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The Disability and Equality Agenda e-Bulletin – June 2013
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In this month’s edition:
1. Government has a unique chance to give disabled people better support
2. Put disabled people in charge of benefits assessments
3. Call centre menu options catalogued by frustrated man
4. Disability in the workplace
5. Disabled Europeans threatened by austerity measures
6. Closed-captioning glasses get big rollout to cinemas
7. New international web access guidelines “ineffective”, academic claims
8. Disability still a major factor in determining UK internet use
9. SAP in autism recruitment drive
10. Legal Cases:

Knowledge of Disability

Campbell v Thomas Cook
11. Volunteer centre withdraws from Work Programme because of restrictions on service
delivery
12. Managers can do more to challenge the stigma of mental ill health
13. NAS survey reveals extent of disability hate crime
14. Disability web access – progress needed
15. Research into the experiences of people who receive adult social care support or
funding
1. Government has a unique chance to give disabled people better support
With government support a number of new initiatives are underway that could help disabled
people to determine the support they receive for themselves rather than rely on a patchwork of
services.
For more go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-care-network/2013/may/13/disabled-peoplebetter-support-alice-maynard?CMP=twt_gu
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2. Put disabled people in charge of benefits assessments
Amnesty International has recently passed a resolution condemning attacks on the human
rights of sick and disabled people in the UK. They say one of the ways rights are being
challenged is the manner in which the government is trying to force disabled people into work.
For more go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/14/disabled-peoplebenefits-assessments-amnesty-international
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3. Call centre menu options catalogued by frustrated man
Retired IT manager Nigel Clarke, from Kent in the UK, has launched a website listing the call
centre menu sequences for accessing thousands of services.
Mr Clarke found that some automated menus have nearly 80 options and that it can take over
four minutes to get to the service you want if you listen to each stage of the menu in full.
For more go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22567656
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4. Disability in the workplace
The Business Disability Forum recently teamed up with the special interest media company
Raconteur to create a 16 page supplement for The Times newspaper, outlining the business
case for employing people with disabilities.
Many of those taking part in building the articles that feature in the supplement by sharing
information on their experiences of disability in the workplace were members of the Forum.
For more go to: http://theraconteur.co.uk/category/business/disability-in-the-workplace/
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5. Disabled Europeans threatened by austerity measures
The June board meeting of the European Network for Independent Living (ENIL) in Norway
discussed the affects of austerity measures on disabled people across Europe as well as
ENIL’s future work programme.
Concern was expressed that independent living is still not widely understood across Europe,
that personal assistance is being restricted and that there are still too many disabled people
living in institutions.
For more go to: http://disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2013/june/disabled-europeans-threatenedausterity-measures
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6. Closed-captioning glasses get big rollout to cinemas
More than 6,000 Regal cinema screens in the US are about to become a lot friendlier to deaf
and hearing-impaired moviegoers with the introduction of special closed-captioning glasses
made by Sony.
The glasses project closed captions at the bottom of the viewer's eyesight. The text is sent via
a wireless system to a receiver that feeds the data to the glasses. Regal Cinemas are also
offering an audio headset option for the blind, providing descriptive audio tracks to match what
is happening on the screen.
For more go to: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57584210-1/closed-captioning-glassesget-big-rollout-to-cinemas/?subj=cnet&tag=title
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7. New international web access guidelines “ineffective”, academic claims
Conforming to the international industry standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG) can be “ineffective” as a method of reducing problems encountered by blind and
visually impaired web users, one IT academic has claimed.
In his PhD thesis for the University of York, ‘Disabled people and the Web: User-based
measurement of accessibility’, André Pimenta Freire – a specialist in human-computer
interaction – writes that a large number of problems on website pages encountered by printdisabled computer users would not have been resolved by conformance to WCAG criteria.
For more go to: http://bit.ly/14y6M1G
(Reprinted with permission of E-access Bulletin: a free e-mail bulletin)
http://www.headstar.com/eab/
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8. Disability still a major factor in determining UK internet use
UK adults with a disability are still three times less likely to have used the internet than those
without a disability, a report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has shown.
The figures in the latest Internet Access Quarterly Update, released every four months, show
that at the first quarter of 2013, there were 3.7 million disabled adults – as defined by the
Equality Act – who had never used the internet, representing 32% of all adults in the UK with a
disability.
For more go to: http://bit.ly/YIFMLA
(Reprinted with permission of E-access Bulletin: a free e-mail bulletin)
http://www.headstar.com/eab/
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9. SAP in autism recruitment drive
German software company SAP says it hopes to recruit hundreds of people with autism
because they have a unique talent for information technology.
The firm said that by 2020, 1% of its global workforce of 65,000 employees would be people
with autism.
For more go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22621829
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10. Legal Cases:
Knowledge of Disability
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Patel v Lloyds Pharmacy Ltd
UKEAT/0481/12 has upheld the decision of an Employment Tribunal (ET) to strike out
a direct disability discrimination claim because there was no evidence that the
Claimant's interviewer had any knowledge of his disability.
For more go to: http://bit.ly/11BfoBP
Campbell v Thomas Cook
In this case the court has not only found that Ms Campbell could bring a claim under
the Equality Act for actions that occurred outside Great Britain in Tunisia but awarded
her £7,500 in compensation for injury to feelings.
This case is being appealed by Thomas Cook and so, as far as the rights of disabled
travellers are concerned, it’s a case of “watch this space” to see what happens.
(©Business Disability Forum Legal Update June 2013)
For more go to: http://www.slc.org.uk/discrimination.htm
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11. Volunteer centre withdraws from Work Programme because of restrictions on
service delivery
Volunteer Centre Kensington & Chelsea has pulled out of the Work Programme because it
says it restricted the way the charity worked with its clients.
For more go to: http://bit.ly/143gzvk
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12. Managers can do more to challenge the stigma of mental ill health
A study reported in The Lancet late last year revealed that 71% of people with depression
actively hide it from others?
For more go to: http://bit.ly/17ANJVv
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13. NAS survey reveals extent of disability hate crime
Just 6% of about 800 respondents to a survey by the National Autistic Society (NAS) said they
had not experienced any bullying or abuse. But 81% of respondents said they had experienced
verbal abuse, while 47% reported that they have been victims of a physical assault.
For more go to: http://bit.ly/13lMuc1
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14. Disability web access – progress needed
Over two thirds of public body websites in Europe are not accessible and 92 per cent of
websites offering basic services are not accessible, according to European figures.
For more go to: http://bit.ly/17uOmQn
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15. Research into the experiences of people who receive adult social care support or
funding
The University of Hull has set up a research project to examine the impact on social care
support services of moving to a new local authority area.
They would like to hear from anyone whose stories or experiences might help them to develop
strategies to overcome the difficulties and barriers of making these moves.
For more go to: http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/care/portabilityofsocialcare.aspx
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