve equality for all disabled people. There are six parts to the general duty. Public authorities have to respond to each part. We tell you more about them in the next section.

Public authorities are supposed to include disability equality in everything they do. This is called ‘mainstreaming’. The DDA 2005 says that authorities should do this by having ‘due regard’ to all the different parts of disability equality.

What does ‘due regard’ mean?

Public authorities have to give the disability equality the appropriate amount of importance in relation to how relevant it is. This is more than just giving consideration to disability equality.

It may not always be possible for a public authority to adopt the course of action that will best promote disability equality. In these situations, authorities must make sure they consider the need to promote disability equality alongside other competing issues. 

What are the six parts of the general duty?

These parts can link together, so more than one may apply to specific situations.

1. The need to promote equality of opportunity between disabled persons and other persons.
Disabled people should be able to make choices and use opportunities to improve their quality of life. Doing this helps disabled people to be respected and be full members of society. This part of the duty says that public authorities need to start thinking about how they can make their policies and services fairer for disabled people.

2. The need to eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the DDA.
This part supports the reasonable adjustment duty in the DDA. The reasonable adjustment duty isn’t the same for all parts of the DDA. For example, the anticipatory duty (planning ahead) only applies to services, functions and private clubs, but not to employment situations. This part of the general duty means that all public authorities have to plan ahead to make sure that disabled people are not excluded from the services they provide or from jobs with the authority.

For example, a public authority usually sends out detailed medical questionnaires to all job applicants. Research and contact from disabled people’s organisations suggest that this could deter disabled people from applying. The public authority decides only to send questionnaires to successful job applicants, and only for specific job-related issues. This helps it to get better reports and address reasonable adjustment issues earlier.

3. The need to eliminate harassment of disabled people, which is related to their disabilities.
We know that disabled people can face harassment in everyday life, in the street, when trying to use services, and at work. Harassment is very broad – it doesn’t just cover harassment that the DDA makes unlawful. Harassment can take different forms. These can range from direct verbal abuse through to comments or behaviour that makes someone feel intimidated, uncomfortable or degraded.

Public authorities need to review any existing anti-harassment policies they already have – these are not limited just to the ones they have for their own staff. They must make sure that these say clearly that harassment of disabled people is unacceptable. They also need to make sure that they think about ways to eliminate harassment in the areas they cover. For example, police forces could make sure that Safer Neighbourhood Teams develop community safety strategies and work to eliminate disability hate crime. The police could work with national and local disabled groups to achieve this, as well as local authorities.

4. The need to promote positive attitudes towards disabled persons.
Some people may have unhelpful attitudes towards disabled people and express pity, contempt or fear. These attitudes are unhelpful and can lead to discrimination. When they deliver services, and employ staff, public authorities need to consider how they could change public attitudes. These include ignorance of disability and prejudice towards disabled people. For example, do public authority publications portray people in positive roles, and does staff training look at prejudice and stigma?

5. The need to encourage participation by disabled people in public life.
Public authorities need to encourage disabled people to participate in committees or other forums. The authorities need to make sure that advertisements for these forums reach disabled people and that they are accessible. This includes making reasonable adjustments. For example, a local authority advertises vacancies on a tenants’ committee through its newsletter, and makes sure this is accessible. It also holds the meetings in a council room where there is an induction loop.

6. The need to take steps to take account of disabled persons’ disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other persons.
This is the principle that underpins other parts of the general duty. The general duty aims to achieve equality of opportunity for all disabled people. This part recognises that equality of opportunity can’t be achieved by treating everyone in the same way. Sometimes public authorities may need to treat disabled people more favourably.

This principle has always been included in the DDA – through the duty to make reasonable adjustments. This part of the DED helps reinforce the reasonable adjustments duty. Public authorities may need to provide additional dedicated services for disabled people. These can help people access mainstream services.

Whom does the general duty apply to?

