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22 May 2008 04:24 PM
Disability issues top the agenda as ACAS sets up new Forum

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