Dr. Meredith Raley:

As the Deputy said, the current scheme does not address all the issues around reasonable accommodation. It expands on them but does not address all of them. There are issues with things like someone not being aware of the accommodations that might be available to them. We have suggested that other legislation on equality such as the Disability Act will need to be amended. In education in particular, large sections of the EPSEN Act, which was passed in 2004, remain uncommenced over 20 years later. This obviously needs a review to see which of the uncommenced sections could be useful and whether the uncommenced sections themselves need to be revised before they are commenced because they are very old. Strengthening those laws would help children and people with disabilities to better access and exercise their rights. Bureaucracy is complicated and can be difficult for people to navigate. We have a national advocacy service, which was meant to be a statutory body. It is part of the Citizens Information Act 2007 but that section was also never commenced so the advocacy service is not on a statutory basis. If it was, it might be able to command more resources, have lower wait times and provide more support for people with disabilities. That could also be very useful to help people navigate the bureaucracy around receiving accommodations.