The general duty applies to almost all public authorities. There is no specific list. Instead, the law says that a public authority is an organisation whose functions are functions of a public nature. This is basically the same approach as the Human Rights Act 1998. There are thousands of public authorities. They include very large national authorities such as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), local bodies such as your local council, and small authorities such as a community or parish council. Usually, it’s clear whether or not an organisation is a public authority.

There are some specialised exceptions. These include: Parliament, Scottish Parliament, the security services (such as MI5 and MI6), some parts of the armed forces. Judicial acts (decisions of a judge) or actions taken on instructions from a judicial person are also excluded. This means that if you disagree with a judge’s decision, you cannot use the DED to challenge it – you would have to appeal.

Voluntary sector (charities) and private organisations can also be covered by the general duty. This could happen if they are delivering services that public authorities have commissioned.

Who has specific duties?

Many public authorities also have specific duties. They include:

What are the specific duties for?

The idea behind them is to help public authorities meet the requirements of the general duty. Because the aim of the general duty is to achieve disability equality, the specific duties help authorities do this better. An important part of the specific duty is the Disability Equality Scheme (DES). Public authorities that are covered by the specific duty have to produce a DES.

What is a Disability Equality Scheme (DES)?

The DES is a practical framework that helps public authorities plan and deliver activities – and then review and report on what they have done. This helps them to comply with the general duty. All public authorities had to publish their DES by 4 December 2006. Schools have different deadlines. Crucially, authorities should involve disabled people in the implementation and review of such activities – this is how you can influence change. It is about your involvement.

Have disabled people been involved in developing the DES?
Yes. The specific duties clearly require public authorities to involve disabled people and their organisations that appear to have an interest in the development of the scheme. For example, a local authority’s scheme will cover its social services department. The authority involves current and former service users as well as its social workers and local groups for disabled people – for example, local deaf groups.

Authorities already use ‘consultation exercises’ to get people’s views. ‘Consultation’ tends to be a one-off event. ‘Involvement’ is more active than ‘consultation’ and longer-term. It is about a supported relationship between disabled people, their organisations and public authorities. This enables disabled people and their organisations to have a greater say in how the services they use are delivered – for example, in healthcare or education.

Disabled people can explain how services affect them, what their experiences have been and how they think services could be improved. This is a way for disabled people to influence the delivery of essential services. Even if you don’t want to get involved directly, you can still share your experiences with organisations that do want to – these could be local groups or national organisations such as RNID. This is a way that we can work together for disability equality.

Getting involved can help authorities understand what is important for you, and what you need. This should help them make changes and prevent problems from starting – rather than trying to fix them after they’ve happened.

What’s in the action plan?
This is where the public authority clearly sets out the steps it is going to take to promote disability equality. The action plan should aim to create practical improvements to equality. This means it should say what outcomes the authority wants to achieve, and how it is going to do this. The authority must carry out the steps in the action plan within three years of the scheme being published. The only exception is if the authority can show that it is unreasonable or impractical to carry these out.

Public authorities should set specific targets for key areas – for example, the number of disabled people employed in managerial grades or for specific service delivery. These targets will help the authorities measure their own performance – they will also help you to check what the public authorities are doing. Public authorities will have a lot of work to do, and so they can priorities those areas that are going to have the greatest impact on disabled people’s lives.

Public authorities should involve disabled people when they decide what to prioritise. This is because disabled people know what issues have the greatest impact on them.

An action plan should include issues such as:

How is the public authority going to gather information about its performance on disability equality?
Public authorities must explain how they will gather information on the effect of their policies and practices on disabled people. This is called the statement of the ‘arrangements’ for gathering information.

This means it is very important that disabled people help public authorities gather information – for example, by answering questionnaires.

It is very important to remember that only having a limited amount of information does not give a public authority an excuse for doing nothing.

What are the arrangements for assessing the impact of what the authority has done on disability equality?
Public authorities must explain how they will assess the impact of their policies and practices on disability equality. The aim of an impact assessment is to make sure that what a public authority does:

The assessment may identify a negative impact or a missed opportunity to achieve a positive impact. If it does, then the authority should look at what it can do to change this or take up the missed opportunity.

