News from Office for Disability Issues

Disability equality reports published

On 1 December 2008, 11 Secretaries of State published reports on the progress they have made towards disability equality. The reports, which are the first of their kind, reflect an honest view of progress towards disability equality and also how the Government will work together to make improvements. The ODI supported the production of the reports, which were launched at the ODI Annual Event, and published an overview highlighting key findings from each.

Find the overview and links to the reports on our Disability Equality Duty pages.

Also published on 1 December was an ODI-commissioned research report, An In-depth examination of the implementation of the Disability Equality Duty in England. The report presents some useful examples of how schemes were developed across a small sample of public authorities, and the impact they have had for disabled people. You can find the report on the ODI publications page.

Ratification of the UN Convention

Minister for Disabled People, Jonathan Shaw, has reaffirmed the intention of the UK Government to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People despite a delay in the expected ratification date.

Speaking at a hearing of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 18 November, the Minister said:

"The UK Government believes that the UN Convention is a powerful statement of disabled people's human rights, which is why the United Kingdom signed the Convention, and why we are now working hard towards ratification. Good progress has been made, and whilst we will not be able to achieve this by the end of 2008, my ambition is that we do so in Spring 2009."

Find out more about the plans for ratification on our UN Convention pages.

Government responds to Independent Living Strategy consultation

The Government recently published its response to the consultation on how to monitor progress around the Independent Living Strategy, which was launched in March 2008. As with the Strategy itself, disabled people were actively involved in the consultation process, which included a series of public meetings and written submissions from nearly 100 individuals and organisations.

The response sets out how disabled people will be involved at both a local and a national level and outlines work that will take place to ensure that disabled people are better equipped to become involved.

Read the Government's response on our Independent Living Strategy page.

Consulting on indirect discrimination

A House of Lords judgement (Lewisham v Malcolm) made it more difficult for a disabled person to show that they had been discriminated against for a reason related to their disability.

In the context of preparing for the proposed Equality Bill, the Government has been considering whether it needs to take a different approach following that judgment.

The Government proposes that, for the Equality Bill, it should replace disability-related discrimination with the concept of indirect discrimination, which is used for other protected characteristics, such as gender and age.

Get involved in the consultation at www.odi.gov.uk/indirectdiscrimination.

ODI Annual Report published

The ODI annual report was published on 1 December 2008. It shows continuing work towards improving life chances for disabled people, including:

• £35 million committed to improving childcare provision for disabled children over the next three years
• cross-government initiatives to improve recording and prosecution of disability-related hate crime
• a 20 per cent increase in the Disabled Facilities Grant in 2009, with a further six per cent scheduled for 2010
• a 60 per cent increase in disabled students' allowances in the last year.

Read the full report, including the Annex, on our annual report page.