Access To Justice For Deaf Communities - 29 February 2024

so welcome everybody uh to Garden Court Chambers uh I'd like to start off by introducing our speakers from Garden Court Chambers we have Nicola banza KC we have olle Percy uh who is a barrassed here at Garden Court we also have Abigail Wright from the national de children society and we have David Buxton who's the chief executive of action on disability uh thank you to all of our panelists I'll give you a bit of information about them just before they speak just to say from the outset the event

is being live streamed and it's being recorded the recording will be uploaded onto Garden Court's YouTube channel and the link and the slides will be sent to all of the attendees this evening uh I also have to read you our fire safety announcement so and just to say after we have the panel event and the Q&A we'll be having food and drinks in the hub downstairs so we hope you can join us for that a really good networking opportunity so this event is being uh brought to you by Garden Corp our comm

unity care and discrimination law team the point of this seminar is to bring together specialist Public Law and discrimination practitioners to explore the barriers that de communities face in accessing Justice and enforcing their rights specific topics that we'll cover tonight will include identifying breaches of legal duties enforcement of legal duties including the equality act 2010 and the accessible information standard in the National Health Service sphere the practicalities of bringing a

legal challenge including the funding and costs relating to doing so and using the law to inform advocacy and campaigning so so our first Speaker this evening is David buckton who is as I said the chief executive of actional disability David who's been deaf since birth is based with action on disability in Hammer Smith and Fulham he spent 25 years in charity management and local government senior commissioning sectors and was previously the chief executive of the British de Association and is cu

rrently a board member of the European Union of the de he was Britain's first first ever DEA BSL elected B counselor in 1990 and he was then again later elected as B counselor and has stood for Parliament three times he's the co-founder of the liberal Democrats Disability Association which was set up in 1992 after being two years as the disability adviser to the late right honorable pad Ashdown MP leader of the liberal Democrats he's now the chair of the Epsom and UL liberal Democrats and and is

the first ever deaf bssl using person to lead the local political Association uh welcome Davis gonna carry on okay well thank you very much for inviting me here this evening I think in my recollection this is the first time that DEA people have been within a Bar's Chambers for an event in relation to the law so thank you very much for making this event happen I don't think I think this is a historic first and of course thank you very much to uh Matthew Banks we've lost a good interpreter he's n

ow changed profession and become a bar so I'm looking forward to uh staying in touch with him and seeing how his new career progresses I'm sure he'll be filled with challenges but nevertheless I look forward to seeing how it progresses and thank you very much for inviting me this evening the reason I was invited was to talk about being a de claimant against the government in court uh I'm not not talking about the law I'm not here to give legal advice I'll leave that to the barrs I think they'll

be much they're much better placed to answer your questions I'm not a a lawyer in that regard but I do want to talk about my experience within the legal system my experience of the legal system in the last 15 years and there are three issues that I want to talk about first about the access to work cap that uh was a policy that was enacted in 2015 so I want to expand on that secondly about access to the uh elected office fund if you want to be a a parliamentarian or a counselor and how you get ac

cess to work funds for that then also becoming a de juror so those are the three issues that I want to talk about this evening so the reason why I decided to call a engage in a j judicial review was because that for many years in term in in relation to access to work def people not had any cap on their funding and funds had vary depending on the death person their position and then suddenly the government introduced a new policy capping how much uh de people could could be given and that was cap

ped at £43,000 that really affected my role as a CEO that affected me and that everyday work that I try to engage in meet with upon meetings for networking for making phone calls for having conversations 43,000 was about half of the budget that I had previously received and so you know for interpreters they need to have co-workers so you can't just one interpreter often for many events and so it was a shock to me that the budget would be halved in that way so that cut significantly affected me a

nd my ability to perform my work so that's what instigated the action the government's perspective was that the employer should be able to make up the difference as part of the reasonable adjustment framework but my organization uh was Bey at the time and even that action on disability now they are non not for-profit organizations and they're not in a position to be able to make build a shortfall so clearly that puts be given notice for not performing my job well so that's why I want wanted to t

ake the matter to judicial review I'm very grateful for the HRC for funding that action funding the bars and the solicitors to enable that to um to happen I can't tell you how much but I can say it's a six bigger number so not an insignificant amount of money I started working with Louise Whitfield [Music] who worked at dton peerce and Glen and she was very experience in relation to Human Rights and equality and she now works with uh Liberty so they're a well-known human rights organization so I

she then brought in the Barrister who was Sarah hanet AC from Matrix Chambers so not Chambers we are in today but one of the top 10 nationally and Asis Garden Court [Laughter] CH so the process really from starting the starting the process to the end of that process took 18 months we went to the Royal court of justice not far just down the road from here it's pretty much but I want to talk about my experience really going through those 18 months it was really challenging and I'd like to say tha

nk you was here today for the support that she gave me through that process I mean for me I felt this was a really hearing thing that somebody grew up as a de person part of the de Community it's a little bit alien to our our experience it was very draining going back and forth talking to solicitors and then talking to the barers and then having to answer questions and then having more and more meetings you would think that it might be kind of a seamless process but often the government would ch

allenge them they'd receive papers and they'd say no no no David can read English for example David can talk okay so the capat doesn't disadvantage him in any kind of way he can cope and obviously you're having to them respond to that or get your legal team to respond to that and that can be very overwhelming the irony of course is the people involved in this process were people from access to work who knew me and PR previously given me this budget I talken to them many times they knew what my m

y how I worked they knew that I was a sign language user they knew that I worked with two interpreters but the process was really kind of adversarial so it's very similar with any kind of employment tribunal or educational tribunal you know it feels like it's just a constant barrage of ways to try and ensure that they win their case of course I mean I can read of course I'm not denying that I can write fairly well I'm I'm literate but they knew my situation they knew that I didn't need English s

upport as part of my job but I needed interpreters so that I engage in all the face tof face activity that I engaged in as part of my job so I'd have a 10-minute uh meeting somewhere or meeting somewhere else and so obviously I needed to book interpreters for all day every day that's just how it works that's what the arrangement was and an arrangement that they previously agreed was help my support needed to happen so there was often uh focus on the policy the the sorry the challenge wasn't abou

t the policy it was personal that were challenging me that's also something which was very challenging in and of itself I've never really experienced that kind of level of legal action and so when you think of us for as de people it you don't realize it's feels very very personal you have to develop a very thick skin be quite resilient and that kind of went on for 18 months I had great conversations with Louise and Sarah my solicitor embarrass great team and I know there are solicitors with us t