An impact assessment is a way of looking at issues in advance and addressing potential problems. It allows the authority to assess the way it has been providing services to see if these have reduced equality or have missed opportunities. Doing this is a positive step because it should help prevent issues arising later. It will also help the authority and its staff learn how to develop good practices and policies in the future.

How a public authority carries out the impact assessment depends on what type of authority it is and how relevant the function being assessed is for disabled people. Even if an authority does not carry out a full assessment, it still needs to record what action it has taken. When an authority is considering impact assessments, it needs to develop a timetable and a system to prioritise which functions and policies will be assessed first. Where it does identify difficulties, the authority needs to work out actions to deal with these and include them in the action plan. Authorities should involve disabled people in this process. This is how you can influence change – it’s about your involvement.

How will the public authority use the information it has gathered?
Measures to do this include reviewing how effective its action plan was and how it will prepare subsequent schemes.

Public authorities have to report on what they have done, including what information they have gathered, what they have done with that information, and what steps from the action plan they have taken. They have to do this each year. Public authorities have to review and update the whole DES every three years.

See the statutory code of practice The Duty to Promote Disability Equality. There are separate codes for Scotland and for England/Wales. You can get a copy of the code by contacting the Equality and Human Rights Commission (external link, opens new browser window) or The Stationery Office (external link, opens new browser window).

Who enforces the DED?

Individuals can enforce the general duty through legal action called judicial review.

Who can ask the court for judicial review?
Someone has to show that he or she will be affected by something a public authority has or has not done. If you are not affected, then you cannot go for judicial review. There is a strict three-month time limit. Judicial review can be complicated and you should get specialist legal advice.

What about the specific duty?
Only the Equality and Human Rights Commission (external link, opens new browser window) (EHRC) can enforce the specific duty. This is because the way the specific duty works can be quite technical. It is a specialist issue and would be difficult for individuals to enforce. The specific duty is the framework that authorities use to help them achieve the general duty. Because the EHRC is a national statutory body, it can take a strategic approach to enforcing the specific duty. It has the expertise and resources to look at different public authorities and see what is happening. This means that enforcement is consistent.

Why doesn’t the DED cover private companies?

Achieving disability equality will take place in stages. The government decided to start with the public sector. The public sector has a very large impact on our lives. Private sector companies can be covered by the DED in some situations. This is where they provide services that have been commissioned by public authorities. This is a process called ‘procurement’. It is where the authority enters into a contract with the private company or voluntary sector organisation to carry out works or provide goods or services. Procurement can cover what are called public-private partnerships (PPPs) and public finance initiatives (PFIs).

Authorities enter into contracts for a wide range of activities. These include construction projects, internal employment functions such as IT support or payroll, supplying equipment and disposable medical supplies. It also includes services provided directly to the public, such as transporting pupils to and from school, home-care services, or residential care. Where a private company carries out a public function on behalf of a public authority, the responsibility for the DED still stays with the public authority.

How can I get involved?

You can become involved in the development of DESs and action plans. There are a number of different ways of doing this – for example, by answering questionnaires that will help a public authority collect information on its services, by being part of a focus group or by joining a patient forum or service user group. You could also become involved through telling national organisations, such as RNID, about your experiences.

Remember – for service providers to involve disabled people, which includes people who are deaf and hard of hearing, is more than just a matter of consulting them. You must be actively engaged and part of the process.

What questions could I ask?

You are in the best position to decide what questions to ask. This is because you are the person who uses the public authority’s services and will be affected by what it does or does not do. However, we’ve included a list of suggested questions to give you some ideas:

Does the DED work with human rights laws?

Yes. The DED and human rights laws can work together – they can re-enforce each other. Equality and non-discrimination are the foundations of human rights. The aim of the DED is to promote equality for disabled people – this is also an aim of human rights laws. For example, the DED seeks to eliminate discrimination. This could include making sure you have access to health care. This is also a human right. You could use the European Convention on Human Rights (which applies in the UK through the Human Rights Act 1998) to help protect your rights. We give you more information in our factsheet, The Human Rights Act 1998 – information for deaf and hard of hearing people. You can also get information from other organisations such as the British Institute of Human Rights (external link, opens new browser window).

