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One of the answers

From the DRC website. And while we're on: Congratulations on a good job done so far. Sorry to lose you on the 28th. Hope the Commission for Equality and Human Rights can do as well.

Q:

How does this (the Disability Equality Duty) affect procurement commissioning and contracting?

A:

If the contractor is itself performing a public function, standing in the shoes of a statutory body, then it will constitute a public authority and be subject to the general duty in respect of the public functions which it carries out.

If the contractor is not itself performing a public function but merely providing services on behalf of the public authority, the obligations to comply with the duty remains with the public authority that contracts out the function. This means that the contracting public authority, and in particular those procuring or commissioning a service, need to build relevant disability considerations into that process to ensure that the authority is meeting the duty even when the service is being carried out by an external contractor.

Comments

Andy Robinson said…
That's all well and good, but what does this mean? In practice there is a clause in the contract which the contractor 'says' they are compliant with! Who actually checks this ? My best guess is that no one checks to see if the contractor has had a DDA access statement or has had a DDA access audit and a plan of action to put right things that are not compliant. Another set of fine words which mean little in practice because it is not seen as 'my' responsibility to make sure these things are in place! The contractor says but does not do it. The authorities need to take a much harder line on this one and use their money muscle to make sure others are complying or they should not be considered at the contracting stage, when losing out on money comes into it-things will start to move.
27 September 2007 at 13:36
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