Should Businesses Be Afraid Of The DDA?

[UKRobin]

Should Businesses Be Afraid Of The DDA?


The Disability Discrimination Act part III concerning providers of goods, services or facilities came into effect on October 1 2004. The act aims to end the discrimination that many disabled people face. There are around 10 million disabled adults in this country and the Disability Discrimination Act gives them important rights of access to everyday services and employment opportunities that others take for granted.

If your organisation is not accessible to disabled people, you could be missing out on a lot of potential customers. Disabled customers have a combined spending power of over £80 billion, as well as facing the possibility of having to defend yourself or company in court for Disability Discrimination. So making your services more accessible to all disabled people should be a priority to your business.

To be able to best meet the many requirements of the DDA you first need to know in what areas your business is currently non-compliant. This is best achieved by the means of an Access Audit that will examine all areas of disability including those with Visual impairments, Hearing impairments, Physical disabilities including disabled and ambient disabled as well as learning difficulties. Many businesses have spent a great deal of money on alterations to their buildings or services in their own attempt to comply to the DDA, only to find that money had been spent in areas that would be deemed ‘Unreasonable Adjustment’ by a competent Access Auditor, or in many cases costly alterations had been made that did not comply to the many requirements of the DDA.

When employing the services of a DDA Access Auditor, care should be taken to ensure that they fully comprehend and put into practice ‘Reasonable Adjustment’ As recommended by both the DDA and the DRC (Disability Rights Commission) It is not a case of simply employing the services of an Access Auditor or Access Consultant that may be a member of the N.R.A.C (National Register Of Access Consultants) Many Access Consultants simply work to the requirements of the Building Regulations Part M or British Standards 8300 and have not comprehended or understood ‘Reasonable Adjustment’ Simply following these stringent regulations without considering ‘Reasonable Adjustment’ could cost your business a great deal of unnecessary money!

Access All Areas is an Access Audit service offers a unique high quality cost effective approach to compliance of the Disability Discrimination Act. Their high level of understanding of disability needs is greatly enhanced by the presence of a qualified access auditor that is himself a wheelchair user. Access All Areas fully understands and places ‘Reasonable Adjustment’ at the forefront of every Access Audit report and gives great consideration to the size of your business as well as your current available finances.

Access All areas are based in Essex and offers national coverage. Access All Areas can be contacted on 01255-242777. For more information see [url]www.access-auditing.com[url]

So in answer to the question Should Businesses Be Afraid Of The DDA? The answer is NO the DDA should be embraced but businesses and service providers should be afraid of choosing the wrong Access Auditor/Consultant!

[inbakumar]

Originally Posted by UKRobin

Should Businesses Be Afraid Of The DDA?
There are around 10 million disabled adults in this country and the Disability Discrimination Act gives them important rights

The UK population is roughly 58 million and 14 million of that is children under the age of 18, leaving 44 million adults living in this country. Based on the above quote, more than 1 in every 5 adult is disabled .

Do other forum members believe such a claim? I personally don't believe that it is accurate.

Regards,

[Corabar Entertainment]

Actually, 10M is the government's figure. The majority of the script from the above post has been copied more or less verbatim from the government's own website.

Have a look at Disability.gov.uk

[UKRobin]

In reply to the above two threads:

Disabled (as I’m sure you are aware) includes Learning difficulties, Hearing impairments, Vision impairments, Arthritis as well as the many ambient disabilities. Wheelchair users simply represent 4% of that figure.

As for stating the article is mostly copied from a Government web site, again your figures are way out! FOUR lines of text that concerns disabled figures are in fact from such a site. The rest is from my personal knowledge of undertaking over 70 access audits. 50% of our work is now through recommendations. So 'Reasonable Adjustment' seems to be getting understood.

Robin

[url]www.access-auditing.com[url]

[UKRobin]

More facts n figures to chew over.............

Disability covers a range of impairments both visible and invisible including arthritis and diabetes, sight and hearing impairments as well as cerebral palsy, Down’s Syndrome and many mental health conditions.

Only 4% of Disabled people are wheelchair users. 96% of registered blind people can see to varying degrees. There are 8.5 million disabled people in the UK. There are about 23,000 deafblind people in the UK. 6.2 million disabled people are of working age. 300,000 children are disabled. 6 million people have problems with mobility or dexterity. 5,000 assistance dogs are working in the UK. 500,000 people use a wheelchair all or part of the time.
All of the above are now protected by the DDA and its powerful governing body the Disability Rights Commission (DRC)

[url]www.access-auditing.com[url]

[UKRobin]

Understanding Disability

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I find it very disturbing to read DDA reports by many Access Consultants only to find that Learning Difficulties are very often not taken into account when undertaking Disability Discrimination Act audits.



It needs to be understood that disabled access does not simply mean a wheelchair getting through a doorway or catering for visual and hearing impairments. People with Learning difficulties far out number wheelchair users and this should be considered when auditing buildings and services for disabled access and egress.



Disability is a vast subject with many many variations all of which need equal consideration for access and safe egress. As for disabilities, we all have them to some degree or other do we not? Learning difficulties covers many many thing, I for example have great difficulty understanding and learning French. Maybe thats a bad example or am i just fortunate not to cross the path of many French people.

Will let you decide!


Robin
[url]www.access-auditing.com[url]

[microbe]

There is a body of research which suggests strongly that improved the accessibility and readibility of a web site will very significantly improve its performance for all categories of users.

http://www.readability.info/ has a readability index tool, which can be used to check web sites.

Note that in the US they reckon that 49% of adults have some degree of reading difficulty.

If you want your web site to perform better it is worth taking the trouble to a) upgrade it to WAI accessibility compliance and b) proof your copy to make sure that it is capable of being easily read and understood.

[domokun]

To answer the question:
No, Businesses should not be afraid of the DDA.

A few simple changes to your site and a bit og forethought before implmenting new changes can mean that your site is perfectly web accessible for all.

[UKRobin]

I am currently searching for a web designer that can do just that but nobody can guarantee that my search engine placement (currently between 1st & 8th) will NOT suffer.

Any ideas?

Robin

[domokun]

I can't beleive that Robin, Web Accessiblity compliments SEO - it should not detract from it.