Government ‘bans’ thousands of disabled fans from sporting test events
The government is facing fresh accusations of disability discrimination, after apparently banning people who are “clinically extremely vulnerable” to COVID-19 from attending all nine of its sports, cultural and business “test” events.
The nine events are taking place over the next month and are being used to trial different approaches to allowing crowds to return safely to venues as part of a pilot scheme, the Events Research Programme (ERP).
Among the events that will be used to test how different types of venues can reopen safely as part of the government’s “roadmap” out of lockdown are the world snooker championships in Sheffield, which begin on Saturday, and football’s Carabao Cup final between Spurs and Manchester City on 25 April.
The disabled-led campaigning charity Level Playing Field (LPF), which represents disabled sports fans, said it was “extremely worried” that the decision to prevent spectators attending these two events would set “a potentially discriminatory precedent”.
LPF said it viewed the move as “an attack on freedom of choice and human rights”.
The government’s decision that those who are clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) to coronavirus – and those who are pregnant, or under 18 – should not attend the test events was not included in the press release that provided details about the programme.
But LPF noticed a warning on the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) website, which says that ticket holders have been told by email: “Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to allow you to attend this event if you are classed as clinically extremely vulnerable, pregnant or living with somebody who falls within these categories.”
LPF said this decision had “taken away the free will of a person to decide if an event is safe for them or not”.
LPF later learned that CEV people had also been told that they should not apply for tickets to the Carabao Cup final at Wembley Stadium.
Tony Taylor, LPF’s chair, said the government’s move sets a “potentially discriminatory precedent” and “detracts from the message of tackling discrimination [and] promoting equality and devalues the importance of personal choice”.
He said the actions to exclude fans who are CEV “present a very credible risk that sections of the football supporting community will continue to be excluded by society as lockdown eases”.
He added: “Level Playing Field acknowledges that safety is vital to the programme of reopening, but this must include freedom of choice and must not be discriminatory.”
The other test events are a comedy club night in Liverpool; Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final between Leicester City and Southampton at Wembley Stadium; an outdoor cinema event in Liverpool; a fun run event in Hertfordshire (although this has now been postponed); a business event in Liverpool; a Liverpool nightclub event; and May’s FA Cup final at Wembley.
Rosie Loker, co-chair of the Women’s Equality Party’s disability and long-term health conditions caucus, said it was “frustrating” to hear the government preventing CEV people from the events “whilst simultaneously ending shielding, taking away support and forcing some back into the workplace”.
She said: “This mixed messaging does very little for disabled people’s confidence that government will not leave them behind again as we emerge out of lockdown.
“CEV, disabled and pregnant people continue to be active in sports, business and a range of cultural events both as participants and spectators.
“To ban us from the ERP risks continuing to exclude us from public life for the foreseeable future.
“It shows no plan for how these groups can return to contributing to society and continues the onslaught of discrimination these groups have experienced, both prior to and during this pandemic.
“A one-size-fits-all approach takes away our agency. We believe the policy needs to be more nuanced.
“Individuals ought to be able to make their own decisions, with the advice of their medical advisers, on what activities are safe for them to attend in person.”
Chris Fry, the disabled founder of discrimination law experts Fry Law, also raised concerns about the decision to ban CEV people from the world snooker championships, which he suggested could be “direct discrimination against disabled people”.
He also suggested that if the policy was imposed on the tournament by the government, there could be grounds for legal action through a judicial review.
And he warned that the government’s pilot programme could be used to set rules for other venues across the country when they re-opened to the public after lockdown.
Fry wrote in a blog: “The impact of this policy will be significant as it is likely that the same criteria will be applied to the re-opening of other venues, meaning that disabled people will be shut out of events.
“This is not acceptable within a society mandated by law to make itself more accessible and inclusive.”
The World Snooker Tour – which runs the world snooker championships – refused to comment on the ban, but directed Disability News Service (DNS) to a statement by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
A DCMS spokesperson told DNS: “These pilots are the first steps to helping all members of the public safely back to mass events.
“While they were designed to be as inclusive as possible, we have been advised that it would not be suitable on health grounds for the clinically extremely vulnerable to attend such pilot events and potentially be put at greater risk of transmission.”
