Introduction

The disability Discrimination Act 2005 (DDA) places a duty on public bodies, including the Housing Corporation, to promote disability equality. Broadly this requires organisations to:

• Promote equality between disabled people and other people.
• Eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under DDA.
• Eliminate harassment of disabled people.
• Promote positive attitudes towards disabled people.
• Encourage participation by disabled people in public life.

Whilst EastendHomes is not a public authority, we are regulated by the Housing Corporation who expect Registered Social Landlords to develop a disability equality scheme and action plan setting out how identified issues will be addressed.

The scheme should also show how disabled people have been involved in shaping the scheme and priorities.

The DDA is intended to ensure organisations integrate disability equality into their business culture and processes; in other words to ‘mainstream’ disability into a general customer car issue. In developing this, EastendHomes will be better placed to deliver services that respond appropriately to the needs of all groups and encourage participation by disabled people at all levels in EastendHomes business and service provision.

Model of Disability

EastendHomes will use the Social Model of Disability which is based on the premise that people with any form of disability are defined by the barriers they face in their day to day lives. These barriers can be physical or environmental, organisational or attitudinal. Removing or addressing the barriers will enable disabled people to participate fully in society and live their lives as they choose. The definition is in contrast to the medical model of disability which categorises people by their impairment or medical condition emphasising their incapacities rather than looking at the disabling effects of wider society.

Involving Disabled People

EastendHomes is committed to involving disabled people in the development and monitoring of the Disability Equality Scheme. As part of the consultation on the scheme, a specific focus group of residents with disabilities will be established. This group will be a permanent stakeholder group, and will be responsible for providing an external quality check to the scheme and its annual updates. A wider invitation to comment on DES will also be published in the quarterly EastendHomes residents newsletter.

As an employer EastendHomes intends to set up a Disability at work group for employees, either with a disability or a keen interest in disability issues. This group will meet on a quarterly basis and will act as an external verifier.  Current data indicates that three employees have declared that they have a disability; this represents 3.26% of the total workforce. The disability at work group will act as an external verifier to the DES and monitor progress against targets set.

The Disability Equality Scheme

Statement from the Chief Executive.

“EastendHomes is committed to working to achieve equality for all residents and staff across all our service areas.”

Disability is an important issue in Tower Hamlets. The 2001 Census indicated that around 1 in 5 residents of Tower Hamlets have a disability. This, coupled with the fact that an estimated 42% of housing association households in England contain a member with a long term illness or disability, means RSL’s need to address disability equality as a significant consideration in how we provide services and our role as an employer.

Currently EastendHomes is conducting its first ever resident profiling exercise. This will provide a wide range of information about the community and estates to whom we provide services, including the numbers of residents who have a disability. EastendHomes will use this information to assist in developing and providing services which will better meet the needs of disabled people.

As an employer, EastendHomes aims to promote disability equality in employment, as disability has major implications on an individual’s opportunity to participate in the labour market. Figures show that the unemployment rate for disabled people is up to twice the figure for non disabled people and also that disabled people are far more likely to be long term unemployed.

EastendHomes welcomes the disability equality challenge and will work hard towards achieving improvements to the quality of life that this can bring for our residents.”

Assessing the Impact of Policies and Activities

A Disability Equality Scheme should include a statement about the methods for assessing the impact of policies and practices on equality for disabled people. This is so that an organisation can identify where they might promote better equality.

EastendHomes will develop therefore an ‘Equality Impact Assessment’ process. Impact assessments are an audit tool which enable organisations to examine current or intended policies, procedures and services for their impact on service users and employees, and are an important way of ensuring that services are provided in a fair and equitable way.

EastendHomes will commence the initial Impact Assessment process in July 2008. We will be assessing our practices and policies for a positive, neutral or negative impact in terms of: age, disability, gender, race, religion and sexual connotations. An action plan for each area will be developed from any identified adverse or neutral impact which cannot be objectively justified.

Disability Equality Scheme – Objectives

Making sure we involve disabled people. EastendHomes will involve disabled people in developing and monitoring the Disability Equality Scheme and the involvement of disabled people in our services. This will involve:

• Monitoring current levels of involvement – ie local boards, committees, service monitoring etc
• The introduction of a Disabilities Focus Group
• A review of perceived barriers to involvement
• A review of Governance structures to assess how disabled people can be assisted to become involved.

Making sure services are more inclusive to disabled people. EastendHomes will review the processes through which we identify and tackle the barriers disabled people may face when using EeH services. This will include:

• An assessment of Disability Discrimination Act compliance
• Undertaking on Equality Impact Assessment
• A Data gathering exercise on disabilities
• Assessing the training required to help staff provide services appropriate for disabled people.
• A Review of the accessibility of information and communications, including the web-site
• Monitoring of complaints
• Monitoring of ASB and harassment casework
• Review of aids and adaptations service provision

Making housing more accessible to disabled people. This section will focus on the regeneration and improvements programme and will include:

• Development of appropriate standards for new build social housing
• Development of standards for the refurbishment and improvement programme
• Review of EEH Asset Management Strategy
• Review of the Aids and Adaptations policy
• Review of method statements and working practices on estates with major works on site

Use of good employment practices. This section will consider EeH’s employment policies and practices and will include:

• A review of recruitment policies and practices
• The training of staff on disability issues, the DDA and the DES
• Consultation with disabled staff on disability issues and monitoring of employment policy and practices
• Monitoring of DDA compliance

Consultation

The Disability Equality Scheme will be sent to all residents who have identified themselves as having a disability as part of the resident profiling exercise currently being undertaken. The views of residents will be collated and incorporated where appropriate in the final revised scheme for adoption by the Board.

EeH staff will also be surveyed, with four specific questions asked:

• what the objectives or the scheme should be;
• what the scheme should aim to deliver;
• what EeH could do to improve the quality of life for disabled residents or as an employer; and,
• what potential barriers exist which disabled people could face either working for EeH or experiencing our services.

All EeH managers will be asked to consider their area of operation and provide comments on whether the draft aims and objectives are the right ones and what specific actions EeH could take in order to meet the identified objectives.

Service Provision

Key Performance Indicators are reviewed by an officer panel on a monthly basis and reported on a quarterly basis to the Service Review Board and EeH board. In order to ensure that service provision has no disability bias that could be unlawfully discriminatory we need to further develop our monitoring of our services on the basis of disability. The EeH residents profile survey will be used to gather data to assist in this exercise.