Action Plans are about service provision rather than employment. While it is not essential for Action Plans to include employment reforms, it makes sense to develop your Action Plan in association with a review of employment policies.

Government departments are familiar with scrutinising employment practices for potential discrimination. Most departments will have policies promoting equal employment opportunity for groups of people who are traditionally disadvantaged.

The development of an Action Plan provides an opportunity to reconsider employment practices. Discrimination by government departments is often indirect and almost always unintentional. But unintended indirect discrimination is still unlawful.

HREOC has produced a guide to assist employers comply with the DDA. The Disability Discrimination Act Employment Manual - Developing Best Practice is available from the Commission at a cost of $25. The Commission also produces a range of free materials. All DDA materials in alternative formats large print, braille, audio cassette and computer disk in WordPerfect 5.2 and ASCII format are available free of charge. A list of available materials is set out in Appendix 4.

Customers from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and non-english speaking backgrounds

People with disabilities from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and non-English speaking backgrounds often encounter additional barriers in attempting to access services. Access is made difficult not only because of the potential customer's disability, but also because services are not offered in a way which is culturally and/or linguistically appropriate.

Departments will be familiar with the need for cultural sensitivity in service provision. This is no less the case for initiatives to make your services more accessible for people with disabilities. In developing an Action Plan, departments will need to consider the following issues:

• collection of data on customers and potential customers with disabilities from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and non-English speaking backgrounds, particularly information which enables your service to address the specific needs of these communities;
• ways of distributing information about services offered - simple translation of information into other languages may not be sufficient. Minority communities have different yet well established networks, and a department may need to access these if it is to effectively distribute information about its services;
• familiarity with working with interpreters and translators;
• employee attitudes, including ignorance of different cultures and possible racism;
• development of employee policies and provision of employee training to ensure effective delivery of services to the whole community, particularly people from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and non-English speaking backgrounds;
• involvement of people from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or non-English speaking backgrounds in the development of strategies to make services accessible for people from these communities; and
• evaluation of strategies to ensure their effectiveness in making services accessible.

2. How to develop an action plan

Review your current practices
Devise policies and programs
Goals and targets
Devise evaluation strategies for your action plan
Allocate responsibility
Communication

Your Plan will need to be tailored to meet the particular needs of your department and its customers, but there are some `musts'. Section 61 of the DDA sets out the six components which MUST be included in an Action Plan (see Appendix 3).

This guide deals with each of these requirements separately, and points you towards the development of an Action Plan which is not only responsive to the needs of your department and customers, but which satisfies all the legal requirements as well.

Review your current practices

Collect information
Identify physical barriers which limit access to the service
Identify communication barriers
Identify attitudinal barriers
Consider confidentiality
Involve people with disabilities in the review
Consider funded programs

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to the review of practices within the service provider with a view to the identification of any discriminatory practices; DDA s.61(c) It is essential that a department conduct a review (or audit) of the ways in which its practices might obstruct customers with disabilities from having access to its services. A department can't effectively plan for the future without knowing where it currently stands.

Departments should consider the ways in which people with disabilities are prevented from participating in its activities. Participation can take many forms but it includes access to all services and involvement in the public aspects of the department such as community consultations, customer surveys and complaints processes.

The review results will indicate the department's current performance level, help identify areas in need of change, assist in developing realistic targets and goals and serve as the benchmark against which to assess all progress towards Action Plan objectives.

A successful review will require old practices to be considered from a new perspective. For this reason it may be useful to have the review conducted independently.The following actions will need to be included in your review.

Collect information

Where possible, departments should collect information to support their Action Plans. Information may be obtained from customer surveys, customer service statistics, demographic data, employees, unions and organisations representing people with disabilities. Useful data will include the range of potential customers and the frequency with which your services are currently being used by customers with disabilities. Provision must be made for keeping this information confidential.

