Policy positions
Our policy positions show where we stand on a number of public issues. They highlight what's important to us and the changes we want to see.
Disability Charity Consortium’s manifesto for an inclusive national disability strategy
Leonard Cheshire is a member of the Disability Charities Consortium (DCC), which brings CEOs and policy leads from the UK’s leading influential not-for-profit disability organisations together to work with Government to ensure disabled people’s experiences are reflected in UK policy making. The DCC members are: Scope, Leonard Cheshire, Disability Rights UK, National Autistic Society, Mind, Mencap, Sense, Royal National Society of Blind people (RNIB), Royal National Society for Deaf people (RNID), and Business Disability Forum (BDF).
We created a manifesto to feed into the development of the Government’s National Disability Strategy and to set out the DCC’s ambitions and priorities for the Strategy and beyond. We believe that the forthcoming publication of the National Disability Strategy document should only be the start and will require considerable ongoing input from a broad range of communities and organisations represented by disabled people to shape its implementation and ensure momentum is maintained.
The DCC is keen to see the following from the National Disability Strategy:
- A Strategy with clear and tangible actions that will be taken, timescales, investment and measures for success.
- Monitoring and accountability of progress, including leadership and participation by disabled people.
- Engagement with disabled people that is accessible and meaningful. Online data collection must be one part of a wider consultation with multiple formats of participation enabled.
- Clear and tangible routes for engagement that are timely and accessible and include updates on progress.
Most importantly of all, a clear way forward to bring transformation to disabled people’s life opportunities and participation.
Disability inclusion is the right thing to do. It also makes good business sense.
This paper sets out why disability inclusion in business is the right thing to do, how it can help organisations achieve a cost-benefit, and some practical ways in which businesses can strengthen inclusion.
It also highlights the potential of technology for enabling inclusion and the importance of engaging young people with disabilities in inclusion efforts.