DCMS said the programme was designed in line with Public Health England and Department of Health and Social Care guidance.
It said that those who were CEV, living with someone who was CEV, pregnant, or under 18, were advised not to attend the pilot events because some of those events would be testing non-social distancing and the safety risk associated with relaxing “non pharmaceutical interventions”.
But DCMS had refused by noon today (Thursday) to confirm if it was banning CEV people from all the test events or instead just advising them not to attend, whether it accepted that its actions were discriminatory, and why it failed to mention the ban or advice in its press release about the ERP.
*For sources of information and support during the coronavirus crisis, visit the DNS advice and information page
15 April 2021
Rail companies apologise after Prince Philip ‘mark of respect’ leaves websites inaccessible
Rail companies have apologised after their blundering attempts to make a gesture of respect following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh left their national rail information website inaccessible to many disabled people.
National Rail Enquiries was just one of several rail industry websites that turned grey “as a mark of respect” following Prince Philip’s death.
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which runs the website, and represents the companies that run Britain’s railways, appears to have made the changes despite knowing that they would cause accessibility problems to some disabled people.
Among other rail industry organisations that made similar changes to their websites were Northern and Network Rail.
The blunders also came just three days after the rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, announced that its efforts had led train and station operators to improve the accessibility of their websites.
The changes caused anger and frustration among disabled people, particularly those who were no longer able to use vital rail websites.
National Rail Enquiries made the change on Friday and later announced that the website had been “set to grey while we are in the mourning period of Prince Phillip (sic)”.
Even the staff member running the National Rail Enquiries Twitter account admitted they were stumped by the changes, telling one frustrated user on Sunday that they did not believe there was a way to change it back to normal, but promising: “I will leave a note for someone to look at on Monday to see if there is.”
They then added that they too had been “struggling to read while it is coloured differently”.
Changes were made by RDG to address the access concerns on Monday morning.
An RDG spokesperson told Disability News Service (DNS) that it “went through an internal accessibility process” before turning the website grey, and that it was now “looking at how we address this in the future”.
He said later: “When we made the change on Friday we did so on the basis we thought the change was acceptable, but it became clear from the feedback we received that it wasn’t and so we made the change promptly on Monday morning.”
But RDG has refused to confirm that it knew in advance that the changes would cause access problems for some disabled people.
In a statement, RDG said: “The National Rail Enquiries website was temporarily greyscaled as a mark of respect following the death of HRH Duke of Edinburgh.
“We listened to feedback about how people were using the website and made changes shortly after to make it more accessible to all our customers.
“We’re sorry for the inconvenience and we thank everyone for their feedback.
“We want to make the experience of using National Rail Enquiries better for everyone and we’re investing in modernising the website in line with the latest accessibility guidelines.”
A Network Rail spokesperson refused to explain how it had made the decision to turn its own website grey without apparently considering the impact on accessibility.
But a spokesperson said that “no decisions were taken deliberately or knowingly to make our website less accessible”.
He added: “We temporarily made our website greyscale as a mark of respect following the death of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
“We’ve been made aware this has caused problems for people accessing the content so it’s now back to its usual look.
“We’re sorry it’s caused issues and we thank everyone for their feedback.”
The National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFB UK) was among disabled people’s organisations to criticise the rail industry’s actions this week.
Andrew Hodgson, NFB UK president, told DNS: “I realise that they wished to mark the passing of HRH Prince Philip, but this should not be at the expense of access, which is a human right.
“I would not say that this was deliberate discrimination, but I think this act showed ignorance of the consequences of their action.
“The effect is discriminatory and obviously little thought was given as to how these changes would affect vision impaired people.”
Sarah Leadbetter, NFB UK’s national campaigns officer, also said the actions taken by the rail industry had been “discriminatory”.
Leadbetter uses both magnification and screen-reading software and both methods were negatively affected by the greyscale.
With magnification, she relies on high contrast between the words and the screen, while her screen-reading software had struggled to recognise the words on the screen because of the lack of contrast.
She said: “I know the railway companies wanted to mark the passing of HRH Prince Philip, but the worst thing to do is to put a complete colour on the screen; as a visually-impaired person, I need contrast.
“This wasn’t well thought out. The railways and train companies could have thought of a better way of remembering Prince Philip.”