oday this evening but it was very good discussions but I mean for me I thought maybe it was about individual rights cell user we know that there have been um the equality act in 2010 and they were always say no no no that's not the legal situation the policy cap is lawful so the question is how we challenge that we ask we ask whether the policy is fair or not so it wasn't about me it's about whether the policy was fair or not and the the policy itself was discriminatory I think so so in lots of

ways that was the crazy thing was all about reasonable adjustment which is again not how I thought it would go I mean I can talk to some of you if you want to know that in Greater depth later but it was just kind of a process which was very different from what I imagined it would be it was a real eyeon opener as an individual engaging in this process I thought I'd have to stand up in court and argue my case as it were but that's not what happens in a judicial review you sit and watch you watch t

he barrs my barristers arguing my case and the government barrs arguing their case I thought I'd have my chance in the witness box to say whatever that that was not the case at all it was really watching those arguments play out and you see these big there was six big bundles of papers with all of the the evidence that we were bringing to bear and that's how the bars prepare for the situation different uh issues to do with the law things which I really had no comprehension of it was very high [M

usic] BR I spent two days in court observing the the proceedings two full days just let me uh go back a little bit the cap was 43,000 as I've said and obviously two weeks before the court was due the government sent me a letter saying they decided to move the cap up to 56,000 and then they were hoping that I would drop the judicial review so I talked to my B my cister with was like I was like they were like no no no this is different your I said you know my funding starts from May and goes till

March for 10 months but that's not uh one full year is more than that it would be 63,000 so I don't want to drop the case because it's still not you know I said you know it should be 63,000 you know and the government was saying oh it's 56,000 I was like look at the paperwork that's not what the number suggest and then two days after there was an announcement that the cap had gone up again everybody was delighted but really it was because of this action it wasn't because of the campaign it was b

ecause the government were having their feet held against the Cs and that's the principle I think we know that historically de people have claimed for discrimination against different institutions and they've all been settled outside of court with money there was no case law to establish how to do these things which meant that you know in discussion with my barristers they were like you know if you're looking at the case law you can't turn around and say well these were the arguments this is one

you know they wouldn't able wouldn't have been able to bring up my case to actually argue for further cases which meant that def sign language users would have no case law there's historically been nothing so mine was the first time that a case was established that's why you know if you stand on your principles and you stand firm then you have to accept that money is not the issue what you're wanting to do is establish case law go through the whole process so that then you have something which

can be referred to later it established that legal precedent and the case law for de people is since 1950 there's maybe been three or four issues which could be used in case law but if we think about race discrimination or sex discrimination there's a huge body of work that can be referred [Music] to so from that experience and you know challenging the government you know I remember the judge in court it looked like it was reasonable that the government would win if there was no Gap at all then

I would win because it's not reasonable they were talking about the gap between the cat and what had previously been awarded that was what they were um but they allowed me to then um bring a case about disability discrimination and then I had to go to the court of appeal I was skined by then remember I me I mentioned six figures minutes but that's why that experience of of pursuing that Journey was significant for me and then just to briefly mention the other two things in terms of access to the

elections funds this was agreed in 2011 and that means that if you wanted to stand for Parliament there are funds which means you can you can have your access accessibility needs met but that was dropped in 2015 after to the election there was no explanation as to why and again I challenged that and brought action the government um said that they would bring it back uh bring bring an enabling Fund in 2018 17 2018 but it only lasted one year before the general election in 2019 but we need to do

something about that because that that was a temporary measure that means I wouldn't be able to stand in Parliament for a full time without having significant funds outside of public funds so that's significant discrimination I think and then the third and the last one is about a de juror many of you know the history back from Jeff MCN when he brought legal action and then they said they would look into the policy and then that was kicked into the long grass so what I'm trying to say is I mean I

got a letter calling me to go to jury service when I arrived they said oh no no no just me I was everybody else was uh dismissed and I said I can tell v a jury and I I put my arguments in terms of reasonable adjustment the equality act et ET wouldn't be a problem and then I was asked to delay that for six months when I came back in six months they said you know you can't there's only 12 people who can be in the jury room so that then meant that I could bring an action an action could be brought

then 2020 21 I had discussions with the governments and that's when we had the new law but there's no case to say that I was wrong but the equality Act was superseded the jury act in 1975 so that's why in 2020 we then had the new law which was really great and so the final thing I'll say the 28th of April 2022 I was there in the House of Lords none of the de people knew about the de jurors um act coming into law we knew that the rich sign language Act was passed in the same year as well but the

police Criminal Courts and act actually mentions the fact that de people are able to sit in jur as well so I got the double and my two days in the House of Lords thank you very much I'll end it there thank you very much David um very interesting to see his experiences with litigation and pre-litigation and some interesting issues for us to think about in terms of the accessibility of that process our next speaker is Abigail Wright who's here from the national de children Society Abigail was cal

led to the bar in the year 2000 and having practiced privately as a barrister in the areas of negligence and personal injury housing and property law uh having become a mother to a child with complex special needs abig girl developed a practice in uh scen special educational needs and disability discrimination law and Abigail has worked for the national death children's Society the ndcs since 2015 where she works as its legal consultant thank you Abigail welcome um yes I'm as um M said I'm the l

egal consultant of the national death J Society um and I support um the work of a wide group of teams um we' tried to support um children from not to 25 so children and young people and um poor work will be for individual families um working in um trying to support them through the um assessment process for Education Health and Care plans um which is easy said than done and gets more challenging seems every week at the moment um so we have broadly speaking um the work I do is spit into three dif

ferent categories we have the individual level of support um we also work to challenge local authorities um primarily when they are proposing con to specialist Services um such as teachers of death um we're seeing some suspicious policies um at the moment um so particular uh educational psychologist is is an area of particular concern and a real obstacle for um children getting what they need um and then we there's often proposed closures of specialist units and so forth so um we'll look to work

um challenging those issues and then also more broadly perhaps more rarely but also on a national level um we look to challenge uh Injustice and lack of access for de children young people there so um starting with the the sort of individual family basis um that work obviously it's got its own really important value in itself um supporting each family as an individual um but when we have such a vast number of cases those cases are also useful at um highlighting much wider issues of of impact an

