Disability Equality Duty

The report was not intended to be interpretative; it provided a snapshot of how public authorities were embedding the Disability Discrimination Act into the work of the authority. 

As well as setting out statistical information about disability issues across the public sector in Wales, the report included a series of 8 recommendations for action that the Welsh Government proposed to take to improve co-ordination and further progress on implementing the Disability Equality Duty.

The recommendations were that the Welsh Government:

• Establish an Advisory Group to identify and consider the issues arising from the report.
• Develop a programme of activity with the Advisory Group to develop methods of collecting information for the next report.
• Explore opportunities of using existing processes to capture information such as those used by inspection bodies to inform the next report.
• Explore how disabled people can be actively involved in future programmes of policy and research to gain a factual assessment of the effectiveness of specific schemes.
• Continue working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Government Equality Office to develop indicators to evaluate progress of the implementation of the disability equality duty.
• Explore how we can develop robust estimates on a Wales level to help monitor aspects of equality.
• Encourage public authorities to reflect on this report and how it can be used to develop/instigate further progress in promoting disability equality, while making sure that systems are in place to deliver the legal duties.
• Promote awareness of the Social Model of Disability as part of policy making process and in doing so encourage public authorities to do likewise.

The 2nd Welsh Ministers’ report which is to be published in December 2011, will provide an update on the actions that have taken place based on the first Welsh Ministers’ report recommendations. The Welsh Government are currently taking forward arrangements to capture evidence in the form of statistical data and research findings needed to inform the report.