Transport for All, which campaigns for older and disabled people in London, told DNS: “The accessibility of information is vital for disabled passengers to plan and make journeys.
“This decision to turn these websites greyscale, making the information inaccessible, particularly to visually impaired people, was taken at the expense of accessibility – locking many disabled people out of vital services.
“This makes the case strongly for better disability equality training for all levels of staff: accessibility should never be a forgotten afterthought.”
There was also widespread anger and criticism of the move by disabled campaigners on social media.
One of the transport access campaigners to criticise the move to greyscale the National Rail Enquiries (NRE) website, who tweets at @squirrelpot, said: “Your website is there to serve the living, not the dead.”
He said the “disgraceful” move had made the website “inaccessible to loads of people with visual impairment. This is disgraceful! Please restore the colours immediately!”
Another, Tony Jennings, said it was “unbelievable” that RDG and NRE had not considered website accessibility before turning the websites greyscale.
And Doug Paulley said on Twitter that the Rail Delivery Group was “all mouth and no trousers”.
He said: “They lost the ability to actually DELIVER anything.
“So they have to do this sort of performative nonsense to gloss over their bureaucratic inertia and appear hip and with the times. They should be nationalised or abolished.”
15 April 2021
Government rejects chance to promise inquiry into COVID deaths of disabled people
The government has refused to promise MPs that it will order a separate, independent inquiry into why so many disabled people have died from coronavirus, and the role the UK government and other public bodies have played in causing those deaths.
The Commons women and equalities committee said in a report just before Christmas that an independent inquiry into the causes of the “starkly disproportionate and tragic” death rates should be held as soon as the country had gained control of the pandemic.
The committee said the inquiry should be “wide-ranging” and separate to any others investigating the pandemic, and should include an examination of how the decisions and policies of the government and other public authorities caused “adverse outcomes for disabled people”.
But in its response to the committee’s report, released yesterday and due to be debated by MPs today (Thursday), the government refused to promise a separate inquiry.
Instead, it said: “The Government has always been clear that there will be opportunities to look back, analyse and reflect on all aspects of COVID-19.
“For now, the Government is focused entirely on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and saving lives.”
Out of 15 recommendations made in the committee’s report and aimed at the UK government, it appears to have clearly accepted just four, partially accepted two more and rejected eight, while it was not clear in its response to the call for an independent inquiry if it accepted that recommendation.
Among those it rejected were recommendations on accessible information, education, social care funding, and disabled people’s access to food during the pandemic crisis.
Only last month, the minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, refused to apologise for as many as 24 breaches of disabled people’s rights – and probably even more – by the government in the 12 months since the first COVID-19 lockdown.
That list included the government’s decision – early in the pandemic – to discharge hospital patients into care homes without testing them for COVID-19, causing the loss of thousands of lives of disabled and older people.
This was later mirrored by the decision of the Department of Health and Social Care to draw up a strategy that allows patients infected with COVID to be discharged from hospitals into residential homes, as part of a so-called “safe discharge” scheme regulated by the Care Quality Commission.
Another breach saw Tomlinson fail to carry out meaningful engagement with disabled people’s organisations during the early months of the pandemic, while his Disability Unit failed to provide updates on its website for months at the height of the pandemic, while thousands of disabled people were dying from COVID-19.
The Office for National Statistics has repeatedly found that about three-fifths (59 per cent) of COVID-19-related deaths in England during the pandemic have been of disabled people.
But ONS has also found that – after allowing for other factors, such as people’s underlying health conditions, or whether they live in a care home or in a less affluent part of the country – there is still a “smaller but statistically significantly raised risk of death” from COVID-19 for disabled people with higher support needs.
And it has said that it “cannot rule out the possibility of remaining explanatory factors” for the increased risk of death for disabled people, such as “access to and pathways through the healthcare system”.
*For sources of information and support during the coronavirus crisis, visit the DNS advice and information page
15 April 2021
‘Concerning silence’ from government over disability ambassador roles
The government has failed to explain why it has made no contact for more than two months with a string of disabled experts who applied for voluntary positions as its “disability and access ambassadors”.
The Disability Unit announced in early January that it was seeking 14 “senior business people” to become “disability and access ambassadors”.
