Accessiblity Audits

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 aims to end the discrimination that many disabled people face. This Act has been significantly extended, including by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005.

It now gives disabled people rights in the areas of:

• employment
• education
• access to goods, facilities and services, including larger private clubs and land-based transport services
• buying or renting land or property, including making it easier for disabled people to rent property and for tenants to make disability-related adaptations
• functions of public bodies, for example issuing of licences

The Act requires public bodies to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people.

CIPFA Property has a data collection process and associated database which will enable building and property managers ready access to information. The CIPFA Property Access Audit system is designed to provide information on access and facilities for compliance with The Building Regulations Part M (England & Wales) Technical Standards (Scotland) and Part R (Northern Ireland).

This checklist has been designed for use on the PDA hand held data collection system. The format allows Access Auditors to follow the recommended approach to Auditing using a logical sequence to progress through the access and use of the building recording deficiencies and noting location, priority, category of work required and cost together with any comments. This data is then readily transferred into a purpose designed database which can be interrogated to produce a wide variety of reports. This can be accompanied by both CAD layouts and digital photographs linked within the software.