Our achievements

In setting the overall disability strategy, the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) has

• worked with government departments, an expert panel, and disabled people to co-produce a five-year strategy on independent living, aiming to improve choice and control for disabled people.
• launched Equality 2025 - The UK Advisory Network on Disability Equality. This is a Non-Departmental Public Body made up entirely of disabled people. They act as a conduit between government and disabled people across the UK, feeding in disabled people's views
• conducted a review of public bodies to see whether they had produced a Disability Equality Scheme and involved disabled people in developing it, as required by the Disability Equality Duty (DED). This led to lots more organisations complying with the Duty and enabled the Disability Rights Commission to take action against the few that had not complied.
• consulted with disabled people to find out what they thought were the most important issues for government to address and how they thought progress should be measured towards disability equality.
• contributed funding towards the Department of Health's individual budget pilot schemes. Individual budgets give disabled people more choice and control over the support they need.
• worked with Treasury and the Department for Children, Schools and Families on a review of support for disabled children and young people. The review committed government to spending £340m on this group to improve their life chances.

In awareness raising and improving information provision the ODI is

• leading an information needs project looking at how disabled people get information about public services and how it can be improved. The first phase led to the publication of five principles developed to help public bodies to provide high quality information
• supporting government departments on implementing the DED by publishing guidance and hosting events.
• funding a campaign helping employers and service providers to understand their duties under the Disability Discrimination Act. We produced two public information films on the importance of making reasonable adjustments for disabled employees.
• leading the Government's Images of Disability initiative, aiming to ensure disabled people are properly considered in the development and production of government communications.
• maintaining and promoting the 'Disabled people' and 'Caring for someone' sections of the Government's Directgov website. This provides a wide range of information for the public on financial support, rights, and health issues all in one place.
  

For disability rights, the ODI

• ensured the UK was among the first countries to sign the United Nations Convention on Disability Rights in March 2007. The aim is to ratify the Convention by the end of 2008.
• is seeking to ensure that disability is central to the new Equality and Human Rights Commission.
• has the Government lead on disability rights legislation, including working with the Government Equalities Office on the Discrimination Law Review.

For more information about our achievements read our latest annual report. To see what good work some public bodies are doing in relation to disability take a look at our case studies.

Page last reviewed: 11 August 2008