Disability

“Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council is Committed to promoting Disability Access and providing equality of opportunity for disabled people in the services that it provides”.

The overarching goal of the Disability Equality Duty is to promote equality of opportunity.  To achieve this, specific duties that apply to public authorities in England and Wales ensure that due regard is given to the needs of disabled people when planning, delivering or monitoring the functions and the services they provide.  The general duty requires public authorities to adopt a proactive approach, mainstreaming disability equality into all decisions and service delivery.

Then Disability Equality Scheme and its associated Action Plan demonstrates Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s commitment, through its roles and responsibilities in delivering services for local people, and to actively look for methods of ensuring that disabled people in Blaenau Gwent have equality of opportunity.
    

• As previously mentioned the Chief Executive Mr Robin Morrison has been recently announced as being the Equalities Champion for the whole of the Authority.
• Councillor Don Wilcox acts as the Council’s Member Equality Champion for the day –to- day operation of the organisation.  Alongside this Councillor Jennifer Morgan along with Councillor Haydn Trollope are both working members of the Access for All Forum.
• The Council has both a dedicated Equalities Officer and Access Officer whose roles are to advise and guide on compliance with legislation and to lead on the practical application in service delivery and access to buildings.
• An apprentice interpreter from the BSL (British Sign Language) Futures project, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and European Social Fund, was placed with the Council and LHB from November 2007 to June 2008 and made a great impact with the Deaf Community.  A Deaf Forum is now in the process of being established.