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DED Action Plan Review Taking on the Duty

NADP Annual Conference 2007

Honey LucasECU Projects Officer

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Purpose of session

To review the progress made on the DED within your institution - 7 months on

To assess what is working well within your

institution’s DES action plan To identify the challenges/ barriers to success that

your institution is facing To generate practical solutions to overcome these

challenges

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ECU vision

Equality Challenge Unit works with higher education

institutions to support all staff and students realise

their potential, whatever their race, gender, disability,

sexual orientation, religion or age; and

Works to ensure that equality and diversity becomes

explicitly integrated into the strategic priorities of all

HEIs

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ECU programme 2007

Projects relate to four key programme areas:

Evidence base

Involvement and research

Inclusive campus

Mainstreaming equality

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DED Details 1

DDA (2005) indicates General duties for HEIs:

promote equality of opportunity between disabled persons and other persons

eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Act eliminate harassment of disabled persons that is related to their

disabilities promote positive attitudes towards disabled persons encourage participation by disabled persons in public life take steps to take account of disabled persons’ disabilities, even

where that involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other persons.

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DED Details 2

DDA (2005) also indicates Specific duties for HEIs:

To publish a Disability Equality Scheme (including within it an Action Plan)

To involve disabled people in producing the Scheme and Action Plan

To demonstrate they have taken actions in the Scheme and achieved appropriate outcomes

To report on progress To review and revise the Scheme*

*Summary from the DRC

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DES Review: December 07

ECU (with SKILL and Impact Associates) worked with 30 HEIs on

the preparation of their DES.

Best practice was felt to be:

a. Addressing requirements of both general and specific duties

b. Moving beyond the bare legal requirements

c. Senior management involvement and link to HEI strategies

d. Significant involvement of disabled people at all stages

e. Showing the context of data collected and services provided

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DES Review: December 07

Best practice continued:

f. Show understanding of Impact Assessments in your own HEI

g. SMART Action Plans with performance indicators and monitoring

h. Action Plans with staff responsibilities clearly indicated

i. Clear information about reporting on progress annually

j. Availability of the Scheme in different formats

k. Indication of how the Scheme will be developed in the future.

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DES Review: December 07

‘Feedback to the Higher Education sector

on Disability Equality Schemes’.

Downloadable (free) from:

www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/

These findings have been summarised in an ECU publication:

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DED Action Plan

Working with disabled people to identify barriers at your institution,the Action Plan of your DES should:

Address the requirements of both the general and specific duties

Indicate how you are going to address barriers Identify who is taking responsibility for individual actions Identify time and resources required for tackling barriers

Draw in the results of Impact Assessments as they happen Monitor the implementation of the actions shown.

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Actions Plans: July 07

Referring back to the list of best practice from the ECU Review:

1. Have any of those points been an issue for your Action Plans? If

so, how and what have you done to resolve any problems?

2. What issues are arising about medium- and long-term

implementation?

3. What practical steps have you taken/ could you take to drive the

Action Plan forward?