Dear colleagues
We have used DisabledGo for several years and have just signed up for a
further 5 years. I think you need a specialist provider to give the
level of detail they do with their buildings audit and for this alone it
is worth the cost. We also use their recruitment site and do feel that
both this and the access audit give a strong message to students,
potential students, staff and job applicants that we take disability
access seriously.
Kind regards
Alex
Alexandra Muir-Mackenzie
Equality & Diversity Manager
University of Portsmouth
Tel: (023) 9284 5039
>>> Jenny Ratcliffe <[log in to unmask]> 08/04/2011 11:06
>>>
Dear Colleagues,
We were contacted recently by DisabledGo and met with them in March to
discuss their services. DisabledGo appear to provide good quality,
useful
accessibility auditing and communication/marketing services which would
potentially be a positive for disabled visitors, staff and students and
would help identify to the University where changes are needed to
improve
accessibility.
However, we are looking at the (limited!) pot of money we have
available for
potential new investment in E&D recognition marks and standards (such
as
Disabled Go, Investors in Diversity, Stonewall Employer etc) and are
keen to
spend our money wisely! We want to make sure that any recognition
schemes
that we commit to really deliver tangible long-term benefits around our
E&D
commitments and profile - eg through increased staff diversity (at
point of
recruitment and through retention and promotion), increased student
diversity, improved student/staff satisfaction indicators etc.
Regarding DisabledGo, something we are considering is whether our
in-house
services could do similar accessibility auditing work, which we could
promote on our own webpages without the additional cost of
commissioning an
external organisation (recognising of course that there are still
internal
resource costs with this option).
I would be very interested to hear from any members on the forum who
either
have used DisabledGo and have had some tangible long-term benefits or
members who have had a similar journey to ours and decided not to go
with
DisabledGo.
Many thanks
Jenny
-------
Jenny Ratcliffe
Strategic Planning Manager
Human Resources, Organisational Development and Student Support
Keele University.
Tel: 01782 734403
E-mail:[log in to unmask]
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