The closing date for the application process was 31 January and applicants received an acknowledgement of their application and were told the government would “be in touch in due course”.
The much-criticised Disability Unit is already facing legal action over its “disrespectful” and “unlawful” approach to seeking disabled people’s views on the proposed national disability strategy.
There has been continuing controversy over the strategy and the survey this year, including why the survey included a question that asked non-disabled people if they would be “happy to have a physical relationship with a disabled person”, and concerns about it being rushed, inaccessible, over-long and poorly-planned.
But Disability News Service has now heard from three disabled people who are each prominent in the arts and culture sector and none of them have been contacted by the Disability Unit since the initial acknowledgement of their application for one of the ambassador roles.
Television presenter and campaigner Sophie Morgan, who has been working on a project with Visit England, applied for the tourism sector position and received an acknowledgement on 1 February.
She said: “We are now on 14 April and as far as I know none of us have heard back, even a message to say you weren’t successful or an update.
“It’s the silence that’s concerning. We are in the dark. We just don’t know what’s happening.”
Kate Stanforth, a dancer and model, and owner of an inclusive dance school, applied for the arts and culture role.
She said: “It’s frustrating that we are so keen to help to make a positive change and we haven’t even got a response.
“Many of us have used a lot of our time and precious energy in not just the application, but continuous campaigning.”
She said there needed to be greater “knowledge, understanding and acceptance” of disabled people across multiple sectors and “once again it feels like we have been pushed to the side”.
Broadcaster, campaigner and access consultant Mik Scarlet applied for the rail travel and the arts and culture roles, and has also not been contacted since his application was first acknowledged.
He said: “I understand that we’ve been in the grip of COVID but all of the sectors seeking ambassadors will need the input of disabled experts to shape their post lockdown policies.”
He added: “I think the whole world is blaming COVID for ignoring disabled people at the moment.
“I think in this case it was considered unimportant and so keeping applicants informed fell by the wayside.”
The government said in January that those appointed would join existing ambassadors who have been “helping industry and the government in their management of the COVID-19 crisis”, and have been supporting the development of the government’s national disability strategy.
Four of the appointments – covering pubs and restaurants, private housing, universities and the energy industries – will cover new sectors, while the other 10 will replace ambassadors who have finished their term of service.
The Disability Unit said in its application pack that it was looking for people who were “ambitious, passionate and dynamic, with strong networks and the ability to reach out to a wide range of organisations and to create momentum for change”.
But it stressed that it was a voluntary role and ambassadors would not be paid.
The disability and access ambassadors (DAAs) were previously known as disability sector champions.
In 2019, the Department for Work and Pensions – which at the time was responsible for the programme – admitted in a freedom of information response that it had no idea how many of its 19 sector champions were disabled people.
A Disability Unit spokesperson declined yesterday (Wednesday) to explain why there had been no contact with applicants for two-and-a-half months, and whether this demonstrated a lack of regard for disabled people.
But he said in a statement: “We received over 80 applications which have been thoroughly considered by sector-specific panels composed of existing and previous DAAs, representatives from disability organisations, and officials from across government.
“The aim is for the ambassadors to be appointed at the nearest possible opportunity.”
15 April 2021
Atos, Capita and Maximus ‘send almost no safeguarding referrals to councils’
A trio of outsourcing companies that have faced repeated criticism over their links to deaths and serious harm caused to disabled benefit claimants have made almost no attempts in the last year to alert local authorities to serious safeguarding concerns.
Responses from about 120 local authorities show that Atos*, Capita and Maximus** between them contacted the councils just eight times in total between January 2020 and February 2021 with safeguarding concerns about the disabled people they were assessing, despite carrying out hundreds of thousands of assessments during that period.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) guidance says its own staff should contact social services or the police if they believe a claimant faces a significant risk of injury or abuse.
The figures have come from disabled campaigner and former safeguarding expert Mike Owen, who collected them through freedom of information requests to every relevant local authority across England, Scotland and Wales.
It is the third year that Owen has collated the statistics, and this year about 120 local authorities responded with figures.
Although face-to-face assessments have been suspended for much of the relevant time period because of the pandemic, paper, telephone and even video assessments have still been taking place.