d so sometimes quite an innocuous case can come our way um but actually at the end of it working through and supporting it um offering the best legal support that we can um sometimes see proon Partners we then managed to sort of have a much wider impact from what was originally quite the narrow issue um so said there's a large um number of our cases are the send appeals which um are not unique to uh the national de children Society in our work um but as I'm sure you would have heard national new

s at the moment the issue of resources is becoming so acute that the area we do to support families um in securing provision for their deaf children before they've managed to secure an ehcp which short for Education Health and Care plan and after they secured and they've got the document but they can't actually get in place what they're legally entitled to have that work seems to really be increasing to quite um a significant level um yeah across the uh with special needs resources are obviously

um really acute issue but arguably um the difficulties felt even more keenly um with children and young people because it's a relatively no instance disability so you can argue the legal rights and what a de child should rightfully have in the education provision but if there is such an acute shortage of specialist death provision for a decreasing number of teachers of the death they seem to be um the rate of retirement you they're not being replenished at the rate they need to be um so arly th

ose difficulties are felt even all the more keenly um by the families that that we support so um what what we do in s of the worst cases uh where we can we try to support those families uh with freeaction work we usually work with UMO sers on that case and what we're doing there is because they haven't got their right of appeal at that point um often really still in the early stages in aren't happening um we try the right cases um to work with families and with um Public Law solicitors to um dra

ft freeaction letters so that's the I'm not GNA Want To Tread on the toes of the um more ail speakers you're going to hear later but um it's just it's the first step in challenging um local Authority failings and if you can really put if you have the um ability to really plow a lot of resources in at that stage get those letters really watertight and really detailed um some sometimes not always sometimes that can be sort of the key that unlocks the local Authority focusing on that case and final

ly um providing the assessment the plan whatever stage it is in the process providing that for um the young people and as I said that seems to be an area of work which is just really is up um with regard to the local Authority challenges we have um legal challenges is really the last resort and so because in our organization there's a vast array of talent and roles and so we have local engagement um officers who try to as the name would suggest um engage in a amicable way with the local Authorit

y challenging them on on where policies that might not be working as they should do sort of trying to shine the spot light on the needs of the um de children young people in the area um but we find that the most effective work that can be done is when it's sort of when we work together it's all about sort of the planning and you minut you s detect that there might be a problem not say not going all for Force legal but at that point we try to sort of talk to each other the team think where the fa

ilings might be you we might get wind of something happen happen and we're concerned that a local authorities not carrying out a public consultation um properly or at all and so if we can get sort of everything in order at that point sometimes at that point seeking uh in the very early stages um probably or specialist advice from um pro bono solicitors um we sort of have a a plan of action and so even in that very in the early stages of correspondence with local authorities when we really are tr

ying to be positive and and work together it can be useful just to have an eye like worst case scenario just thinking a few steps ahead what do we need to have in place now what do we need to challenge now to try to avoid it getting to um even contemplating a judicial review later down the line um and as I said those um issues can be latent cuts um policies that we're concerned about um and so forth the third category on the uh more broadly on the naal level um it's I suppose we we did a sort of

uh quite a lot of work during covid because there was obviously the very sort of reactive steps which were taken with um masks which obviously had a really profound impact um in schools and Across The Bard other in other areas of children's life so um we did work with different National bodies there um some required more nudging than others um but yeah we explored there were places where um reasonable adjustments clearly had be made and really the impact and of the death children had be conside

red um so yeah that that was probably a spike in that work but that that's always something we've got on our map if we need to use it um and as I said earlier it's often like the individual cases the little ones which come along which then can have the wider impact so it um another area which is on the up is parents coming to us really frustrated about the lack of support that the children have outside of the school hours so it can be the wraparound care the after school clubs those things which

should really Deni to the children um either the school itself or um different sort of well-known National um clubs for children which you would think would be uh have deep enough Pockets to provide the interpret support that's required but um we've had some real challenges um with with those with successful results um but on a few occasions we've worked we've reached out to other the partners and worked as sort of alongside the quing human rights um commission Who provided um support So sort o

f a a jewel pronged attack on those issues has finally got the results that we wanted um so there sort of the three Three core areas where we where we look to work um I think my work in itself has a particular focus on looking at where we can be strategic and so where those cases wherever they might rise from do provide um strategic potential um Sometimes They Come As I said come across our path um just from one case um other times we are looking at our overall strategy in our areas of focus and

we're on the lookout we we we know the point we want to make but we need to have the right case to prove it so the first step is actually us needing to think about does the law exist and is it just the application of it which is poor and that's what we need to challenge or actually are we in a position where we really need to to work to try to change the in some respect and that won't just be from a legal aspect that'll be over the campaigning colleagues as well who will be um lobing for that a

s well um and so currently we're are uh focused at the moment is really looking at U the importance of the appropriate support for de children in the early years which um present many challenges because for the age of five the battle to get the education provision is even even greater um but that's what we're looking at so although with with any case it comes across our path we will review to see if it's if he can help um was currently on the lookout for the right case when I say the right case

it's ones we're looking um where the facts are particularly strong particularly shocking um and so that that's would be the first thing we look at because the danger from us as an organization is we we want to pick the right case because if you get a negative judgment that can actually be more harm than good in trying to make the point that you're you're trying to make um so we we look at that and then um one other aspect which which I know's going to cover so I just briefly mention is um we s o

f consider when there's a big strategic case how it's best to fund it so one option is through legal aid and in that case we then not only do we have to have the case of the Right facts depending on which point of law we're challenging and how widely legal aid is available um sometimes we have to find the the right family who we think will be eligible for legal aid to be able to and and to be able to we see that case um but there are other avenues um we often we've got a good sort of network of

proon Partners and um firms chambers that we'll work with on different cases when it's the right time but I suppose we are work as a children's charity as opposed to a law firm um we we're really conscious we s of look at the cases more holistically and in the round and so the the legal work that we do and the campaigning work we do are just elements of the support that we try to give the families um and the children themselves so we're really Keen to make sure that they have that that wider sup

port um because obviously legal challenges are aren't without significant stress and concern so we want to make sure that if we are offering that as an option to families that we can hold their hand through the process so and recognize the human daily impact on life which is which are already stressful um so yeah I think it's it's a case of you know we work to try the least sort of legal challenge we have to make the better because it's it's that's that's ultimately we just want the children and

