ADVISORY,
CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION SERVICE News Release issued by The
Government News Network on 22 May 2008
Acas, the
employment relations service, today announced plans to establish
its Disabled People's Involvement Forum, one of the first of
its kind, to help ensure fairness and equality in Acas' work.
There are approximately ten million disabled adults in the UK. As
part of the Disablity Equality Duty set by Government, Acas wants
to involve disabled people in areas of their policies and
decision-making to make sure the issues around disability are understood.
To do this, Acas are seeking six highly committed disabled
individuals from a diverse range of perspectives and impairment
groups to volunteer for this unique committee to act in an
informal advisory role - for more information
visit http://www.acas.org.uk/involvementforum
Steve Williams, Head of Acas Equality Services
said,
"Acas is committed to equality and diversity. Fair
treatment is a moral and legal duty and it also makes good
business sense. We recognise the need to involve the people
directly affected. By asking disabled people to become a member of
our forum, we want to make sure we get it right before we put
things in place. We know how important it is to remove the
barriers for disabled people to ensure fairness and equality. The
forum will allow us to do this as well as help us meet our
disability duty."
Chris Sherwood, Access and Diversity Manager at Scope
said:
"Scope fully endorses Acas's programme to
improve its engagement with
disabled people. We welcome this
important opportunity to engage
disabled people to develop
thinking around disability equality in the
workplace."
Notes to Editor:-
The candidates will:
* Be a disabled person.
* Have a
deep understanding of the barriers disabled people face in the
workplace.
* Understand and be able to benchmark the Social
Model of Disability for disability equality issues.
* Be able
to explain the Disability Discrimination Act and how it affects
employers and disabled employees.
* Have experience of
representing disabled people's issues in a work or voluntary
role within Trade Unions; Business, Public and Third Sectors; or
an Education and Academic setting.
Acas is the leading organisation for employment relations advice
in Britain. We aim to improve organisations and working life
through better employment relations. We provide up-to-date
information, independent advice, high quality training and we work
with employers and employees to solve problems and improve performance.
Scope's mission is to drive the change to make our society
the first where disabled people achieve full equality. Our goals
are that disablism is banished; for disabled people of all ages
and their families to enjoy their full equal human and civil
rights; and for all disabled people to exercise full personal
choice and control over their lives, with access to independent advocacy.
Source of Statistic:
Family Resources Survey, 2002/03
For media enquiries:
Marcus Churchill, Scope Press Office,
020 7619 7201 or email
marcus.churchill@scope.org.uk