Disability Access Audits
– Affordable Disability Consultancy Services & Training
– Non Profit Organisation
What Is An Access Audit?
An Access Audit is also known as a Equality Act Audit or Disabled Access Audit (DDA audit). The Audit involves conducting a comprehensive inspection and assessment of:
- Building
- An external environment
An Access Audit report can then be made on the accessibility of a particular building, environment or organisation against best-practice standards to benchmark its accessibility for disabled people. An Access Audit is ideal for a business seeking to make positive changes to improve its disability access rating on its facilities.
It may be that you will only need to make a small number of relatively inexpensive changes to help improve your accessibility, but without first conducting a thorough Access Audit you may be at a loss to understand what changes are needed.
After completing your Access Audit, it is possible for us to supply you with an improvement plan to point you in the right direction for reasonable steps you can take to make your building, environment or organisation more accessible in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.
Arrange Accessibility Audit
We offer access audits and a disability access consultancy for venue owners and public building managers.
What Is Disability Discrimination?
Do I need an Access Audit?
In most cases, yes, it would be wise to have an Access Audit, especially if you are unsure about the level of accessibility in your building and you want to make sure that your premises meet with current Equality Act regulations.
What is interesting to note is that while there is no official Local Authority or Government Officer tasked with enforcing the law or making sure that an organisation is meeting their compliance with disabled access regulations, the responsibility for meeting these requirements is left to the venue or business owner.
However, it would be a bad mistake to ignore your obligations under the law because your organisation would be left open to anyone bringing a civil action case against you should they feel aggrieved with your accessibility provision.
What are Access Audits used for?
Access Audits are a very useful tool for assessing the current level of accessibility and ease of entry, navigation, usability and ease of exit of premises by people with different impairments and levels of disability.
These Audits help employers and service providers by highlighting non-compliance issues and to understand how to adapt a building to meet the access needs of disabled people, and so to fulfil their duties and obligations under the Equality Act legislation.
You will get a deeper understanding of your needs by establishing how well a premises performs in terms of accessibility and ease of functionality by users that include people with a disability, including those with mobility and sensory impairments.
The Access Audit report will provide valuable insight into a building and highlight accessibility barriers and create targets for improvements for their owners
What Is Covered?
What is covered by your Access Audit will very much depend on what business sector you work in and how the Equality Act 2010 applies to you. It is better to discuss this with us before we come out to do an Access Audit so you fully understand your requirements for compliance under the law.
In most cases, a standard Access Audit will generally cover all the elements of your premises and environment from a viewpoint of a disabled user.
A standard audit would specifically look at elements such as:
- Approach and car parking access
- External level changes
- Building entrances/exits
- Communication
- Corridors
- Horizontal movement
- Vertical movement
- Emergency escape routes for disabled people
- Fixtures and fittings
- Internal doors
- Lifts and staircases
- Receptions are access
- Signage and way-finding
- Toilets and sanitary provision
Of course, there may be many other site-specific elements to check, especially where your building may be unique in some way in either structure, design and layout or positioning.
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Putting Access
At The Heart of Your Business
Access Audit Reports
The Access Rating team use our expert knowledge of current disabled access regulations and our personal experience to help make getting around much easier. As part of our services, we offer access audits and a disability access consultancy for venue owners and public building managers.
With our assistance, venues can become more accessible and welcoming for disabled users by identifying and rectifying access issues, making everyone’s lives much easier. Venue owners and managers can ensure that their building is in compliance with current disabled access regulations and best practice standards, or at least be sure that they are meeting minimum disabled access requirements.
The Access Rating team offer a very flexible approach towards your individual Access Audit. We understand that no two businesses or organisations will operate in the same way. This means that we can look at different elements of your service with a critical eye to help you meet with your obligations under Section 3 of the Equality Act that covers aspects of your service other than simply building accessibility.
Feel free to talk to us about your organisation and how you operate to discuss where we can be of help to you with our Access Audit services and reporting.