to get that provision as soon as possible but as I said with the um climate there in at the moment it seems to be more and more of the necessary Last Resort but we have to turn to thank you uh thank you very much Abigail um it's really interesting to have seen it from a a de litigant and now to see what's going on in the charitable sector across people that we support um plenty of challenges uh our next speaker is Nicola banza KC who is a barer here at Gordon uh Garden Court Chambers and nicar

is recognized as a leading barister specializing in equality and discrimination Law Public Law and human rights her broad practice spans areas of employment education Community Care immigration and Asylum law Nicola also sits as a fee paid judge in the first tier tribunal the special educational needs and disability and in the employment tribunal thank thank you Nicola right hello everyone thank you very much for coming this evening and thank you David and Abigail it's really interesting to hear

about what you were both speaking uh about I'm going to tell you a bit about the equality act and also share with you some of my top tips that I have found from running discrimination claims um so the first half will be about the broad Concepts under the equality Act and the types of discrimination claims that you can bring and then the second part more practically what to have in mind so how do you frame a discrimination claim so broadly I've set out here your headline starting point so what i

s the protected characteristic what is the protected characteristic so in these cases it would be disability what is the treatment your client is complaining of that's obviously crucial is it a particular instance is it a policy is it a failure to do something so you need to identify what it is you're complaining about what is the relationship between your client and the person who you are concerned about has discriminated so what's the cont in which it arises because that decides what type of c

laim and In which court or tribunal you're going to bring that claim so again Linked In with that the next Point who is liable will this be a private law claim so for example would it be a discrimination claim in the employment tribunal will it be challenging policy and a discrimination claim in the high court as a judicial review what type of claim will it be will it be a services claim in the county court under Section 29 which of the equality act which is in respect of services will it be to

question whether there has been proper analysis about the impact on groups with particular protected characteristics in other words has the Public Authority complied with what we call the public sector equality Duty and I'll come to that a bit more in a moment and that under the equality Act is the section 149 Duty so has it had Regard in formulating a policy in making a decision has there been an equality impact assessment for example has someone addressed their mind to how this might play out

and whether there are particular groups who will be disadvantaged by the particular decision or policy also really important because the time limits are very short be aware of your time limits so if you're challenging a policy uh by a judicial review claim so the claim that David was speaking about there is provision to consider a claim that is brought later than three months but you don't want to find yourself in that position if you can help it so that's really really important and if you are

out of time another really really important I can't stress is enough equally don't be put off so I have brought a lot of claims that are very late but for whatever reason um but don't if you think that there is something in your claim then don't let the time factor I mean obviously if it's it's years then it's going to be difficult but if you think maybe you can't bring it via another client and this is it and provided the delay is not too severe if you have reasons to explain the delay ultimate

ly it's a matter of the discretion of the court so when you are presented with a possible complaint and you think we might be in difficulty on time immediately think address your mind to well how could we explain the delay so have that in your mind at the beginning right protected characteristic um for disability you want to go to section six I've put the definition there I have quite a lot of slides I'm afraid so the idea of the slides is that you have a source to go to I won't read out in deta

il every slide so that's section six uh the next point about identifying the prohibited conduct so it's crucial it's very difficult to understand the different concepts and that's what I'm going to be telling you a bit about but you have to at the start be prepared to to work out which you roughly think it falls within the other point as well like the time Point very often the a claim about the same circumstances can be presented under different equality law Concepts so again if you're not sure

have in mind you can rely on it in the alternative um but it is important to understand the differences and it's also so important particularly because of the public sector equality Duty because it requires that the decision maker or the Public Authority has regard to eliminating that's the first part eliminating discrimination so you have to understand what discrimination is to be able to then say have you actually considered this properly so that's the other important aspect of understanding t

he different concepts so the first Direct H the time um have I got till is it till about 7 yes okay so direct the big difference between direct and indirect is direct is you treated me differently because of my disability so I am deaf this person is not deaf this person got this opportunity or this benefit and I didn't and the only difference between us is the disability that's direct indirect if you want to look at the definition and the most important thing with these Concepts is always go bac

k to the definition go back to the equality act uh indirect is a bit more complicated which is that everybody is treated in the same way whatever it is a policy action to do something or in action uh a requirement is set out it it applies neutrally Across The Bard but it impacts disproportionately it impacts in a different way it puts certain groups at a dis disadvantage it puts a group at a disadvantage it puts your client at a disadvantage and then there's a last bit the person who is imposing

this decision or policy is unable to justify it those are the very sort of core ingredients victimization is very important the next concept because it's all about providing protection uh again protection to combat discrimination if someone else does anything it's very wide ly phrased if they do anything for the purposes or in connection of this act so they raise they say well you discriminated this person or you discriminated this group and they are then disadvantaged because of it this sectio

n 27 gives them protection and then you have disability specific discrimination so that is if you want the definition go to section 15 of the equality act now this is really helpful and a lot of discrimination claims are actually brought under section 15 because it's a concept it's a it's a difficult concept to explain but essentially it is you did something or you've set out a policy which means that I've been treated unfavorably it might not immediately look obviously discriminatory but it's i

t's connected in that way because of something arising from the disability so there's um there's like a chain reaction there's one way I think is quite a nice way of of well for me that's a nice way of sort of visualizing it is it's like you know you you you throw a pebble into the water and it's got all those Ripples and the ripples are all caused by the pebble and that's the way I see and section 15 is very much about well actually you might the ultimate effect might be the very outside Ripple

but you can connect it all back to the disability and so you connect it all back and then uh if you can't show um that again it's like indirect if you can't show that it's Justified you will win your section 15 and then reasonable adjustments and again reasonable adjustments um it I I think is almost the easiest to make out um because you have to show there that there is a what what under the equality act said oops um is a provision Criterion or practice so something is put in place it puts the

disabled person at a substantial disadvantage so more than minor or trivial it's a low threshold um and in relation to that matter that means there's a duty to take reasonable steps to avoid the disadvantage that's section 20 when you look at the equality act you read section 20 with section 21 so this is the second part of section 20 and just briefly hi I'm highlighting there look at um 27 which says the person who is subject to the duty so the person who has to carry out the reasonable adjust

ment is not entitled to require the disabled person in relation to whom they're required to comply with the duty to pay any costs towards it and the failure to comply with that duty is section 21 remedies you want to go to section 119 you can get compensatory remedies you can get depending on the type of claim you've brought orders to either quash the the decision or the policy to look at it again um and then in terms of monetary compensation the starting point is what we call the vento damages

