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Subject:
From:
Elizabeth Thiers <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
St. John's University Cerebral Palsy List
Date:
Sat, 17 Dec 2005 09:39:49 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
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text/plain (82 lines)
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 11:27:45 -0500
From: "John G. Reiss" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [cshcn-l]      Government reform in support of persons with
        disabilities - US and   UK

Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="US-ASCII"

The following is edited from an e-mail distributed by the Disabled Rights
Activists Group.  I thought the two articles - one on changes in the UK, the
other on needed changes in the US, are informative and enlightening.  I have
tried to clarify some of the British terms used in the UK article...
(John Reiss - List Moderator)

For more on the Disabled Rights Activists Group, see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/disabledrightsactivistsgroup/


The following is from the On-line version of The Times (UK)

... a statutory duty on public sector authorities (in the UK) to consult
service users about their needs is a welcome and revolutionary advance

ALMOST unnoticed in mainstream politics, a radical transformation of our
democratic system is taking place...next year new rules will place a
statutory duty on all public sector authorities, from town halls to GP
surgeries (community based primary care providers), to promote disability
equality.

Bert Massie, chairman of the Disability Rights Commission, believes this is
nothing short of revolutionary. "A key part of the new duty is that public
bodies will have to consult service users. The view in local authorities
that goes, `We have been elected so we have a mandate to do what we want,'
will no longer hold because they will have to keep going back to service
users and find out what they want. This really is a radical and new form of
democracy,"
he says.

The new Public Sector Duty (PSD) on disability will also mean another
radical shift. "Under the current law, the way you get redress for
disability discrimination is that you experience discrimination and then you
do something about it by showing that you have been discriminated against.
The new duty will require the public sector to promote equality at the
beginning of the process, rather than make adjustments at the end," he says.


Although the changes do not come into force until December next year, the
Disability Rights Commission is publishing a Code of Practice next month, on
December 19, to make sure that everybody in the public sector has plenty of
time to adapt.

....

Massie believes that the new PSD on disability could have knock-on
(unanticipated, additional?) benefits. He points to the federal
administration in the United States, which decided that all its photocopiers
should be accessible to disabled people (with big buttons etc). Because
federal government was such a big purchaser, manufacturers complied and
designed models along these lines, only to find that they became a huge hit
in the private sector - they were easier for non-disabled people to use as
well.

To anyone who doubts the need for the PSD on disability, Massie has a
battery of statistics in his armoury. At the age of 26, disabled people are
more than
2.5 times as likely to be out of work as non- disabled people;disabled
people earn 11 per cent less than non- disabled people; 32 per cent of
doctors judge a patient's "usefulness to society" when considering
treatment; 27 per cent of disabled 16 to 24-year-olds have no qualifications
compared with 12 per cent of non-disabled people.

As well as helping to remedy these and other injustices, Massie feels that
the new duty will help the Government to reduce the number of people
claiming incapacity benefit. "It could help to change the expectations of
employers and disabled people too, so that they no longer believe that
becoming disabled means you cannot work," he says.

NOTE: The complete article is available, at not cost, on line (but probably
for a limited time) at:

http://tinyurl.com/96d7z

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