DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT: ACCESS AUDITING AND CONSULTANCY

Access Audits and Statements

Access audits are inspections of buildings or environments to appraise their accessibility using an agreed set of standards. The report outlines the current situation and makes recommendations for improvement where necessary. A more cost effective solution for organisations with limited budgets may be for us to talk over key access issues on site with management/staff and suggest solutions.  An Access audit can help you to comply with your duties under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995, 2005 and Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) 2001.

There are around 10 million people with rights under the Disability Discrimination Act in Great Britain. The legal definition of disability covers people with physical, sensory, communication and intellectual impairments, and people with mental health and other long term health conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV and schizophrenia.

Under the DDA 1995, disabled people have the legal right to fair treatment in employment, in education and as customers of services. Most duties of the Act are now in force. A new Disability Discrimination Act received royal assent in 2005. This has created a duty on public bodies to actively promote disability equality from December 2006 as well as closing some of the loopholes in the previous Act.

Further Education Colleges under Part IV of the DDA as amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) require, colleges to ensure that they do not discriminate against disabled people by either failing to make a reasonable adjustment for a student or treating a student less favourable for a reason related to their disability.

Access Consultancy

We can appraise design proposals assessing the potential usability of the finished building. An appraisal includes a report which outlines the accessibility of the proposals, makes recommendations for improvement where necessary and provides further guidance for Access Statements.  We can work as part of a design/project team and could help develop an overall inclusive design policy and standard or a design brief for individual schemes and tender documentation.

Access Statements

From the 10th August 2006 a Design and Access Statement has been required for certain planning applications. The statement has to identify the design principles and concepts that have been applied to the development and how the issues relating to access to the development have been dealt with.  The Approved Document M (AD M) of the Building Regulations recommends that an access statement be provided at the time plans are deposited, a building notice is given or details of a project are given to an approved inspector, and updated to reflect decisions on site.

We can prepare a Design and Access Statement which at its simplest, might record that the intention of the client, designer or design team to comply where appropriate with the guidance in the AD M, and to indicate in what respects it was considered appropriate. Where an applicant wishes to depart from the guidance in AD M, either to achieve a better solution using new technologies, to provide a more convenient solution, or to address the constraints of an existing building, the statement would set out the reasons for departing from the guidance and the rationale for the design approach adopted.