and uh that is described as the injury to feelings damages and that gives you an idea of the amounts if it's a one-off event or if it's very serious a campaign of discrimination and then section 149 uh briefly it's a procedural duty but it is so important and if you um particularly in terms of policies uh that are being implemented or what um David was speaking about and also Abigail in terms of ensuring that proper regard has been had to the elimination of discriminations that's 149 I've put th

e main case there which sets out the principles the guidance so the guidelines for it um I've quoted there a case uh called mxk and it was all about it it was to do with the home officers detention policy detaining people at the airport when they had an NHS and one of the complaints was well they haven't looking at this policy to detain they didn't consider the impacts the equality impacts and what the judge there said was in this case I'm reading the second part of the bowl there is no evidence

to show that the Secretary of State or any official has ever considered the equality impacts of her use of the examination and detention power so that's really important when you get a um when when there's the beginnings of a challenge to ask those questions where is the quality impact assessment what have you done to address your mind to this aspect and that all falls under Section 149 uh I've set out there the definition so what is required under the public sector equality Duty I'm not going

to I'll just go to my tips now because I don't have very much time left so section 149 is also about advancing equality of opportunity not just eliminating discrimination um steps to take account of the disabled person's disability the steps involved in meeting the needs um of the disabled person that are different from the needs of persons who are not disabled in particular steps to take account of disability so that's under Section 1494 fostering good relations is also what the Public Authorit

y is required to have regard to and then I set up who it applies to so those exercising public functions and then let me get to my bracking is the case that I was speaking about that sets out what the equality what is involved sorry what is involved with the public sector equality Duty and again I won't go through each point you'll all get the slides and it's set out there right tips top tips what is it your client wants I might may I have like a couple extra minutes this is actually I think thi

s is is the much more important bit okay what does your client want what do you want what do you want to achieve what do you want to make sure is not put in place or is put in place how do you want to change uh what's being proposed so that's your what what I mean I always think of cases like this what's your end point and then work back from your end point raise it early and this I think ties in with what Abigail was saying about um no one wants to go to court I mean obviously we don't mind but

generally I always say to my clients you don't want to go to court don't ever go to court and one way of never going to court is to right at the start to raise it to question it to press whatever it is you're wanting to challenge um because the other thing about court as we all know is that you get all sorts of Judges so you might have a strong case but you might get a judge who doesn't agree with you so it's there is an element of Lottery within that I don't know whether I should really highli

ght that but it's it's a reality so if you can sort it out if you can address it early please do that um exhaust any internal routs that there might be and and if all those early proactive steps if they don't work or they don't produce the result that you want you've got it you've got as contemporaneous evidence so later on in your litigation you can say when they suddenly come up with a document saying oh we did this all along you can say well hang on a second back a year ago we asked you and y

ou said there was no information on this so that's my first top tip um oh yes and also this goes back to what I said at the start about time because you can then say look we took we took action very early and the point about time is is there Prejudice because a decision maker can say well you've only just asked us now about it that if you're allowed to run your claim we will suffer Prejudice if you raised it very early on the Prejudice argument is going to be a very difficult one right tip two I

keep saying probably my biggest tip in my slides uh so this is one of my probably my biggest tips um make subject access requests I think olle is also going to speak about the Freedom of Information requests because they can't say no there's a time scale to comply with it very often they're late but you can only you can only benefit um and I in so many of my cases we've asked for we've made a subject access request and then a few months down the line we've made another one and we've been given

different versions of things yeah so it's interesting plead it right and clearly if you can so when you're framing your case identify this goes back to what I was saying at the start identify what it is you're specifically complaining about um I've put if you have specific quotes remarks all the better it's very hard to counter that will depend on the type of the Discrimination claim you're bringing um put things in the alternative at the start because at the start of litigation and and you will

know this if you've been involved in litigation when you look at the start of a case you look at the end of it it's like it's changed into a completely different entity so it's good to make sure that you've laid your ground and not just I pinned your What's the phrase whatever the Mast the flag you've done some you know you you you're not too committed to just one particular route uh and preempt any time temp uh time points fourth and I've got then two more thank you for the extra time you can

never get enough disclosure also my biggest tip so even once you're L that's what I'm saying I've got a lot of big tips H even even if you get disclosure go on asking for disclosure continue partic sorry particularly in a judicial review challenge there are certain tools that claimant lawyers have which are of enormous value and one of those tools is the requirement for the parties to litigate with a duty of cander which means your decision maker has to cooperate with you with and the actual phr

ase used is cards face up now imagine no one wants to really litigate with their cards face up but they have to do that so you don't be don't be satisfied by just being told there's just this document keep pressing and keep reminding them about the duty of cander it five to more be patient I said when it all comes together I think I'm speaking now a bit selfishly as a as a lawyer it's a thing of beauty but in a legal sense but be patient litigation is a strange creature so I'm just going to give

this one example because I'm so happy about it and it happened this afternoon uh a year ago I was involved I brought a claim it was it involved discrimination it went in front of Judge number one and judge number one said there's nothing in this and the client got very upset and she didn't want to pursue it so then we got a second client second client we went in front of a judge this is is now the second judge on the same point judge number two no nothing in this then we went in front of Judge

number three and we were saying that the home office had a discriminatory policy and the home office regulations were discriminatory judge number three said yeah maybe maybe so this afternoon we got a letter the home office is changing the law it's changing the regulations caved in so which I know I'm so happy thank you I'm so pleased so so you know don't and I think David was saying don't be put off if you think that there is something wrong don't I mean obviously if nobody else thinks that you

know then then maybe maybe not but generally if you think that there is something wrong you know push it press it because like I say in this case this afternoon I had two judges telling me no there's nothing in this and now the home office caved in so that's why I say litigation is a strange creature don't be bullied in correspondence you might be up against very it's all recorded you might be up against all sorts of different lawyers there be bullied stand your ground um to the end and my last

point is at the end of the day equally there is only so much we can do but as long as we make sure we do that and then you know it's difficult it's difficult to win on these challenges and you get knock back a lot and then every now and then you get something great and it makes it all worthwhile and what I think you know for the clients as well well most clients sence it's the most awful I mean I think this is a little bit about how David was describing it it's the most awful experience and tha

t's why I always say to my clients don't go to court I mean it's stressful enough for us as lawyers so for the clients so um but it is an opportunity to represent their voice and bring across what has happened and if you've done that you've served your client well and if you win even better so thank you very much everybody thank you um so our next speaker is olle Percy a barrister here at Garden Court uh olle has a a broad public law practice focusing on the rights of children asylum Seekers and

