Leaders of public bodies are being urged to respond to a consultation launched today on proposed legislation that could force the public sector to change the way it works. Changes to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), being introduced by the Government next year, will mean public sector bodies will have a duty to promote disability equality in all aspects of their work in much the same way as the Race Relations Amendment Act required. The entire public sector will have a duty to promote the equalization of opportunities for disabled people.

The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) is calling for responses from heads of public sector bodies which will be affected by changes to the DDA. It has drawn up a draft code of practice to support the amended legislation. The consultation lasts for three months.

Bert Massie, chairman of the DRC, said: “Our code of practice will help people understand major changes to duties on the public sector. It is hard to overstate just how big a deal the new duty will be for disabled people."

And also DRC Chairman Bert Massie added that changes to automatic increases to IB being linked to take up of employment and training opportunities, must coincide with the nationwide role out of the Government's successful Pathways to Work scheme.

Disabled people on Incapacity Benefit are living in poverty. The DRC welcomes the Government's announcement today that those who are able to, and want to, will be supported into work. The changes introduced today will mean that disabled people will be able to make a positive contribution.

But for these measures to work, high quality support will be needed from assessment of those deemed able to work, right through to finding and maintaining opportunities to work.

It is important that people on Incapacity Benefit who cannot do paid work are not penalized financially or made to feel guilty. I hope also that the incendiary debate over last few months - which has done nothing to encourage disabled people into work and everything to make the most vulnerable members of our society extremely worried about possessing pretty paltry sums can now end and that we can now have a grown up conversation about the measures needed to help those that can, get back into work.

Pointing to the responsibility of employers to ensure disabled people are not excluded from work opportunities. Let's not forget that as long as employers continue to show disabled people the door rather than work to keep them in a job, we will still have an uphill battle to ensure that disabled people are genuinely able to participate fully in society. Over one third of calls to the DRC were about employers refusing to make adjustments that could keep disabled people in work. There must be more efforts to give employers advice and guidance on how this can be done.