Customer profile data can be useful in identifying shortcomings in accessibility. It can also be an excellent measure by which to assess improvements in making the service more accessible for customers with disabilities.

Identify physical barriers which limit access to the service

Departments should identify the physical barriers which restrict access to premises. To do this you will need to consider, among other things:

• all the areas to which your customers should be entitled to have access;
• physical structures such as doorways, steps and stairs which may act as barriers to customers with mobility disabilities;
• structures designed to deliver services such as customer information counters or customer reception desks;
• signage which is confusing or inadequate;
• decor which may be obstructive for customers with disabilities affecting their vision;
• non-visual guides to assist customers use your space, including lifts which help customers with a vision impairment locate the correct floor through the inclusion of buttons with tactile cues or the announcing of floor levels; and
• ways of assisting customers move around the space at times of emergency and evacuation, including such things as visual fire alarms.

Identify communication barriers

Departments need to consider such issues as:

• the way in which people with disabilities are reflected in information produced by the department, and whether this representation may be offensive;
• availability of department information in alternative formats including large print, braille, computer disk and audiotape;
• availability of information in language appropriate for people with learning difficulties or intellectual disabilities;
• captioning on videos;
• use of Telephone Typewriters (TTYs) and audio loops;
• appropriate use of sign language; and
• making information available through computer technology so that customers with disabilities affecting their capacity to communicate verbally can obtain services without the need for personal communication.

Identify attitudinal barriers

Departments also need to think about how employee attitudes towards people with disabilities may impact on service delivery.

Where employees lack understanding of Action Plan goals and strategies, or have discriminatory beliefs themselves, people with disabilities may encounter attitudinal barriers which will discourage them from using the department's services.

Departments cannot control the attitudes of employees (nor should such control be possible). But Departments will want to look at the ways in which these attitudes are reflected in service provision.

Discriminatory attitudes are often based on ignorance or misunderstanding. Departments should consider the information and education needs of employees in this area. The provision of information and education may be the most cost effective means of addressing the issue of discrimination in service provision. It is certainly less costly than monitoring employees to ensure that discriminatory beliefs do not flow onto behaviour in the workplace, although this may be necessary if provision of information and education does not succeed.

Consider confidentiality

Customers of your department, like all people, have privacy rights. They have the right to obtain services without being required to disclose unnecessary personal information. If this information is necessary and customers agree to provide it, they have the right to have it kept confidential. In particular, customers may wish to have information about their disabilities regarded as confidential. People who have (or are thought to have) a disability are subjected to all sorts of discrimination. If potential customers do not feel their personal information will be kept confidential by a department, they will not try to access the department's services.

Departments will need to review their confidentiality procedures to ensure that personal information is safeguarded against unauthorised disclosure and misuse.

Departments may also have privacy and confidentiality responsibilities under State or federal legislation.

Involve people with disabilities in the review

Departments preparing Action Plans cannot afford to disregard the personal experiences of people with disabilities in identifying discriminatory practices and in dealing with barriers which limit access to services. In reviewing current practices, departments should consider ways of accessing the expertise of people with disabilities and their representative organisations.

Consider funded programs

Departments will need to consider the many and varied organisations they fund which provide services to the community.

Departments will want to ensure that funds are not being used to operate discriminatory services, and will further wish to avoid being named as co-respondent in any DDA complaints brought against funded services.

Departments should:

• ensure funded organisations understand their responsibilities under the DDA;
• support initiatives undertaken by funded organisations to eliminate disability discrimination; and
• share their own Action Plan expertise with funded organisations.

Devise policies and programs

Devise strategies to eliminate barriers to your department
Use available expertise
Resource the action plan
Guarantee the future of your action plan
Promote your action plan

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to the devising of policies and programs to achieve the objects of this Act: DDA s.61(a)

Devise strategies to eliminate barriers to your department

Having completed a review of your current activities, your department will be aware of ways it prevents potential customers with disabilities from using your services.

