The UK’s Government has launched an ‘ambitious’ Disability Action Plan, to make the UK the most accessible place in the world.
The Disability Action Plan sets out the immediate actions the government will take in 2024 to improve disabled people’s everyday lives, laying the foundations for longer-term change. It also outlines actions the government will take forward with disabled people, their organisations, and other government departments and public service providers across 14 areas.
The action plan aims to complement the National Disability Strategy, which sets out the long-term vision to transform disabled people’s lives for the better, as well as other significant UK Government reform programmes and specific work to continuously improve equal access to opportunities, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
TRANSFORMING LIVES THROUGH INCLUSION
Disability charities and organisations welcomed the plan, but want the Government to go further. “We welcome the publication of the Disability Action Plan and many of the proposals set out within it. We are particularly pleased to see the mention of our “Technology for Life” concept which we believe could transform opportunities for disabled people throughout their lives,” stated Diane Lightfoot, CEO of Business Disability Forum. “Now, we are calling on the Government to go further and to commit funding to make assistive tech available for everyone who needs it.
Lightfoot was pleased to see the expansion of the remit of guide dogs to include assistance dogs. “This is an area of immense importance to our members, and something we have fed into Government on numerous occasions,” she noted. “We are also pleased to see a commitment to getting better data to measure disabled people’s daily life experiences and we will continue to work with Government on these data methodologies.”
BUSINESS VOICES MATTER
Additionally, Lightfoot pointed out that although there are actions to increase disabled people’s access to products and services across sectors, “we are unclear how businesses have been and will be involved, describing the absence of businesses’ voice in this space as “a glaring oversight”.
“We also question the omission of employment from the Action Plan. Work – good work – is a key life opportunity which at the moment is out of reach of far too many disabled people. For people who can work, good work can drive inclusion and a sense of identity as well as bring financial security. To make work a reality for more disabled people, we need greater investment in vital programmes such as Access to Work, yet this is missing from today’s Action Plan,” highlighted Lightfoot. “We also need to see urgent reform to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to allow people to make a phased return to work. The current ‘all or nothing’ approach to SSP means that employees often feel forced to return to full hours before they are ready, which can then lead to further periods of sickness.”
The UK’s Disability Action Plan’s goal is to make the UK the most accessible place in the world. “But this can only happen if employment is made a reality for more disabled people,” pointed out Lightfoot.
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