Arranging an access audit
The quality of advice offered to the business world is extremely variable, and available from a range of sources, from individual disabled people or disability groups to local authority access officers and access consultants. All can give good or poor advice. You should, therefore, satisfy yourself that anyone you engage has the skills and experience to deliver what you need.
An accessibility audit should be a detailed examination of your business in relation to its accessibility for all, concentrating particularly on people with disabilities, but also other users of the facilities. Items covered should include your website through to emergency exits.
A full audit can take some time on site, and should be accompanied by a comprehensive report. Ideally this should not simply be a completed check list, but a prioritised analysis of what you need to do immediately, together with information on items that would be helpful if time and funds permit. You should also ideally be given details of how the law relates to your business, together with background information on reasonable adjustments.
Audits are available under the National Accessible Scheme. However, this is primarily a rating scheme to describe your facilities to disabled people and is not widely used at present.
You need to assess the suitability of an access auditor for your business in the same way you would with any other business consultant, by checking experience and asking questions.
Consultants offering access audits should have either qualifications or relevant experience.
The National Register of Access Consultants (NRAC) is a trade body for auditors, and as with all such organisations, people on it have different levels of experience, although the NRAC does have entry qualifications.
Consultants should also have an in-depth understanding of a wide range of disabilities, the issues people with them face in their daily lives, and a broad understanding of the relevant issues. These include those to do with mobility (walking and wheelchair users); hearing (deaf and hard of hearing); visual (blind and partial sight); grip, dexterity and control; and learning and understanding.
You need also to determine whether the consultant can do what you need, which is to advise on adjustments required by people with disabilities that are appropriate for your business, and in a way you can interpret.
Most good auditors will ask you for plans of the building - those with the fire certificate are usable, although full architectural plans are much better.
Check list
- Ask whether the consultant is on the register of access consultants, and if not, why?
- Who has the consultant worked for in the past? Do they have a background and interest in hospitality, have they worked in hospitality, and if so, what was the size of the business?
- Do they have experience of a variety of disabilities, which ones and how was that knowledge gained?
- Ask for examples of features within the property they are likely to assess, such as steps or handrails, with solutions they have recommended in the past.
- What do they take into account in terms of your business? How much is cost, appropriateness to the business and style a factor in the solutions they might offer.
Please note - there are no right or wrong answers to the above questions. You are simply building up a picture of how suitable the consultant is to your business needs.
Contact
IndividuALL at Tourism for All, for help with issues regarding the DDA, tel: 01273 464518.
The problem
From 1 October 2004 the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) will require all businesses to make reasonable adjustments to enable disabled people to use their services.
You need to know how well your business meets the needs of a broad range of disabled people and determine whether any reasonable adjustments are needed. Having an access audit performed is one way of achieving this, but how do you know if an auditor is suitable?