Atos and Capita have been continuing to carry out assessments for personal independence payment (PIP) and Maximus has been conducting work capability assessments to test eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits.
But between January 2020 and February 2021, Atos made just one safeguarding referral, Capita four and Maximus three to the local authorities that provided figures to Owen.
Between them, the three companies have been paid more than £2.5 billion by DWP to carry out benefit assessments since 2010.
DWP itself appears to be continuing to make slow progress on safeguarding, with the local authorities reporting 225 referrals from the department in their responses to Owen.
This compares with 111 referrals from DWP in the three years to February 2019 across 80 local authorities.
Many of the DWP referrals in the last year were made to a small number of councils, such as Sunderland (30), Bristol (18), South Tyneside (22) and Stoke-on-Trent (14), although the reason for these safeguarding clusters is unclear.
DWP offices in other areas still appear not to be carrying out their safeguarding duties, with no referrals to Nottingham City Council, none to Warwickshire County Council, and just one to Liverpool City Council.
DWP’s own internal guidance says that if a claimant who is at greater than normal risk of abuse or neglect “faces clear and significant risks to their welfare or safety”, such as the risk of injury, ill-treatment, abuse, neglect or exploitation, staff should “take any reasonable steps which [they] feel are necessary in order to address these risks… without any undue delay”.
The guidance adds: “You should volunteer information which is directly relevant to the issue of concern to Social Services, Social Work Department in Scotland or the police, as appropriate, without the customer’s or individual’s consent.”
As well as about 120 councils that have provided details of which organisations made safeguarding referrals to them, about another 50 declined to do so, usually on the grounds of cost or because they do not record the source of safeguarding referrals.
Owen believes there needs to be an inquiry into the lack of referrals from assessment providers, particularly because of the years of evidence that show how much harm can be caused to disabled people during the assessment process.
He said: “I will not stop collating this information on a yearly basis because it is just another way in which the DWP can be held accountable and I believe that we all deserve to be protected from harm.”
Capita refused to comment or answer questions about the figures.
Atos refused to confirm the content of its staff safeguarding guidance and whether it followed DWP’s internal guidance.
But in response to the figures showing just one safeguarding referral to about 120 local authorities, an Atos spokesperson said in a statement: “Working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions we are committed to safeguarding and carry out wide-ranging activities in support of best practice.
“A significant number of safeguarding referrals to social services have in fact been recorded over this period.”
But he refused to say what he meant by “significant” and whether this included those referrals made by DWP.
A Maximus spokesperson refused to confirm the content of its staff safeguarding guidance and whether it followed DWP’s internal guidance.
But in response to the figures showing just three referrals to about 120 local authorities, he said in a statement: “We make safeguarding referrals to GPs, the emergency services and other appropriate authorities, in line with our safeguarding policy.
“All of our doctors, nurses and physiotherapists are trained to identify safeguarding concerns and refer them appropriately.
“We do not recognise the figures that Disability News Service has provided, which only cover a proportion of local authorities and do not include other authorities that we refer to.”
DWP was unable to respond in detail because of the pre-election period, but it said: “While the department does not have a statutory safeguarding duty, we engage with, and can help direct our claimants to agencies where appropriate, including the police, local authorities and social services who have a duty of care and can provide appropriate support.”
*Atos delivers its PIP assessment contracts through Independent Assessment Services, a trading name of Atos IT Services UK
**Maximus delivers its WCA contract through the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments
15 April 2021
Campaign calls for supermarkets to scrap delivery charges
Disabled campaigners are calling on supermarkets to scrap their delivery charges, to help disabled people and others who have seen food costs rise sharply during the pandemic.
They are asking the chief executives of the seven supermarkets that have provided priority delivery slots during the crisis to drop any charges for delivering shopping and to slash the minimum amount customers have to spend on a delivery to £5.
The campaign is led by disabled Londoner Sandip Sodha, a member of the access group of the disabled people’s organisation (DPO) Action Disability Kensington and Chelsea, with a petition supported by Inclusion London.
Sodha said that many disabled people “have no choice but to shop online because of the risk of the virus” and have limited income.
He said: “It’s all about supermarkets making reasonable adjustments for consumers. The [supermarket] giants should take note and adjust their actions accordingly.”
