Disability Rights UK is seeking urgent clarification from the government’s Disability Unit about how Disabled people who are offline can respond to its consultation survey on the National Strategy for Disabled People.
The consultation was only formally launched in the middle of this month. Disabled people only have until 13 February to use the consultation survey to influence the Strategy.
DR UK’s Head of Policy Fazilet Hadi said: “Due to Covid, plans for in-person events around the country to capture Disabled people’s views on the forthcoming Strategy have had to be cancelled, and online events by the Government have been limited and poorly advertised. While Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) have been feeding into this consultation, Disabled individuals have not had the same level of awareness of the Strategy to respond.
“There are 14 million Disabled people in this country. Not everyone engages with DPOs. Not everyone is aware of this consultation survey, and not everyone is online to find out about it on the gov.uk website.
“We are aware of people who are deeply frustrated that they cannot respond because they are not online and cannot get online to view any alternative formats. There is no clear offline route to contact the Disability Unit to request them.
“The Disability Unit should not rely on the internet for communicating with Disabled people. It should publish a phone number that Disabled people who are not online can ring to find out more about this consultation, to request alternative formats, and to verbally submit their views.”