migrants and disabled people Oli has expertise in discrimination education Community Care Mental Health and Court of protection matters Ole frequently advises deaf and disabled people's organizations regarding Public Law and equality law issues and represents deaf children in the send tribunal and I'm very pleased to say olle is also learning British sign language so I wish him all the best with that uh olle over to you great um it's a real privilege uh to be in this room with so many people wh

o have done amazing work in this field and I'm very lucky to be following on from the previous speakers I am going to try and pull everything together with some silly pictures um to explain how you can get a case off the ground and some sort of big picture points about actually how the nuts and bolts of bringing a claim work so I'm just going to briefly go through new topics and it's not going to be particularly detailed but it will hopefully give you a flavor of how you actually get the case to

gether um and I'm only speaking about the type of case that David was talking about the sort of policy challenge the challenge to a public Authority um so I'm going to go through what is judicial review who can be the claimant how the important point money funding and costs which I know can seem really scary and everyone of said oh it'll be really expensive shouldn't even think about this evidence Gathering and Nichol has very helpfully covered some of that already so I'll be very quick and then

actually how it links in with campaigning so we've had a sort of Master Class from David and Abigail already so I'll go very quickly on that point so judicial review is a legal challenge brought by a claimant and it's against a decision or continuing failure of a Public Authority so a local Authority heard Abigail talking about cuts that local authorities are making to send provision um it could be a school a state school it could be a central government Department could be a university anybody

that's exercising public functions or is a Public Authority can be your defendant could be an NHS trust think about whole range of ways that you interact with the state or parts of the state this is what judicial review is about it's a claim in the high court um which can seem extremely scary I realize um it's you have to move quickly this is what Nicola was saying because there is a time limit and sometimes you can get a clever lawyer that can ask argue your way out of it and sometimes you can

say it's ongoing problem so they're not three months from a specific date but it's an ongoing problem but feed is good idea in this context um if you see unfairness get on it and speak to a lawyer quickly um the there are really powerful remedies in judicial review you can get a mandatory order which tell the court can tell the Public Authority they must do something and quickly and if the Public Authority doesn't do it that can be a criminal offense um a quashing order it can get rid of regula

tions that are unlawful um it can was a decision by a Public Authority say to expel a kid from school um it can say you can never do this again it's prohibiting order and it can declare saying look this was unlawful and that in itself is powerful this was discriminatory this was a breach of someone's human rights and it's important to know and the some of the examples David gave are really powerful examples of how it affects not just the individual but so many more people by judicial review it's

a really powerful tool for system change um I did warn you that there'll be silly photos and this is definitely an American one um but it links back to what David was saying um yes court is scary but you in judicial review as Nicolas says you don't need to go to court if you don't want to um you can you're not going to be in the Old Bailey like a criminal trial in a judicial review it's quite lry it's quite a lot of barrers speaking and that's and a judge asking the barrers questions so that's

a way of managing it for you if you don't your evidence can be in a written down document called a witness statement and in a judicial review you can sort of whil It Go for 18 months and it's stressful and all of the things David said you're not going to have that trial that can seem so scary and it's your lawyer jobs to try insulate you from that so normally no cross-examination if it involves sensitive personal information about you you can apply for anonymity and so for example if it's to do

with a deaf child being a minor generally gets you anonymity straight out the b um and as I was saying more about it's often about points of law uh rather than sort of very detailed facts facts come in into it but it's not like a criminal case kind of stuff you will have seen on TV sorry another silly photo but hopefully it sort of drives home the point um lore is complicated but when you're challenging discrimination and by judicial review I think there's a basic smell test if it smells fishy l

ike there could be something in it and you don't need to think about all of the technical arguments you don't need to be a lawyer if it feels wrong and it smells fishy and it feels unfair it's the lawyer's job to put that into a ground of challenge for judicial riew it's not your job if it feels like if it's inside feels look this feels wrong go and speak to a lawyer because it could be potentially a human rights breach and equality out breach a breach of a statutory Duty a failure to actually l

isten to you like failure to consult if a school's being closed and you go to that school like maybe you should have been consulted before that decision was made so you don't need to know the grounds of challenge you don't need to be an expert in the law but what you do need to is to have a good sense of does this feel wrong and if it's fishy then H maybe speak to a lawyer so who can the claimant be so um David's uh presentation was a really good example about the access to workat he was affecte

d by that he was he had what's called standing in technical language um and he could therefore go and challenge it if it just been whereas I couldn't bring that claim because I wasn't affected by the access to workout so you need to have a think actually who is going to be the claimant because they need to have standing and they need to be affected by what's happening it can't just be a random person off the street um makes sense um a charity can be a claimant it doesn't need to be an individual

and sometimes it can only be a charity that's a claim um it might be that as soon as a lawyer gets involved the problem is fixed but there are loads of people who can't access a lawyer maybe the charity needs to step in and bring the claim ah the money question and why this is so intimidating and maybe shouldn't be so legal aid we you probably heard there's not very much of it it or it's really hard to get all of these things are unfortunately true however um there are a few things to note one

if you're on any form of passported benefit such a Universal Credit you're very likely qualify for legal aid so if anyone's on Universal Credit very likely to get legal aid there is a real complexity around legal aid for children which is not well understood but it's worth thinking about so legal aid is split into two parts there's something called legal help and then there's something called having a legal aid certificate now the legal help stage is when you send your letter before claim now fo

r a child that's assessed on the parents means as well as the child's means so unless the child has a trust fun and many sort of um disabled children do have some form of um um maybe a personal injury injury related fund but if they don't have that and you get through the pre-action stage maybe with the help with a prono lawyer um you can get what's called a certificate and at that stage they only look at the child's means they don't look at the parent means so that actually is a big gateway to

opening up access to justice for children um when challenging it if there's a policy challenge there's also a a special type of legal aid called investigative representation and that is a form of certificate so if it looks like there's a complex issue to do with children your solicitor might be able to go on to what's called investigative representation really quickly and don't need to do pro bono work approach one of a good public law legal aid firm and you can find those out by Googling there

are lots there are still quite a lot of them and there are members from those firms in this room tonight um so maybe speak to them later there's the equality and Human Rights Commission who funded the access to work challenge that David mentioned earlier they have funding to um fund important and challenges to do with equality there's a new fun called law for change I would recommend Googling them and full disclosure I'm on the advisory panel so I'm sort of bit of a cheerleader for them but um t

hey are there to plug the Gap where legal aid isn't where there's potential to use the law to change things for the better crowd funding there are some ethical issues with crowdfunding um I wouldn't crowdfund anything until you spoken to a lawyer at least once cost capping orders well cost protection is what I really want to talk about and sorry to have to sort of boring this lot about talking about money but legal aid means that you're shielded against the other side having to pay the other sid

e's costs if you lose if you don't have legal aid and you're going in by yourself your potential rule is loser pays winers costs so even if you have pro bono on your side you may be at risk of paying the other side's expensive lawyers so you need to have cost protection but a lawyer can advise you on that there are things called cost capping orders that limit the risk and those funders that I've mentioned on the screen quite often provide that protection as part of the funding agreement evidence

