Business Disability Forum calls for UK-wide strategy on disability and employment
Business Disability Forum has launched its manifesto setting out five key strategies for creating better experiences and opportunities for disabled people in the workplace, as customers and in society.
Diane Lightfoot, CEO of Business Disability Forum, commented: “Disability can and does affect everyone, either through personal experience or through the people we know. A joined-up approach to disability inclusion must be at the heart of future policy and decision making if we want to create an economy and a society that works for everyone and where everyone is valued and included.”
Business Disability Forum’s ‘Manifesto for a disability inclusive UK’ is calling for:
- A UK-wide disability, health and employment strategy. A joined-up and holistic approach to supporting disabled people throughout their working lives. This includes:
- Support for disabled people during and when leaving education.
- Prioritising of workplace adjustments.
- Reforming and better resourcing of Access to Work.
- Extending flexible working.
- Reform of Statutory Sick Pay.
- A technology for life provision to ensure disabled people have access to the tech they need at every stage of life.
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A UK-wide standard and commitment to clear, accessible and inclusive communications. This would place a requirement on the Government and all product and service providers to provide information in accessible and inclusive formats.
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Investment in the infrastructure which supports employment and wider inclusion. This includes a strategy for integrated health and social care as a national priority, reliable and accessible public transport and improved support for carers.
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An inclusive procurement standard. This would cover the accessible and inclusive delivery of everything from core public services to the development of AI and tech.
Business Disability Forum, which earlier this year launched its A to Z of disability resource, states that its manifesto has been informed by employers and businesses in its membership and the disabled people who work in and with those organisations.