This information, along with knowledge of your specific department and the needs of your customers, will enable you to develop strategies to make your services more attainable by customers with disabilities.

For example, if your department's objective is to encourage more people who have a hearing loss or who are deaf to use your department's services, strategies might include installing TTYs and hearing loops, advertising their availability and providing employees with TTY training.

Use available expertise

Most people with disabilities have had personal experiences of being confronted with departmental practices which discourage them from using services. This experience will be of invaluable assistance to departments in the development, implementation and evaluation of an Action Plan. Departments should think about using the expertise of people with disabilities and their representative organisations when:

• conducting reviews of departmental practice;
• establishing advisory panels to assist the department with disability issues;
• engaging consultancy teams to assist the department; and
• developing or conducting evaluations of Action Plan initiatives.

For example, where a department decides to set up a working party to consider access issues, it should ensure that people with disabilities are represented on the party. Programs to encourage employee attitudinal changes should be developed by teams which include people with disabilities.

If the department has undertaken a review of employment practices as a prelude to developing an Action Plan, it will have identified employees who will be able to assist with implementing the Action Plan. Employees who have experience with disability issues or an understanding of discrimination will be an enormous asset in applying the Action Plan.

Resource the action plan

Action Plans do not necessarily require the application of huge amounts of resources. Mostly, Action Plans require reallocation of existing resources and are about changing work practices and attitudes, rather than spending money.

Action Plans are about being pre-emptive - using smart planning to avoid problems in the first place. This approach may have no cost implications but can save a department a lot of money. For example, the costs of building non-accessible and accessible department offices will be similar. However, if non-accessible offices are built, a successful complaint to HREOC may result in the department having to undertake very expensive remodelling - just to make changes which could have been incorporated at no cost in the planning phase.

Action Plans need not be costly, but they will need to be appropriately resourced.

The costs of implementing an Action Plan need to be recognised as an important ongoing expenditure and incorporated into current and future budgets.

Job contracts and descriptions should reflect the community's expectation that public sector employees work towards the implementation of the Action Plan. In an environment where employees will already be very busy, it may be useful to outline and endorse their efforts to implement an Action Plan in relevant job descriptions.

It may be beneficial to work with relevant employee representatives, including trade unions, in modifying job descriptions.

Guarantee the future of your action plan

Issue a policy statement

As with all other policy initiatives, departments should issue an Action Plan policy statement to demonstrate commitment to the elimination of disability discrimination and the implementation of Action Plan strategies. Such action will:

• demonstrate commitment to the Plan's objectives;
• legitimise the allocation of resources to the implementation of the Action Plan;
• ensure that commitment to the Plan continues beyond the employment of key people; and
• inspire confidence on the part of the public that the commitment is real rather than transitory.

Mainstream the action plan

In the short term, it might be that an Action Plan will be a separate component of your department's approach to service delivery. However, over time the Action Plan will become part of your general approach to service planning.

The Action Plan will become less an independent strategy and more a thread running through all department plans.

Develop an informed planning process

To ensure that planning is done effectively, it is important that those involved in the planning process are informed about the function of an Action Plan.

Over time, individuals responsible for this planning will be replaced. Action Plans will need to include strategies for ensuring that future planners are made aware of Action Plan goals.

Promote your action plan

If your department is to reap the full benefits of having an Action Plan it will need to market the Plan effectively to current and potential customers. It will also have to involve people by offering them the opportunity to make suggestions about ways to improve the Action Plan.

Ensure information is publicly available

Progress towards Action Plan goals is information any department will want to make available to the community.

Access to the Action Plan and its implementation process will also encourage a sense of ownership of the Plan among employees and customers. This sense of ownership, of having a stake in the success of the Plan, will encourage employees and customers to make contributions to the Plan's implementation and improvement.