Gathering again sorry for the slightly silly photos and Nicola has um uh covered quite a few of um these points already so I'll go quickly um uh what are the impacts of decision practice that you think is unlawful um so actually just think the wrong thing that's about about fishy have a think what actually who what what is it that's bad about it try and write it down it I can't access education is it I can't actually access work I'm being cut out of my job what is it what's the impact who else

is affected is it just me is it other people um is there any data or are there statistics that you could use has someone done some research on this is there a charity like abigailes that might have examples of others in this situation could they maybe provide a witness statement to say how widespread this is um subject access request Nicholas covered there also Freedom of Information Act requests certain public authorities are subject to duty to um respond to a Freedom of Information Act request

could you get your mp on side to ask a question in Parliament that can be really quick and effective and better than a Freedom of Information Act request that can get really delayed try and get your mp on side to ask a question is there something that you think the defendant is hiding from you and this is Nicholas's Point really like they're meant to have their cards face up but actually do you think they they are telling the truth keep prodding keep prodding from different angles and judicial

review as a campaign tool so actually the person there is Louise Whitfield who was David's solicitor um he now works at Liberty and Liberty is challenging some protest regulations today and yesterday um and they are so good at com combining that campaigning with judicial review so that's them outside the Royal courts of Justice with a sort of army of supporters and they couldn't be making the message more clearer defend democracy you can't the cases about how the Home Secretary sella bravman at

the time just ignored Parliament and put in protest anti-protest laws regardless fundamentally undemocratic so think about there be key dates that come up in a judicial review your hearing date for example in rcj what an opportunity to campaign on the issue get people out there and really raise the profile because win or lose it's going to raise the profile of the issue and get people talking about it and that is such a the pressure of that even just going into court even if you lose and prompt

real change and this is my last slide I'm sorry if I've gone over time um I have a little um you'll get these slides but I just wanted to give you a few examples of how big judicial review can be so you get excited it can get rid of discriminatory regulations all together um it can close down down unlawful hotels but unaccompanied Asylum seeking children the Miranda judgment that you probably heard about the horrible Miranda policy that was judicial review that challenge that it's a really power

ful tool and I hope you this evening's seminar helps you think about how you could get involved in this review we need more Davids we need we need more abigailes we need more of you to sort of understand and get involved in asserting your rights for judicial review because it's such an important powerful remedy thank you thank you olle um we have an opportunity for some question and answers uh now so uh is there anybody that who'd like to kick us off with a question from the floor so have re he'

s just going to come to the front and sign his question and try and I'm over at is sorry thank you very much uh to the panel it was great presentation it's been a great experience this evening my name is red re cob CEO of death plus um I just want to say I very much appreciate the work that you've been engaged in and also David thanks for your case too you talked about legal challenge being brought by the claimant and also that the first step is to talk to a lawyer so my question is is how can o

ur staff at def plus we have a team of advisors often uh things come up in their cases um and there are potential for it to be a legal case that's raised the question is then what would our staff do for the first stop to book an interpretor to talk to the lawyer what would you advise how can we take issues that arise in our line of work forwards to the legal place I'll just wait for reg to take his seat um thank you very much for your question re and actually I would just wrap that up we've had

questions from people online um a few people now have have mentioned um whose responsibility is it to provide and pay for sign language interpreters um as a DEA person if you want to go to a solicitor so that's pretty much the same uh question if I can ask my colleagues if they could answer that question I I have a go um I think there are a couple of parts to that question those questions there's one about how your casew workers or in your organization can get public LW advice um and then there'

s individuals who need legal advice how they can access it um and in an accessible way um part of what we want to do today is start a conversation to get the solicitors in the room with your your organization and other organizations to build those connections so that there are solicitors that you can email with queries and uh Abigail's organization Works closely with various different Public Law listers and have built those relationships and maybe abigel could maybe speak more about how that hap

pen but we want to create a sort of ongoing dialogue so that this isn't just a oneof seminar it's we um if you spot something you can come to a lawyer and we can talk about it and work out what to do and we our main priority is breaking down that barrier um so that is a case of getting lawyers in the room with you guys and building up those personal relationships so that we can just have conversations more informally and then if there is something take it to next AE with a client Etc um and try

and get funding in place maybe in terms of interpreters um absolutely um list should be providing an interpreter they are um they are service providers ultimately um and they should be providing if apart from anything else do you want to be working with a solic who is who makes it inaccessible for you I mean that would be a big no no um for STS how can they properly disc challenge discriminate treatment if they perpetrate it themselves um legal aid is a particularly is actually quite good in thi

s in some ways because the legal aid agency has dispersements for interpreters many of the clients that we work with in particular may not speak English as a first language because they're an asylum Seeker without question the legal aid agency pays for an interpreter um BSL interpreter should be exactly the same principle in terms of a funding dispersement from the legal aid agency AB do you want to speak about yeah um well first of all if if an issue arose within the work that we do for I said

umly education rights for death joining young people from nor to 25 then sometimes we can be that sort link and we have the interpreting services and we we support families and death parents to in trying to be that goet in accessing that um advice from our proing partners um in terms of the pro bono Partners themselves um what we tend to find we we we started many years back with um certain firms and certain Council and whenever we sort of work with them I think they get so infused by the work u

m that even when they then move or they get promoted move um either feral Chambers they're of really need to carry on the work and particularly we get um in some of Education where we get uh training sisters um and then as they they move and and then they get more confident in some that work um we've had some I you know almost well very persuasively wanting to us to expand our our Network for them to um to continue working with this so it's great from our perspective um but yes it's it sort of g

