Lincolnshire Association of People with Disabilities AGM

Fay Cooper, the manager of LAPD (Lincolnshire Association of People with Disabilities) invited me to come along to their Annual General Meeting. This gave us the chance to swap notes and ideas regarding LAPD and REDP.

They were an extremely enthusiastic audience, and are obviously very hard working.

The attendance was a little thin on the ground, but only because several members were delivering their “School Disability Awareness Day” training to a local school. This is where they introduce the social model perspective of disability, by placing a disabled member in each classroom. They then explain to the pupils how the social and physical barriers affect their everyday life. The feedback that they have received from this has been excellent.

When you attend other group’s meetings, and listen to their problems, you realise the amount of common ground you share - the obvious one being funding. There is, however, also the realisation that the difference in location within the East Midlands presents different hurdles to overcome.

The journey for some of the members to reach the AGM took as long, if not even longer, than my journey from Leicester on public transport. So, co-ordinating events can prove both difficult and expensive in relation to travelling and its costs.

I was able to share with the group the aims and objectives of REDP which were well received, and made some good links to follow up.

Exchanging views and establishing links with other disability groups within the East Midlands region was an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.

- Liz Harrison, Equality Officer

Equality Act implementation today

The Equality Act 2010 comes into force today, combining nine bits of legislation, and aims to give all of the protected characteristics greater defence from discrimination.

Legislation concerning Age, Disability, Sexual Orientation, Gender & Gender Identity, Race & Ethnicity, Religion or Belief discrimination all comes together under the Act. People are not allowed to discriminate against another person who belongs to one of these groups, or somebody who is thought to belong to one of these groups, or is associated with somebody from any of these groups.

New restrictions on pre-employment disability and health questionnaires aim to make it more difficult to exclude disabled people from employment. The Act also aims to make pay more transparent, banning employment clauses which ban employees talking about their pay.

To see the Act in full, as well as briefings, please see our website.