Employment Legislation 

 Disability Legislation 

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) Act has been ammended (April 2005) to include the following:

• Introduce a new positive duty on public bodies to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people
• Provide protection for more people diagnosed with the progressive conditions of HIV, MS and cancer
• Remove the requirement that mental illnesses must be "clinically well-recognised"
• Ensure that all functions of public authorities (e.g. issuing licences) are covered by the DDA and not just services as now
• Provide a power to apply the DDA duties on other service providers to the provision of transport vehicles
• Allow an "end date", no later than 2020, by which all rail vehicles will have to comply with accessibility regulations, and apply those regulations to vehicles which are being refurbished
• Include provisions enabling disabled people to get reasonable adjustments, other than to physical features, when dealing with landlords and managers of rented premises
• Ensure that a landlord cannot unreasonably refuse consent where a disabled tenant wishes to make an adaptation to rented accommodation
• Provide new rights for disabled local Councillors not to be discriminated against by their local authority including rights to reasonable adjustments
• Cover bodies that award general qualifications (like GCSEs and A Levels)
• Cover larger private members' clubs (i.e. those with 25 or more members

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 aims to end the discrimination which many disabled people face. This Act gives people with disabilities rights in the areas of employment, access to goods, facilities and services and buying or renting land or property. The Act defines a disabled person as someone with 'a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day to day activities'.

• Employment - This part of the Act applies to employers with 15 or more employees and includes the provision which requires employers to consider making changes to the physical features of premises that they occupy.

• Employers might unlawfully discriminate against a disabled employee or job applicant in two ways: (1) by treating him or her less favourably (without justification) than other employees or job applicants because of his or her disability; (2) by not making reasonable adjustments (without justification).

• Every aspect of employment is covered including recruitment; doing work, career development and promotion; redundancy or dismissal.

• Recruitment - an employer must not discriminate against a person with disabilities when recruiting including: the job specification; design and completion of application forms; selection process (interview timing and location); assessment technique; and terms of employment offered.

• Work - a person with disabilities must not be discriminated by an employer once appointed to a job in the following areas: terms and conditions of service; induction; promotion, transfer, training; and occupational pensions.

• Exemption from the Act in employment - there are some organisations that are not covered by this Act and therefore these employers have no duties towards disabled people employed by the organisation. These organisations include: prison officers; fire-fighters; police forces; employees who work wholly or largely outside Great Britain; members of the Armed Forces; employees who work on board ships, aircraft or hovercraft.