Your business and the DDA

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) means that you as an employer or service provider cannot legally discriminate against disabled people.

The law is flexible in that you have to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to give your disabled employees and customers the same opportunities as non-disabled people.

We encourage our members to adopt a best practice approach to disabled employees and customers. Focusing on the law, rather than adopting best practice, may put you at legal risk. What is deemed a disability or a reasonable adjustment can only be determined by a judge.

Adopting best practice and becoming disability confident, also means anticipating the needs of groups of people with different impairments, and enabling a much wider range of individuals to contribute to your business.

Parts of the DDA which may affect your business are:

Part 1: Definition of disability

Provides information and guidance on what constitutes disability for the purposes of the Act, and who is protected under it.

Part 2: Employment

Prohibits discrimination in relation to employment of disabled people and requires employers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for a disabled person put at a substantial disadvantage by a provision, criterion or practice, or a physical feature of premises.

Part 3: Provision of goods, facilities and services

Requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, for example removing or altering physical features where it makes it difficult for disabled people to make use of services.