“When you think ‘disabled’ what are you thinking?,” asked Keith Bright, one of the speakers at the Facilities Management Legal Update conference in Birmingham this week. “Wheelchair,” reply a number of people in muffled voices.

This perception of someone who is disabled as a wheelchair bound is likely to be based on the sign we’re used to seeing in places such as car parks and toilets.

However, as Keith explains, there are two million people who are visually impaired and 8.5 million who are deaf or hard of hearing in the UK. It’s not just the 500,000 people who need a wheelchair that the workplace needs to be adjusted for. And that doesn’t even include people with sports injuries or pregnant women who will have trouble escaping from the top floor of a building in the event of a fire.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 aims to ensure there is no discrimination against these people although the Act does not only affect people with disabilities and their employers and landlords but also the services providers, who have to provide the same service to everyone. The Act is however limited to companies employing 15 or more staff full or part time – which applies to contract workers as well.

At the moment, physical changes do not have to be made to premises under the DDA but in three years time the legislation will be changed. “From October 2004 there will be a positive duty to remove physical obstructions where it is reasonable to do so,” says Peter Williams, national property support lawyer at Eversheds Solicitors, and lists four actions in relation to premises:

At present a canteen which is difficult for disabled persons to use would have to be adjusted although it needs to be kept in mind that this could apply to visually impaired people as well who would have difficulty seeing the food, signs and cash till.

Communicating with the employees about their needs before making amendments could prove useful. One company hired a wheelchair bound secretary and spent £14,000 on readjusting the height of the buttons in the escalators, only to find that she had a tool to reach these. So although the employer showed willingness to comply with the DDA, talking to the employee would have benefited both parties.

But how much is it reasonable to adjust? Ford Credit is currently seeking building permission for a disability toilet but is concerned that by the time permission has been achieved and it has been built, the employee will have moved to another department.

Bert Massie, the chairman of the Disability Rights Commission, says employers should make adjustments as soon as they become aware of someone’s disability. Answering the question ‘what is reasonable?’ he says if a complaint is made under the DDA a tribunal will decide. Communication should prevent it going this far however.

According to Bragg ‘if users cannot satisfactorily use an environment because of the way it is designed, the fault lies with the environment provision – not the user’. This means the environment is not ‘inclusive’ so adjustments should be made.

To prevent prosecution, find out what your employees’ needs are, and create an environment suitable for everyone eliminating discrimination.

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Jessica Jarlvi