Where can I get further information?

Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)

The EHRC ‘is working to eliminate discrimination, reduce inequality, protect human rights and to build good relations, ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to participate in society’.
Website: EHRC website (external link, opens new browser window)

England
Equality and Human Rights Commission Disability Helpline (England)
FREEPOST MID02164
Stratford upon Avon
CV37 9BR
Telephone: 08457 622 633
Textphone: 08457 622 644
Fax: 08457 778 878

Wales
Equality and Human Rights Commission Helpline Wales
Freepost RRLR-UEYB-UYZL
1st Floor
3 Callaghan Square
Cardiff
CF10 5BT
Telephone: 0845 604 8810
Textphone: 0845 604 8820
Fax: 0845 604 8830

Scotland
Equality and Human Rights Commission Helpline Scotland
Freepost RRLL-GYLB-UJTA
The Optima Building
58 Robertson Street
Glasgow
G2 8DU
Telephone: 0845 604 5510
Textphone: 0845 604 5520
Fax: 0845 604 5530

Office for Disability Issues (ODI)

The Office for Disability Issues (ODI) also provides information on the DDAs and the DED
The Office for Disability Issues website (external link, opens new browser window)

Equality Commission for Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has separate legislation on disability equality. The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland provides information plus advisory and training services to assist all employers and organisations in carrying out their duties under equal opportunities legislation in Northern Ireland.
The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, Equality House,
7-9 Shaftesbury Square, Belfast BT2 7DP
Telephone 028 9050 0600
Textphone 028 9050 0589
Fax 028 9024 8687
Email: information@equalityni.org
Equality Commision for Northern Ireland website (external link, opens new browser window)

The Stationery Office

The Stationery Office sells printed versions of legislation or any other official publication previously published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO).
The Stationery Office
PO Box 29
Norwich NR3 1GN
Telephone 0870 600 5522 
Fax 0870 600 5533
Email: customer.services@tso.co.uk
The Stationery Office website (external link, opens new browser window)

Further information from RNID

Information Line

The RNID Information Line offers a wide range of information on many aspects of deafness and hearing loss. You can contact us for further copies of this factsheet and our full range of information factsheets and leaflets.
RNID Information Line
19-23 Featherstone Street
London EC1Y 8SL
Telephone 0808 808 012
Textphone 0808 808 9000
Fax 020 7296 8199
Email: informationline@rnid.org.uk

Legal Casework Service

The Legal Casework Service provides information and legal advice on the DDA and welfare rights.
You can find more information at the RNID website.
Telephone 0808 808 0123
Textphone 0808 808 9000
Fax 020 7296 8199
Email: caseworkteam@rnid.org.uk

RNID Employment Training and Skills Service (ETSS)

We provide deafness and disability awareness training. We also help organisations to identify and implement changes that they need to make to offer a high-quality, deaf-aware service and to attract, retain and develop deaf employees. RNID can audit your organisation to help identify areas for action. For more information, see the RNID leaflet Louder than words.
Telephone 020 7296 8060 
Textphone 020 7296 8050
Fax 020 7296 8128
Email: training.services@rnid.org.uk

RNID Products

We sell special equipment for deaf people, including amplified telephones, textphones and induction loops.
RNID Products
1 Haddonbrook Business Centre
Orton Southgate
Peterborough PE2 6YX
Telephone 01733 361199
Textphone 01733 238020
Fax 01733 361161
Email: solutions@rnid.org.uk
RNID shop (external link, opens new browser window)

Disclaimer

This information is not legal advice and you should not rely on it as such. You should consider taking independent legal advice from a solicitor or other qualified legal adviser. RNID does not accept any liability for any actions or failures to act, which you or anyone else may or may not take on the basis of the information contained in this factsheet.

RNID Information, July 2007