- Conference
- 2006 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 9 February 2006
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
This Local Government Conference welcomes the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 which will impose a new Disability Equality Duty on local authorities from December 2006. We believe these duties could help reconstruct a barrier free society and provide equality of opportunity for the millions of disabled people who are in work or wanting work in local government.
However, we feel that the Government has not fully understood the complex and diverse nature of disability discrimination. In particular we are concerned that:
1)No extra funding will be made available to local authorities employers to assist them with barrier removal
2)“Efficiency” reviews such as Gershon may compromise barrier removal by further reducing the funding available
3)Government “Access to Work” funding may not fully meet needs
4)Discriminatory policies and practices may adversely affect existing local government workers who are disabled and disabled people seeking work.
Therefore, we call upon the Local Government Service Group Executive to work with the National Disabled Members Committee to:
a)Raise with local government employers their new employment related responsibility under the new Disability Equality Duty
b)Lobby local government employers to remove the barriers faced by disabled people to and within local government
c)Ensure local government staff who have acquired new skills and responsibilities as a result of the new legislation have these recognised through the Job Evaluation processess and the application of equality proofed pay and grading structures to local government staff
d)Negotiate incentives for disabled local government workers to declare disability status
e)Lobby employers to introduce disability leave policies and, review existing employment policies to ensure that unfair sickness absence procedures and other discriminatory terms and conditions are removed.
f)Urge branches to encourage local government employers to display the UNISON sponsored “Beyond the Barriers” poster series as a statement of their commitment to improving work and other opportunities to disabled people.