He added: “Many disabled people cannot get out of the house and shop on the high street and have no choice but to pay supermarket delivery charges.
“In some cases, people have to make an unenviable choice of heating the home or putting food on the table. Others are being pushed into debt.”
The campaign is directed at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Iceland, Waitrose and Ocado, the supermarkets that provided priority delivery slots during the crisis.
Jon Abrams, Inclusion London’s campaigns and justice coordinator, said: “The pandemic has been challenging for disabled people.
“Many are struggling to make ends meet and pay the week’s shopping bill.
“Disabled people tell us that they often don’t spend enough on food each week to reach the minimum spend limit.
“And for those in poverty, the extra delivery charge is a real burden, forcing some to choose between heating and eating.
“Supermarkets can make a big difference to the lives of disabled people by scrapping delivery charges and reducing the minimum spend to £5.”
Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, which supports and campaigns for disabled women, said: “Well done to Sandip Sodha and the other campaigners on this.
“Supermarkets have profited from the surge in online ordering and never had to close.
“They can afford to remove delivery charges and reduce minimum spend – charges which are making life harder for sick and disabled people, low-income single mums and families, including people of colour facing multiple discrimination.”
Only last week, the Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee pointed out that the government had directed shoppers towards the supermarkets during this year’s lockdown, rather than reintroducing the food parcel scheme.
In its report on food insecurity during the pandemic, the committee said that “if the Government is directing custom towards supermarkets, it should be publicly asking them to accommodate the needs of the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV), elderly and disabled people”.
It said the supermarkets could do this “by lowering minimum spends and removing delivery charges for CEV customers”.
A spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said there was “no single view” among its members on whether they would consider reducing their minimum spend and scrapping delivery charges.
Andrew Opie, BRC’s director of food and sustainability, said in a statement: “Retailers have been working tirelessly since the start of the pandemic to support all their vulnerable customers.
“Supermarkets have greatly expanded their delivery capacity, and doubled down on priority slots to ensure as many people as possible have online access to the goods they need.
“Many have provided support for delivery fees, and some have removed the fees altogether.
“Firms have also introduced alternative measures to help these groups, such as dedicated shopping hours, and volunteer voucher schemes.
“Furthermore, the safety measures put in place – from perspex screens to social distancing to additional hygiene measures – mean that everyone can shop safely in-store if they wish.”
15 April 2021
Apple ‘forced by EHRC to back down in face mask discrimination row’
Technology giant Apple appears to have been forced by the equality watchdog to admit that it was wrong to eject disabled people from its shops for failing to wear face masks, when government guidance stated that they were exempt from the rules.
Coronavirus guidance from the UK government – applying in England – makes it clear that people who cannot wear face coverings for impairment-related reasons do not need to do so when visiting shops and other service-providers, and do not need to provide evidence of their exemption.
But despite these rules, Apple and other retailers and service-providers have prevented disabled customers who were exempt from the rules from entering their premises if they refused to wear a face covering.
Now the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has written to 17 organisations that have imposed blanket bans on those not wearing face coverings.
EHRC said it had written to the organisations it has received complaints about, including “a popular technology store, a luxury department store and a bus company”, to advise them of their legal obligations and warn them about the risk of discriminating against disabled people.
It said the technology store – which it declined to name – has now agreed to investigate the complaints made against it, carry out staff training, and update its website to include a reference to face mask exemptions.
In November, Disability News Service (DNS) reported that Apple could be facing multiple legal claims of disability discrimination under the Equality Act because of its actions.
Apple this week refused to confirm that it was the technology store referred to by the commission, and did not respond to requests to comment.
In September, EHRC published guidance to remind retailers of their legal responsibilities not to discriminate against disabled customers and to provide them with reasonable adjustments.
Baroness [Kishwer] Falkner, EHRC’s chair, said: “The vast majority of us are able to wear face coverings when required and must do so, but there are people with conditions that prevent them from wearing masks.
“Acknowledgment of this is precisely why exemptions are written into the law.
“As lockdown eases and businesses reopen, proper policies must be in place.
“The balance must be struck between protecting staff and customers and supporting those with genuine exemptions.”
*For sources of information and support during the coronavirus crisis, visit the DNS advice and information page
15 April 2021
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
