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The Disability Equality Duty (DED) (Disability Discrimination (Amendment) Act 2005)

The Disability Equality Duty came into force on 4 December 2006, as a result of the Disability Discrimination (Amendment) Act 2005.

This new legal duty requires all public authorities to actively look at ways of ensuring that disabled people are treated equally.

The Disability Equality Duty (DED) is an important new duty aimed at promoting disability equality across the public sector. The DED, also referred to as the general duty, sets out what public authorities must have due regard to in order to promote equality of opportunity.
Most public authorities are also covered by the specific duties, which set out a framework to assist authorities in meeting their general duty. All public authorities covered by the specific duties must:

• publish a Disability Equality Scheme (including within it an action plan)
• involve disabled people in producing the scheme and action plan
• demonstrate they have taken actions in the scheme and achieved appropriate outcomes
• report on progress
• review and revise the scheme.

Associated documents:

  Disability Equality Scheme - full version (includes the Action Plan)  (0.64 MB)
Disability Equality Scheme summary and how to get involved  (0.07 MB)
DES Appendix A  (0.05 MB)
DES Appendix B  (0.43 MB)
DES Appendix C  (0.49 MB)
DES Review-December 07  (0.03 MB)

Disability Equality Scheme (DES) Steering and Action Groups

DES topics to be covered
Getting Information
Steering Group
Travel and Transport