On 4th December 2006 the new Disability Equality Duty came into force – do you comply?

Do you work for a public body? If so - have you ensured that your organisation meets the requirements of the Disability Equality Duty which came into force on December 4th 2006, as part of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995? Here is a summary of what the new duty entails

The Disability Equality Duty places a legal responsibility on all public bodies to promote equality for disabled people in everything they do. The legislation hopes to eliminate unlawful disability discrimination and promote positive attitudes.

This therefore goes above and beyond the current requirements to, for example, make your documents accessible in an alternative format, or provide a ramp, on request. The new duty places an emphasis on considering the needs of disabled people in all areas of the organisation from the start i.e. in all planning, delivering and monitoring of your services, rather than just reacting to individual requests or situations as they arise. This duty not only affects organisations as service providers - but also as employers.

Duties include

• the production of a Disability Equality Scheme demonstrating how an organisation will meet the requirements of the Disability Equality Duty. This should have been in place on December 4th 2006.
• the involvement of disabled people in producing the Scheme and Action Plan
• being able to show that actions in the plan have been carried forward and have improved the organisation
• reporting on the progress achieved annually and
• regular review and update of the Scheme.

Daisy - New Year, new format

A2i is pleased to launch our Daisy service - the exciting new format within the industry, often called a Digital Talking Book (Daisy Talking book & Daisy Book, etc). We offer either type 2 Daisy or type 4 Daisy and the details are as follows …

Daisy is a combination of Audio and E-text (electronic text). The visually impaired reader will have a special Daisy player or computer software, that will enable them to see the book on a screen. The corresponding portions of text are then highlighted whilst it is read out.

There a 2 types of Daisy Audio :

• Type 4 Daisy has the complete document script in e-text with full corresponding audio.

• Type 2 Daisy has a full audio recording of the document, however, the e-text part of the transcription is more limited - with just the headings appearing on the screen for the user.

Both versions include adaptation of the document for audio and text where necessary, such as transcription of diagrams and pictures if appropriate. The document is split into sections and tracks as required, to make it easier for the reader to navigate. We also incorporate full indexing. Additional options include musical intro's and outro's and Braille labels for the CD’s.

The benefits:

• Increasing numbers of visually impaired people are switching to Daisy - we can help you meet their requirements.
• Daisy is more user-friendly that audio or e-text alone
• If a number of copies are required, and the document is more than approximately 8500 words long, the copies can be cheaper as only 1 CD will be required. You can expect approximately 180 pages to fit on a Daisy CD, compared to just 18 on a standard audio CD.

Did you know...?

Did you know that about 50% of all sight problems in older people are due to untreated refractive error and cataracts?

Although the Department for Health and the NHS have increased the number of cataract operations being carried out, many older people with cataracts and refractive errors are not registered with eye care services and are therefore potentially missing out on essential healthcare. What’s more, around 4 million older people do not have regular free eye examinations, risking their refractive errors and cataracts going untreated.

Source: RNIB