The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 makes
it unlawful to discriminate against a disabled person in connection
with his employment, the provision of goods, facilities and
services or the disposal or management premises, to make provisions
about the employment of disabled person, and to establish
a national disability council.
Those of you old enough to remember will
remember that there was a quota system in place after the
Second World War and businesses of certain sizes had to have
a certain number of disabled people working for them. This
is no longer the case. There is no official register of disabled
people. This was removed as part of the introduction of the
Disability Discrimination Act.
The act itself makes it unlawful for an
employee to treat a disabled person to a detriment unless
he can show that that treatment is justified. These provisions
include Applicant for jobs, sub-contractors and employees.
There is a further duty which is a positive duty on employers
for them to provide “reasonable adjustment s”
to working practices to make it possible for the employee
as a disabled person to work and not to be treated less favourably
because of their disability. In that sense, it could be regarded
as a form of positive discrimination. It is only positive
to the extent that it should allow an employee to effectively
be on a level playing field with a non-disabled person and
not to be treated better than a non-disabled person.
Originally, when the Act came into force
on the 2nd December 1996, there was a small business exemption
for any one who had less than 20 employees. A few years ago,
this was amended to the small business exemption to 15 employees
and since the 1st October 2004, there is no longer any small
business exemption. This means that any disabled person no
matter what the size of the business or the number of employees
can rely on the protection of the Disability Discrimination
Act.
The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 became
law on the 7th April 2005 it effects certain
changes in the law including the issue of mental impairment
a person who has a mental impairment does not need to show
that it is a clinically well recognised condition and merely
now has to show that it has a substantial effect on his day
to day activities, this is a major change.
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