Don’t get involved: an examination of how public sector organisations in England are involving disabled people in the Disability Equality Duty

Abstract

The Disability Equality Duty (DED) came into force in December 2006. It stipulated that all public sector organisations were to develop policies to promote the equality of disabled people as staff members, consumers or visitors. Its emergence comes as part of a network of social policies developed over the last 20 years to promote disability rights and citizenship in the UK. However unlike previous legislation, the DED set in place the need for organisations to be proactive in their policies and work with disabled people to move towards change in public sector cultures and working practices. This article reports on this early stage of implementation in England. Findings show that whilst some progress has been made in securing change, practice varied greatly. Therefore if a fundamental change in the culture of work and service provision is to be secured, this key requirement will need to be given a higher priority by organisations.

Keywords:

• disability equality duty
• anti‐discrimination legislation
• public sector reform
• disability rights
• citizenship

Notes

1. Primary schools had until December 2007 to prepare their DES.

2. The Environment Target was an exception since it agreed to participate before its first year review was completed.