Clare,
Although the Disability Discrimination Act only covers higher
education institutions as providers of education
peripherally, they are affected as providers of goods and
services and as employers.
If your facilities are open to the public and are not
accessible, the College could well find itself in
difficulties. Similarly, as an employer, the College might
be called on to facilitate access for a potential employee or
an existing employee who becomes disabled.
You might also point out that anyone can become disabled
temporarily for example, as a result of an accident, and that
buildings with good access are also easier for people with
pushchairs, porters with trolleys, staff with arthritis etc.
So far as access for people with visual or hearing
impairments is concerned, again, the public access issue may
be relevant.
Could you find allies in Personnel and your conference/public
events departments?
Linda Shepherd,
Deputy Dean of Students,
University of East Anglia.
On Thu, 12 Nov 1998 15:47:29 +0000 (GMT)
[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> I would welcome any ideas or examples of successful approaches to
> convincing senior management of the importance of access and health an
> safety provision for students with additional needs as part of the
> mainstream institutional provision.
>
> We have a Disability Equality Policy and Action Plan which does, in
> theory, commit the institution to monitoring and improving accessibility,
> but no budgetary committment to achieve this. The reality is that the
> senior manager who controls facilities and estates budgets is refusing all
> requests for disability-related works unless funded by Student Services. I
> acknowledge the current financial constraints and need to keep to budgets,
> but his attitude appears unnecessarily obstructive.
>
> I would welcome suggestions as to how to tackle this.
>
> Clare
> ****************************************
>
> Clare Davies
> Student Services
> Nene-University College Northampton
> Boughton Green Road
> Northampton NN4 OBN
>
> Tel: 01604 735500 ext 2390
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
> ***************************************
>
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