A copy of your Action Plan may be given to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The Plan may then be made available by the Commission to other departments as an example of an Action Plan. Giving an Action Plan to the Commission acts as a clear statement of your department's commitment to non-discriminatory practices. By reporting on progress towards Action Plan goals, for example through annual reports, evaluation reports and audits, your department can confirm and renew this commitment.

Giving your Action Plan to the Commission also ensures that in any hearing of a complaint against the department, the Action Plan will be considered in the determination of unjustifiable hardship.

Establish grievance procedures

An effective grievance procedure encourages confidence in the Action Plan and facilitates feedback on ways the Plan may be improved.

It will help maintain goodwill between your department, your customers and the general community. It may also be an effective way of preventing DDA complaints, through resolution of disputes at an early stage.

Grievance procedures need to be publicised and should be quick, efficient and capable of delivering results.

Goals and targets

Start with goals and targets
Set time frames

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to the setting of goals and targets, where these may reasonably be determined against which the success of the plan in achieving the objects of the Act may be assessed; DDA s.61(d)

Start with goals and targets

Without goals and targets, Action Plans will be much more about `plans' than `action'.

It will also be difficult for your department to either assess improvements in making services available to potential customers with disabilities, or to identify ways your Action Plan might be further improved.

Goals and targets should be specific enough to enable them to be measured. For example:

• all customer information produced by the department to be made available in alternative formats; or
• all employees to undertake 10 hours training per year in the area of disability discrimination.

Set time frames

Strategies designed to achieve goals and targets must also include time frames.

Whereas a strategy may be a path towards desired reform, time frames are required to set the pace of reform.

The inclusion of time frames will have a number of benefits. The community will develop confidence in the Plan as a positive force capable of producing results rather than as a vague wish list. At the same time, your department's expectations of its Action Plan will remain realistic and achievable.

Without time frames, strategies are generally incapable of evaluation and your department will have no way of determining if the Action Plan initiatives are producing value for money.

Using the examples above, the strategies are greatly improved by incorporating time frames:

All customer information to be made available in alternative formats by December 1995; and all permanent employees to be undertaking ten hours disability discrimination training per year by 1995, all other employees to be undertaking ten hours disability discrimination training per year by 1997.

Devise evaluation strategies for your action plan

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to the means, other than [goals and targets] of evaluating the policies and programs [included in the plan]; DDA s.61(e)

To determine whether or not the Action Plan is producing results which justify the resources invested, departments will want to develop evaluation strategies.

The success of an effective Action Plan may be illustrated by any number of changes, such as increases in the numbers of customers with disabilities, measurable changes in the attitudes of employees or improvements in the accessibility of departmental premises. Such improvements should be proudly trumpeted by your department and could be a standard component of any annual report, internal or external evaluation or audit.

Through an annual review of the Plan, your department will be able to improve its approach to achieving Action Plan goals.

It is also important to review your Plan in light of any evaluations conducted.

Allocate responsibility

Decide who will be responsible for implementing the plan
Promote responsibility

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to the appointment of persons within the service provider to implement the provisions [of the action plan]; DDA s.61(f)

Decide who will be responsible for implementing the plan

As with any initiative, smooth implementation of the Action Plan will require that clear lines of responsibility be established. Implementation will also need to be authorised by senior personnel.

Information from customers and potential customers will assist in the improvement of the Plan.

To facilitate this feedback, contact details for the person or group responsible for the Action Plan should be made readily available.

Promote responsibility

Implementation of the Plan will involve all your employees. It will require the support of senior personnel within the department.

It may be a good idea to talk to relevant unions about how job descriptions might be modified to reflect the efforts of employees in implementing the Action Plan. In particular, it may be a good idea to amend all management position descriptions to specify that managers are required to implement the Action Plan. All other job descriptions could require employees to implement their Action Plan responsibilities.

Communication

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to the communication of [action plan] policies and programs to persons within the service provider; DDA s.61(b)

A team effort will be required for the Action Plan to succeed. In order that all employees appreciate the value of an Action Plan and understand what they are required to do to ensure successful implementation, your department must work out ways to communicate the Plan's aims and implementation strategies to employees.

