Love film but hate lack of online access for deaf people?

I got an email the other day at work about Lovefilm and the lack of subtitles for deaf people who sign up to their online film streaming service. A father of a deaf daughter was angry that she wasn’t able to watch any films online with subtitles. It quickly became apparent via Twitter that this wasn’t an isolated issue and that loads of other similar companies are equally poor. Another example of access failing to keep pace with technology and incredibly frustrating.

I would say that Lovefilm and other companies that fail to provide full access to deaf people are acting unlawfully under the Equality Act 2010. Their defence? Lovefilm would probably use the get-out clause that it would be an “unreasonable burden” on them to provide access. Ultimately, someone would have to take Lovefilm to court so that a judge could decide who was right.

In the meantime, there are a few things that can be done to make a fuss about this.

1) Complain. If your beef is with Lovefilm, you can contact them via their website. You could ask them to justify why they don’t provide access and whether they think they are acting lawfully under the Equality Act 2010. Other companies should have a “contact us” page on their website tucked away somewhere. If lots of people complain, this will start to get noticed internally.

2) You could also raise with the Equality and Human Rights Commission – who can look into companies that are not complying with the Equality Act.

3) Ofcom are responsible for regulating telecommunication companies and setting access requirements. For example, they require mainstream TV companies to provide a certain level of access according to their size. Currently, they don’t (I think) regulate online TV or media access. But you should certainly feel free to tell them you think they should.

4) Finally, tell the Government to sort it. The relevant Ministry is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A new Communications Bill is expected soon-ish and this offers an opportunity to get the law changed on things like online access, if enough people say it’s needed.

Be really interested to hear any other nightmare stories or how others have got on when making complaints like this. Or of any solutions that people have stumbled across.

Equality safeguards under attack?

I hate silly rules. I hate being told not to do things that I would never do anyway. Boo to silly patronising rules.

So when the Government say they want to cut red tape and bureaucracy and free up business, who could disagree? Let’s fire up the economy and have a street party!

But hang on a minute. Aren’t some rules there for a reason? Aren’t they there to protect vulnerable people? To make sure that their needs aren’t being overlooked?

Take the Equality Act and (before that) the Disability Discrimination Act. They contain duties seeking to protect disabled people from discrimination. I didn’t get the memo that disability discrimination has now been eradicated. Oh, it hasn’t.

The Act also include duties for public sector bodies: to make sure they assess the impact of their polices on disabled people and consult and involve them in decisions about them. All evidence I’ve seen suggests this leads to better policy-making. It certainly stops you from doing something stupid like halving the number of Teachers of the Deaf and still pretending it will have no impact on the service for deaf children.

Other important duties exist to safeguard the rights of deaf and other disabled children – in particular:
* the right to be assessed and have special educational needs support in schools
* to receive social care support such as short breaks
* to equal access to education
* to investigate where a child may be suffering harm

These duties are important. The last time I looked deaf children were still 35% less likely than all children to achieve 5 GCSEs (incl. English and Maths) at grades A* to C – even though deafness is not a learning disability. Still more likely to suffer mental health problems and be victims of child abuse. Still among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in society today. With public spending cuts now starting to bite, these rights and duties are even more important – to make sure that a relatively small group of children are not forgotten about and still get the support they need to achieve their potential.

So why, despite all of this, does the Government seem intent on getting rid of these basic protections? To ask once whether these are important duties would be worrying enough. But to ask thrice would imply seem sort of concerted attack on the rights of disabled children.

Exhibit number one: the “Red Tape Challenge”, asking whether the Equality Act should be scrapped altogether.

Exhibit number two: the Government Equalities Office asking how to reduce “bureaucracy” associated with the Equality Act public sector duty.

Exhibit number three: the Communities and Local Government “informal” review of all statutory duties.

My first response to all of this is: is it a good use of government money to be running three concurrent consultations asking the same sort of questions? Could the money not be better spent on, say, reducing the deficit or protecting deaf children?

My second response to all of this is: are you for real? Are they seriously questioning whether we should just do away with equality duties and duties that protect children? The starting assumption in all three consultations is that these duties are bad, bureaucratic, burdensome. I always thought promoting equality for disabled people was a good thing. Does society really want to be wasting the huge many talents (such as modesty) of people like me? Do they not think I have a right to have a say on decisions that affect me? I might have some good ideas of my own (like fewer consultations). Do we no longer want to make sure disabled children are protected?

To be fair, in the latter consultation, the defendant does recognise that some duties are vital (though they don’t ask whether some duties should be strengthened). But I would argue that some duties are so vital, it’s offensive to even question whether they should be scrapped. It’s also alarming in the extreme to parents of deaf children who, I think, have enough to worry about than participate in some “I’m a bureaucratic regulatory burden, get me out of here!” charade.

A desire to cut red tape should not be at the cost of essential protections for deaf children. End of.

New education laws to improve education for deaf children

Originally uploaded to Flickr by Joep R.

Yesterday, Parliament shut up shop. MPs were booted out. Maybe even chucked into the River Thames. But before they all went back to their constituencies, last week they were busy trying to pass lots of laws before Parliament dissolved. And two new bits of law were created which are worth getting a little bit excited about.

These are the Children, Schools and Families Act and the Equality Act. The former introduces a new right of appeal for parents of deaf children if their local authority refuses to update their statement for special educational needs support needed at school. And the latter makes a major changes to disability discrimination law by saying that disabled children now have the right to specialist equipment like radio aid microphones. Previously, this was only guaranteed to disabled children if it was included in their statement of support. A rather strange get-out clause for schools has now been closed.

Why are they important? Government figures from last year suggest that deaf children are 42% less likely to do as well in their GCSEs as other children. It’s an obvious point but unless deaf children are getting the support they need, we won’t close the gap in attainment. I think the Government deserves some plaudits for getting these new laws on the book.

The bad news is that the proposed new law on pupil and parent guarantees didn’t make it in the end. The week before Parliament is dissolved is known as the “wash-up” period where MPs take all their dirty coffee cups to the kitchen and where the Government and the opposition party also have to agree what laws will pass in the short time left. The guarantees didn’t get cross-party support so they fell by the wayside. I thought it was a shame. The guarantees wouldn’t have changed the world overnight for deaf children. But they could have been an important means to an end; of setting out new entitlements that would, again, have helped make sure that deaf children get the support they need.

Still, a nice little bookend to the last parliamentary session. More information about the new laws is on the NDCS website.

What do you think? Will the new laws make a difference? What else needs to be done to close the gap? As always, good to hear your thoughts.