The Disability Discrimination Act (1995)

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a) Whether or not the adjustments would be effective in overcoming the barrier.

b) The extent to which it is practicable.

c) The financial and other costs.

d) Disruption involved in making adjustments.

e) The financial and other resources available to the service provider.

f) The amount or resources already spent on making adjustments.

g) The availability of any funding or other assistance.

Smaller service providers may have fewer resources in terms of finance. Businesses providing a service from an historic building may be restricted by local planning constraints. Therefore, although an Audit will highlight features that may be a barrier to people with a disability, some barriers may need to be overcome by providing an alternative means of accessing the service.

The Code of Practice also indicates that the degree of measures to make premises more accessible is left to the service provider as each case has its own set of circumstances.

Finally, the Code of Practice strongly suggests that if service providers conduct themselves in the spirit of the Act then this should be seen as reasonable, and if they do, then these businesses in particular are likely to benefit from the buying potential of the UK’s 9 million disabled people.

Ten Year Adjustment Period

The Disability Discrimination (Providers of Services) (Adjustment of Premises) Regulations 2001 states that for a period of ten years a service provider need not remove or alter any aspect or physical feature of a building that accords with the relevant standard in the Technical Standards.

Further alterations can be looked at as part of an overall long-term strategy, which will relate to a normal planned cyclical maintenance programme and also in respect of the exemption available to the premises which gives it this ten year breaking-in period from the date of the Building Completion Certificate issued by the Local Authority.

However there may be certain features which are included in previous works but may not be subject to the scrutiny of the building inspection, eg shape of door handles. Such features would not be exempt under the ten-year rule.

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