Successful implementation of the Plan may be assisted through the provision of employee training. This training should address attitudinal issues together with practical instruction.

The department will need to think about ways to encourage employees to undertake training, and strategies for the training of future employees.

3. Summary

  The Action Plan process is similar to any other strategy employed by your department to improve service delivery. It will fit comfortably with your objective of ensuring the continued success of your department. The components are:

• review your current activities;
• devise policies and programs;
• set goals and targets;
• devise evaluation strategies for your Action Plan;
• allocate responsibility; and
• consider communication strategies.

4. Glossary

Alternative formats: Information presented in formats other than the standard printed form. Alternative formats include presenting information on audiotape or on computer disk (in various formats), in large print or in braille.

Auslan/sign language:Official non-verbal (signed) language of the Deaf community of Australia. Closed Captions: written messages which appear on a television or movie screen and which represent the program's auditory messages (primarily dialogue) in written form. Closed captions are revealed through special components of electronic technology (televisions, videos) which are optional with most commercial brands.

Commissioner: A Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Commissioners are responsible for the promotion and implementation of human rights legislation. Some Commissioners are responsible for promoting the objects of a particular Act eg. the Disability Discrimination Commissioner is concerned primarily with the administration and promotion of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). A Hearing Commissioner is responsible for determining complaints after a formal hearing (having heard evidence from both complainant and respondent and relevant witnesses).

Complainant: Person or organisation who lodges a complaint of unlawful discrimination with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

Conciliation: Process following lodging of a complaint of unlawful discrimination whereby staff of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission bring complainant and respondent together to see if the complaint can be settled without the need for formal hearing. The usual requirement that conciliation be attempted may be dispensed with in certain circumstances.

Disability: A condition or state of being which is covered by the broad DDA definition. The term includes physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual and neurological disabilities, physical disfigurement and the presence in the body of organisms causing or capable of causing disease, such as HIV - the virus which causes AIDS.

Hearing Loop/Audio Loop: Magnetic field which helps prevent external sounds from interfering with intended auditory messages within a given space. Loops are set up in particular rooms or auditoriums to facilitate hearing by people who use a hearing aid.

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (`the Commission'): A Commonwealth statutory authority responsible for administering a number of pieces of Commonwealth legislation relating to human rights and anti- discrimination. The Commission also acts as a decision making tribunal when matters cannot be conciliated. It makes these decisions after holding formal inquiries.

Peak Disability Organisations: Organisations representing groups of disability organisations. Peak organisations often liaise with government in relation to disability issues.

Respondent: Person, organisation or department alleged in a complaint as having unlawfully discriminated against a person.

Service provider: Any person, organisation, government department or agency which provides goods, services or facilities to the public, for free or at a cost.

Telephone Typewriter or TTY: Device attached to a telephone line which allows callers to communicate by typing messages which are instantaneously seen by the person at the other end of the line.

Unjustifiable hardship: Basis upon which a respondent can defend a complaint of disability discrimination. The respondent might successfully argue that not to discriminate would impose upon him/her/it an unjustifiable hardship. In determining unjustifiable hardship, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission considers all the circumstances of the particular case, including the benefits and detriment to relevant persons, the effect of the relevant disability, financial circumstances and any Action Plan given to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission by the service provider.

5. Appendix 1: Checklist

1.How does your department collect information about actual and potential customers?

2.What physical barriers need altering to encourage people with a disability to become customers?

3.How can you change communication practices to ensure that all people may have access to your information and provide information to you?

4.Are employees allowing their own discriminatory practices to impact on the provision of services? How might this problem be addressed to ensure you provide a quality service?

5.Will the review of your practices use the expertise of people with disabilities in identifying barriers to access and developing your Action Plan?

6.Have you determined ways to evaluate your progress towards Action Plan goals?

