Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund Iain Newton Government Equalities Office United Kingdom Iain.Newton@geo.gov.uk Jude Palmer Digital Outreach.
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Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund
Iain Newton
Government Equalities Office
United Kingdom
Iain.Newton@geo.gov.uk
Jude Palmer
Digital Outreach
United Kingdom
JPalmer@Digitaloutreach.org.uk
However, there are a few you may know of (L- R ):Paul Maynard MP (Conservative), David Blunkett MP (Labour) and Baroness Sally Brinton (Liberal Democrat), in the House of Lords.
Disabled candidates can be disadvantaged compared to non - disabled candidates. An example of this are theadditional costs they can incur when campaigning.
Through this pilot, the UK Government Equalities Office has provided Grants to help remove these barriers for disabled candidates. For example, the Grant can pay for things like Sign Language, Braille
Translation, Mobility Access.
By providing this additional funding for disabled candidates, it allows disabled people to contest elections on a “level playing field”
The Government consulted with the main parties, disability organisations and local Government in the UK, in order to gain
their expertise, advice and support for the pilot.
The pilot is very innovative and we continue to learn from it. However, its overarching purpose is to understand the scale of the extra costs disabled people
face, and the effectiveness this means of support has for disabled people.
An evaluation will be conducted on the effectiveness of the Fund pilot following the May 2015 General Election.
Sources of information
www.access-to-elected-office-fund.org.uk/
The Access to Elected Office Strategy
www.gov.uk/government/publications/access-to-elected-office-for-disabled-people-strategy-compliance-with-the-equality-act-2010-guidance-for-political-parties
The Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation:
www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/other-committees/speakers-conference-on-parliamentary-representation/
We are happy to answer your questions today or in the future.
Iain.Newton@geo.gov.uk
JPalmer@Digitaloutreach.org.uk
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