Disability Rights UK is a member of the Disability Charities Consortium (DCC), which brings CEOs and policy leads from the UK’s leading influential not-for-profit disability organisations together to work with Government to ensure disabled people’s experiences are reflected in UK policy making. The DCC members are: Scope, Leonard Cheshire, Disability Rights UK, National Autistic Society, Mind, Mencap, Sense, Royal National Institute of Blind people (RNIB), Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID), and Business Disability Forum (BDF).
We created a manifesto to feed into the development of the Government’s National Disability Strategy and to set out the DCC’s ambitions and priorities for the Strategy and beyond; we believe that the forthcoming publication of the National Disability Strategy document should only be the start and will require considerable ongoing input from a broad range of communities and organisations represented by disabled people to shape its implementation and ensure momentum is maintained.
While wide-ranging in scope, our manifesto provides a series of solutions and areas for change which we believe must be at the heart of the National Disability Strategy to tackle the persistent barriers that disabled people face in their daily lives. The DCC is keen to see the following from the National Disability Strategy:
- A Strategy with clear and tangible actions that will be taken, timescales, investment and measures for success.
- Monitoring and accountability of progress, including leadership and participation by disabled people.
- Engagement with disabled people that is accessible and meaningful. Online data collection must be one part of a wider consultation with multiple formats of participation enabled.
- Clear and tangible routes for engagement that are timely and accessible and include updates on progress.
- Most importantly of all, a clear way forward to bring transformation to disabled people’s life opportunities and participation.
The asks set out in our manifesto are not exhaustive but reflect the key themes that the DCC believes are the highest priority for inclusion in the National Disability Strategy at this point in time, given the focuses that Government has set out in its intentions for the Strategy. We also encourage others – disabled people and Disabled People’s Organisations – to share their views.
Download the DCC manifesto here
Note: DR UK left the DCC in June 2021, four months after this article was published.