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This paper seeks to discuss the case‐law stemming from the disability equality duty under section 49A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, now reformulated as one part of the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

The paper focuses in particular on the consequences of the case law for the development and implementation of policy relating to the provision of support for disabled people.

Analysis of the relevant legal principles and individual cases reveals the high standards by which policy‐making will be tested in the courts and the serious consequences of defects in the decision‐making process.

Policy‐makers and those acting on behalf of disabled people will need to pay extremely close attention to the requirements of the equality duty.

The paper highlights the nature of the new public sector equality duty and its growing importance to public authorities and those affected by their decisions in the new financially straitened policy environment.

Governments mediate, through their architecture of machinery and policy, access to rights and, by extension, to services. There is limited but growing recognition in both the UK and other European governments that individuals' power to negotiate this access is limited by the structural inequality of groups in certain named categories of disadvantage (inter alia, people with disabilities), and they are adapting their machinery to provide the support they require to ‘level the playing field’. However, intersectionality (identities which cut across these recognised categories of disadvantage) prevents those affected from using such mechanisms effectively. Those whose disability impairs their mental awareness and understanding face an additional barrier. The paper explores how this limits the rights of those with both learning disabilities and mental illness, and looks at some of the ways in which this problem is being addressed.

Based on the nursing occupation within the UK and The Netherlands' health sectors, which are both highly regulated with policies to increase inclusiveness, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the interplay between employment conditions and policy measures at sectoral level, in order to identify how these both facilitate and limit employment participation for disabled workers.

The research was exploratory in character using qualitative and comparative methods within a case study approach. It draws on statistical data, document analysis, focus group discussion and interviews with key actors in the health sectors in both countries.

Whether the social or medical model predominates, their combined use encourages the employment of disabled persons in the health sector. Arguably the social model, focusing on structural changes, can be seen as more enabling. The Dutch comparison shows that encouraging a sector‐specific approach, with increased social partnership dialogue, facilitates the implementation of the social model, resulting in sectorally‐appropriate enabling measures.

This research highlights the need for a sector‐specific approach to disability policy, with development of sectoral monitoring data and evaluation of impact by the social partners.

While previous academic research focused on the aggregated (national) level only, this research investigates the interplay between training, employment, working conditions and policy measures at sectoral and occupational levels, with a view to identifying their influence on employment opportunities for persons with disabilities.

A recent High Court case involving restrictions on eligibility criteria has highlighted the importance of public bodies' general equality duty under section 49A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1996.

The representation of ‘the child’ within children's services and the representations of ‘risk’ and its management have implications for disabled people hoping to qualify for and work within certain professions. This article assesses the relevance for children's services of findings from the Disability Rights Commission's Formal Investigation into the impact of professional regulation on disabled people studying and working within three public sector professions in Britain ‐ nursing, social work and teaching. Many professional regulations include varied and vague requirements for ‘fitness’. These are interpreted and implemented differently, often informed by unexamined negative assumptions around disability. Disabled people, particularly those with ‘hidden disabilities’, can be discouraged from disclosing their conditions. This deprives them of the support and adjustments necessary for them to practise safely and effectively. Professional regulation can thus paradoxically induce a false sense of security. The various professions are urged to review and update their regulations, guidance and policies in order to ensure concordance with recent developments in disability and wider antidiscrimination legislation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of officers/civilians with dyslexia serving in the police service in England and Wales. Although there has been a growing body of research which has analysed the experiences of offenders and victims with dyslexia, there have been few studies focusing on the experiences of police officers/civilians with this condition. This study employs the social model of disability to conceptualise the experiences of these police officers/civilians from a disability rights perspective.

This applies a quantitative methodology to analyse data on disabling environments experienced by officers/civilians serving in a police service situated in the North of England. The paper collected data from 56 police employees previously diagnosed with dyslexia.

The findings reveal that a significant number of officers were reluctant to disclose that they had dyslexia to their police service. The choice to disclose was a key concern for officers/civilians, as this was directly linked to their experiences of stigmatisation, as well as the risk of their competences being questioned at work. The analysis presents evidence that, although officers/civilians have legal protections under the Equality Act 2010 (c15) in the UK, very few had experienced any form of “reasonable adjustment” in the workplace.

Drawing on the social model of disability, the paper concludes that the police service must improve access to reasonable adjustment, for example, through the use of assistive technologies, to create a more inclusive and supportive working environment for their employees.

The purpose of this paper is to apply critical legal analysis to laws, policies and reforms focused on special educational needs (SEN) and equality in England and to suggest a Neurodiversity spectrum statement.

The paper reviews current legal and policy initiatives in SEN, together with recent reforms in equality law.

While past and current policies may have laudable aims, tensions such as a lack of integration of education, health and social services have had prejudicial outcomes for children with SEN, their families/carers, and the professionals involved.

Legal reforms promise to remedy some problems, but must be underpinned by adequate resourcing, appeal procedures, and remedies which foster the enforcement of legal duties. Some resources for families with children with SEN are noted.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the parameters of the duty of reasonable adjustment to facilitate access to e‐learning resources.

Educational providers continue to develop new methods of delivering content in digital format, the increasing use of broadband, web‐based resources and new content creation software provides numerous methods of delivering excellence in content creation and delivery. It is important that this excellence is available to all; to this end the disability aspects of e‐learning provision are discussed in this paper, specifically relating to a anticipatory “duty of reasonable adjustment” to facilitate access to computer‐based learning resources within the UK education sector.

The paper concludes that the concept of reasonable adjustment is likely to remain unclear within the current statutory framework, is dynamic in relation to e‐learning software applications, and will continue to increase in scope and complexity as advanced software applications are used on a larger scale in the education sector.

After relating general accessibility approaches to the various open and proprietary source software applications and the concept of “lock in,” the paper argues that knowledge of reasonable adjustment is optimally considered in the early planning stage of development rather than after implementation, under the legislatively mandated anticipatory model. Further conclusions are presented which propose that the approaches described can be scaled up to provide general themes, which benefits the full spectrum of disability alongside the wider student cohort.

Further work is discussed and includes a potential UK extension of the analysis presented by Scroggins in 2007 concerning measurement and structural modeling of reasonableness under the provisions of the US Rehabilitation Act of 1998 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

The Disability Rights Commission's Formal Investigation into the impact of professional regulation on disabled people's access to nursing, social work and teaching professions identified that unclear regulatory fitness requirements and their inconsistent implementation can have discriminatory effects. This article explores the relevance of the Investigation's findings for other health and social care professions, demonstrating that they similarly have a range of regulatory fitness requirements that may be interpreted and implemented in different ways, potentially discouraging disabled people from entering the professions or from disclosing their conditions. Regulations and guidance across health and social care professions need to be reviewed, bringing them up to date with current disability and anti‐discrimination legislation. A more proactive stance towards disability equality is required if the professions are to achieve the aim of a more diverse workforce.

This article addresses the need for health checks for people with learning disabilities as a proven route to identifying and tackling health inequalities, what health checks should look like (covering physical and mental health) and how they should be followed up, and how practices and primary care trusts (PCTs) can implement health checks, involving people with learning disabilities and family carers and drawing on the expertise of community learning disability teams. Experience from Wales and England of offering health checks is described, and some key learning points are drawn out. In particular we recommend the appointment of a strategic health facilitator to lead the introduction of health checks and to ensure that the results are used to improve the health and health care of the population of people with learning disabilities.