Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund Iain Newton Government Equalities Office United Kingdom [email protected] Jude Palmer Digital Outreach.

Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund

Iain Newton

Government Equalities Office

United Kingdom

[email protected]

Jude Palmer

Digital Outreach

United Kingdom

[email protected]

Historically, there have been very few disabled MPs and Councillors.

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.

[email protected]

[email protected]