7.Are your goals and targets achievable?

8.Have you set time frames to ensure your goals and targets are effective?

9.Has your department ensured the production of the best possible Action Plan through effective consultation with people with disabilities?

10.Has the department allocated sufficient resources, priority and authority to ensure the successful implementation of your Action Plan?

11.How are you going to inform and educate employees about their role in implementing your Action Plan?

12.Have you devised strategies for publicising your commitment to your Action Plan so that your department reaps all possible benefits?

13.Does your department have a procedure that addresses complaints?

14.Has your department incorporated long term planning and evaluation strategies into your Action Plan?

6. Appendix 2: Legislative requirements for action plans

It is not a requirement of the DDA that service providers prepare and implement Action Plans. However, if a department decides to prepare an Action Plan, the DDA specifies that the Plan must include certain things.

Disability Discrimination Act 1992

Provisions of action plans

SECTION 61

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to:

a.the devising of policies and programs to achieve the objects of this Act; and

b.the communication of these policies and programs to persons within the service provider; and

c.the review of practices within the service provider with a view to the identification of any discriminatory practices; and

d.the setting of goals and targets, where these may reasonably be determined against which the success of the plan in achieving the objects of the Act may be assessed; and

e.the means, other than those referred to in paragraph (d), of evaluating the policies and programs referred to in paragraph (a); and

f.the appointment of persons within the service provider to implement the provisions referred to in paragraphs (a) to (e) (inclusive).

Action plans may have other provisions

SECTION 62

The action plan of a service provider may include provisions, other than those referred to in section 61, that are not inconsistent with the objects of this Act.

7. Appendix 3: Relevant sections of the DDA

SECTION 4

'disability', in relation to a person, means:

a.total or partial loss of the person's bodily or mental functions; or

b.total or partial loss of a part of the body; or

c.the presence in the body of organisms causing disease or illness; or

d.the presence in the body of organisms capable of causing disease or illness; or

e.the malfunction, malformation or disfigurement of a part of the person's body; or

f.a disorder or malfunction that results in the person learning differently from a person without the disorder or malfunction; or

g.a disorder, illness or disease that affects a person's thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgment or that results in disturbed behaviour; and includes a disability that:

h.presently exists; or

i.previously existed but no longer exists; or

j.may exist in the future; or

k.is imputed to a person;

Part 3 - action plans

Interpretation

SECTION 59

In this Part:

'service provider' means a Department, a department of a State, a public authority of the Commonwealth, an instrumentality of a State, an educational institution or a person who:

a.provides goods or services; or

b.makes facilities available; whether for payment or not.

Action plans

SECTION 60

A service provider may prepare and implement an action plan.

Provision of action plans

SECTION 61

The action plan of a service provider must include provisions relating to:

a.the devising of policies and programs to achieve the objects of this Act; and

b.the communication of these policies and programs to persons within the service provider; and

c.the review of practices within the service provider with a view to the identification of any discriminatory practices; and

d.the setting of goals and targets, where these may reasonably be determined against which the success of the plan in achieving the objects of the Act may be assessed; and

e.the means, other than those referred to in paragraph (d), of evaluating the policies and programs referred to in paragraph (a); and

f.the appointment of persons within the service provider to implement the provisions referred to in paragraphs (a) to (e) (inclusive).

Action plans may have other provisions

SECTION 62

The action plan of a service provider may include provisions, other than those referred to in section 61, that are not inconsistent with the objects of this Act.

Amendment of action plans

SECTION 63

A service provider may, at any time, amend its action plan.

Copy of action plan to be given to Commission

SECTION 64

A service provider may give:

a.a copy of its action plan; or

b.any amendments to the plan; to the Commission.

Commission to sell action plans to public

SECTION 65

The Commission is to sell copies of action plans or amendments to action plans given to it under section 64 to the public for a prescribed fee.

8. Appendix 4: HREOC DDA resources

See the main HREOC Action plans page