European Social Fund in England

Achievements - Better Information for People with Disabilities

A useful new guide from the Office for Disability Issues will help ESF projects and Co-financing Organisations to produce better information for disabled people.

The new guide sets out five core information principles that will help disabled people to find out about and access services. Although the guide is not aimed exclusively at ESF projects, it is a useful resource for ESF projects targeting people with disabilities.

The five principles are:

• ensure that disabled people are involved from the start;
• provide information through a range of channels and formats;
• ensure your information meets users’ needs;
• clearly signpost other services; and
• always define responsibility for information provision.

These principles can be applied to large or small scale projects, for example from redesigning services to creating advertisements or websites. The Disability Equality Duty is now law and it means that all public bodies should pay ‘due regard’ to promoting equality for disabled people. The duty requires these bodies to look at the impact of everything they do on people with disabilities. The guide will help projects fulfil this duty.

This will bring benefits to both the service provider and customers. The Office for National Statistics Omnibus 2005 found that one third of disabled people face difficulties in accessing goods and services. By getting the provision of information for disabled people right it will help ESF meet wider objectives around engaging this target group.

The guide sets out how information and services should focus on meeting the needs of the information user, rather than the service provider. It is important to get disabled people involved in designing information that is used by them. Many disabled people will access information in the same way as anyone else, but some groups of disabled people will have specific needs, for example to receive information in Braille.

The publication contains advice and guidance, practical examples and links to more information.

Want to know more? Visit: www.officefordisability.gov.uk/docs/ODI_FivePrinciples_2007.pdf

For additional information visit: www.drc-gb.org or www.imagesofdisability.gov.uk (for advice on developing and delivering communications and products for people with disabilities).