MANY small businesses are still flouting a law that came into effect a year-and-a-half ago to give disabled people equal access to goods and services.

Disability-rights campaigners, charities and access consultants have all concluded that the Disability Discrimination Act, the final part of which came into force in October 2004, has no teeth and is letting businesses off the hook.

The act requires firms to make “reasonable adjustments” to premises or services to make them accessible to disabled people. Firms that fail to comply face fines of up to £50,000.

But the Disability Rights Commission, the body responsible for promoting equality of opportunity for disabled people, believes that many small businesses are doing little to comply with the act.

Alyson Rose at the commission, said: “Progress is still slow and the picture is very mixed, despite the law being in place for more than a year.

“Judging from the calls to our helpline, people are still having difficulties getting access to disabled toilets in shops, pubs and restaurants. Small business is definitely not doing as well as big business.”

The Royal National Institute for the Blind is similarly unimpressed with the level of compliance so far. The RNIB’s Bill Alker said: “The amount of activity by business has been little or nothing, quite frankly. Small businesses come up with the same excuse time after time — ignorance.”

The National Register of Access Consultants, whose members advise businesses on how to make their premises disabled-friendly, reinforces this gloomy view.

Brenda Puech, the organisation’s manager, said: “Our perception is that little has been done on the typical high street. The response has been minimal. Small businesses are waiting to see if they are going to get sued before doing anything because they know that disabled people have to bring actions against them.”

Before the act came into force the Disability Rights Commission threatened to sue businesses that failed to comply, but so far it has taken only two big names to court — Debenhams and Ryanair.

Rose said: “We have taken many complaints cases to conciliation and have been successful 80% of the time. We sympathise with small firms that can’t afford to do much — we don’t want to put them out of business — but something has got to be better than nothing.”

The leisure and retail sectors accounted for more than half of the 1,500 complaints about access received by the commission’s helpline in 2005. The most common causes for complaint were a lack of accessible toilets, ramps, disabled people’s parking and adequate changing-room facilities.

The RNIB is still receiving complaints from guide-dog owners refused entry to taxis or restaurants, despite the fact that this is in clear breach of the act.

But because the onus is on the disabled person to bring a case against a business, very few are making it to court.

“To bring a prosecution against a taxi driver you need to have the support of the local authority,” said Alker. “But we know of only one successful case where this has happened.

“One of the biggest obstacles is the lack of expertise among the legal profession in this area.”

Muhammad Rahman, who runs the Village restaurant in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, has spent more than £4,000 to make his Indian restaurant disabled-friendly, installing automatic doors, ramps and parking bays for disabled people, as well as widening toilet doorways for wheelchair access.

He said: “It was the right thing to do. I was doing up the restaurant anyway and it wasn’t too expensive. Disabled people should have the same rights as everyone else.”

But if Rahman thought such measures would be good for business, he was to be disappointed. “I have to admit that it has had no effect on business whatsoever,” he said.

“We haven’t had any disabled people in the restaurant for six months — we seem to be in a mini-recession. But I don’t regret making the changes. It was still the right thing to do.”

Given Rahman’s experience it is perhaps not surprising that less conscientious businesses are waiting to see how long they can avoid compliance with the act in an effort to save money.

In 2004 the Federation of Small Businesses surveyed its members and found 38% had taken action or were already compliant. Two years on and that figure has only risen to just over half.

Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses said: “Although awareness of the act among our members is high — running at more than 60% — we have to admit many are waiting until a disabled person brings a complaint before spending money on alterations.

“The Disability Discrimination Act came into force along with a great deal of other legislation. It has to queue up in a list of priorities facing the owner/manager of a small firm.”

Alambritis believes most small businesses comply with the act when challenged, but said: “We are warning our members to be more proactive. Research from the Department for Work and Pensions shows that eight out of 10 employers find making adjustments for the act easy to carry out.”

With about 10m disabled people in Britain, commanding a collective annual spending power of £80 billion, small businesses that continue to exclude these people risk losing significant revenues.

But despite this it seems that, until the act is properly enforced, many small firms will continue to flout the law.

Links

www.fsb.org.uk
www.disability.gov.uk
www.drc.org.uk
www.nrac.org.uk
www.rnib.org.uk