Research report on Disability Discrimination Act, Education Legislation Pre 16 and Implications for Single Equality Act

In February 2005, the UK Government established the Discrimination Law Review (DLR) to address concerns about inconsistencies in the current anti-discrimination legislative framework. In early 2007, the UK Government intends to publish a Green Paper that will lead to a Single Equality Bill following on from the findings of the DLR. As well as considering fundamental principles of discrimination legislation and its underlying concepts, the DLR is considering opportunities for creating a clearer and more streamlined legislative framework, which will be more ‘user friendly’ for the providers and consumers of services, including education. In this report, we review the operation of the pre-16 educational provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in Scotland. In addition to examining the impact of the DDA, the review considers the impact of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) (ASL) Act 2004 and its interactions with the provisions of the DDA. It should be noted that the ASL Act was implemented in November 2005, and most authorities are still at a relatively early point in this process. Therefore comments on its early impact should be treated as provisional.

Summary

Funder

Disability Rights Commission (DRC)

Project team

• Sheila Riddell, Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity, University of Edinburgh
• Joanna Ferrie, Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research, University of Glasgow
• Roseann Maguire, University of Glasgow

Research outputs