New equality rules for disabled people

In-house Lawyers' Group annual gathering hears of new equality rules for public bodies

News, 4 November 2005

New rules governing equality for disabled people in public sector workplaces and beyond will be announced to Scotland's In-house Lawyers' Group annual gathering today.

The newly created Disability Equality Duty, expected to come into force around the turn of the new year, will apply to all public sector bodies, any company subcontracted to carry out work for the sector, as well as companies or organisations which carry out a public role, including hospitals and universities.

Lynn Welsh, Head of Scottish Legal Affairs at the Disability Rights Commission, will give the first presentation of the new Disability Equality Duty Code at this year's event in The Hub in Edinburgh.

She said: "The new Disability Equality Duty is the equivalent of the race equality duty in Scotland and will help eliminate harassment and discrimination in the workplace and achieve equality for disabled people. The introduction of the code will explain the duty to public bodies and help organisations to build equality into their policies rather than having to amend them on an ad hoc basis."

The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 amended the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, by placing a duty on all public bodies to promote disability equality. The code comes into effect in January 2006 and each organisation affected will need to have a disability equality scheme in place by December 2006.

Public bodies will be required to involve disabled people in producing the scheme and developing an action plan; identify how they will gather and analyse evidence to inform activity taken and track progress; set out how they will assess the impact of their existing and proposed activities on disabled people; produce a three-year action plan that sets out the steps they will take to ensure they meet their duties.

Other speakers at the event include Solicitor General Elish Angiolini QC, Ruthven Gemmell, vice president of the Society and Tom Usher, from Dundas and Wilson.

Ruthven Gemmell said: "In-house lawyers now make up over a quarter of those practising in Scotland, with figures rising from 1,785 in 2000 to 2,584 this year, and represent a hugely diverse range of legal professionals working right across local and national government, commerce and industry and the courts.

"Our members play key roles within many public and private organisations and it's important to recognise the work they do as part of the wider legal profession."