rows organically but the number of um boys that we're working with is certainly um On The Rise um and uh David has also just passed me a note to say that sign video has a a BSL vrs directory that shows a list of solicitors firms who are willing to have that initial engagement using vrs interpreters so that's uh well worth knowing for those of you who have signed video and we could add that to the email uh yes and as Olie says we will add that to the email that we send out with the slides we can

add the link to that and this the other information that we're sharing this evening um any more questions I saw lots of hands so can I say one two three do you want to come I'm speaking right I do sign but my signing level is so low that it would be embarrassing for me everybody with me um my name's Dawn and I'm with Dean equal and um we we Advocate and mediate for de clients suffering from discrimination as well as provide training for the companies and organizations that are actually discrimin

ating against them to try and make sure it doesn't happen in the future but when that goes wrong um they have a real problem because they're trying to access um solicitors that have got literally no idea of what it is to be deaf and the very many ways there are to be deaf they don't know the difference between someone that's hard of hearing or someone that's culturally deaf and I'm wondering whether there's any resources um or any availability that for um like a deaf friendly solicitors group so

that we can direct people not only to somebody that might be happy to take something on pro bono but somebody that actually has got the first idea of what it is that they're complaining about and a lot of the issues being that they're culturally deaf they don't identify as somebody that's disabled they don't want to be treated as a disabled person and quite often the fist they go to is almost like a oh there there you know I'm really I'll poor you I'm ever so sorry your de that's just horrific

they don't want that so over you if that exists I would really like to know about it so that I can pass those details on to our clients yes thank you for the question I've got somebody who's desperate on from that it's very very early but it's something that I'm about to set up oh brilliant but let's meet we yet started looking sorry can I ask um what's your name I'm Amy Warhead I'm from Kor I'm a wills and private solicitor um trying to trying to be the first death friendly Law Firm so we have

signed video and sign in what have you appreciate it's a different area of law but it is something that we're we're looking at so yeah we'll catch up afterwards thank you thank you very much um I I can also say that um in discussions with I'm sure they won't mind me saying in discussions with several leaders of sort of Def Civic Society uh different organizations we are looking to come together and set up a quarterly meeting where the different charities in uh the de space we can get together an

d discuss exactly issues of this sort I know pretty high up on that agenda of what we'd like to do to start with is to get some funding to be able to provide some DEA awareness exactly for that point to a range of solicitors it's not just the solicitors it's the judges it's the tribunal panels barristers the court clubs I've been to cases where they've got an interpreter signing away for somebody that needs speech to text reporter they don't sign at all and they've come out halfway I've got no c

lue what's going on they they just take it a standard that there must be an interpreter at every case they don't realize The Interpreter has been booked for them they don't start in yes I mean that's that's why I think in many ways no no it's absolutely F that's why I think this this event is so important and and I you know as olle mentioned in his presentation this is just the start really um we need to have more events like this we really need to connect um I mean ACC find subtit yeah yeah yea

h um but but but events like this are what's so important Davis just mentioning for example you can look at this the zoom that we have today where we have sign language and we have subtitles available on that as well uh to cater for different different needs for deaf people that are watching um but clearly there's more to be done and Hope hopefully this kickstarts a conversation and we can do a lot more uh moving forward um yes sorry Ashley's gonna come forward and ask a question hello everybody

here in uh remotely my name is Ashley thank you sorry well stand back Ashley kendel uh I just want to go back to a question that was asked previously in terms of AIS interpreters for de people who have experienced discrimination in wide society and now wanting to have a claim they want they need to go to a lawyer or solicitor then this process I know you've given us some advice in terms of um us needing to get legal advice and we should and the solicitors firm should be paying for that access b

ut in reality I mean that would be great if that happened but what we see what's happening what we see in the real world is that's not happening so just to give you a picture of what de people's experiences are on a daily best basis if they're trying to engage with lawyers I know one family a terrible incident happened it was nothing to do with sign language or discrimination and you know so it was just a legal issue they wanted to uh Sue and their family members went to five different law firms

asking whether they would cover interpreters and they all said no so obviously they wanted to drop the case after that because they just felt oh this is terrible and then the father said up out of my own pocket and all five of those different law firms still you know their response was no no no no you know we'll bring a paper and Pen we'll engage in that kind of way that's how we'll communicate that's that's a reasonable adjustment that was their interpretation so in terms of the equality act u

h what what people are you know even the notion of reasonable adjustment lets us down and we don't have time SC to that necessarily but that is what some people are interpreting as a a reasonable adjustment and so that first step death people are experiencing barriers and if they can't afford to pay for it then you know they could spend money hand over fist but in the real world we're not getting that adjustment so it's you know the question I suppose is for us what can we do you know if we're t

rying to get legal aid will that when we ask for communication needs to be covered that's often denied as well so the reality is people do face barriers at the first you know herbs at the first step any comments from this I'm happy to the the thing that for me comes to mind is that a a lot of the time it is about networking and then through the network you then know you know you know who to contact and who might be able to help and if they can't then they might know someone so I think this is fa

ntastic because it's it's another opportunity for I mean everybody who's attended today and come online um it's another opportunity for us to build on those networks so that if you have instances like this I mean it always takes a long time it feels like an eternity to bring change but it has to start with I think everybody knowing if there's there's obviously the commitment there and then being able to build from that I mean O's for example just set up a school exclusions project which just sta

rted similarly I mean I don't know why I'm talking about it Ollie olle should tell you about it but what I'm saying is there there ways to basically through that networking to know who there is who might be able to help and in turn they might be able to get get someone if that person can't so I I think that's my sort of immediate response to it but yeah why don't you about I mean I think we as legal have a responsibility to up the standard of our colleagues considerably it's embarrassing that th

is is the State of Affairs and like truly truly shocking um that and it's something that we will need to raise with the Sr the regulatory Authority um the bar Standards Board all of these organizations should be prioritizing making sure that their members are not discriminating it's really that basic and maybe I know Matthew wants to create a sort of forum going on about how we just sort of keep any momentum from this evening going and do the networking that Nichol is saying I think from what is

being said today that's sort the prerequisite to getting anything done is actually getting over the ignorance in our in our profession um and the reluctance to actually put in place reasonable adjustments and I think having sort of list of like inclusive and sort of um ones that know about reasonable and prepar to make it is a step the right direction and sort of having sort of the ones that are good identified so that people know which ones are good to go to but it needs to be there needs to b

e a lot longer list and it needs to cover everything from wills and trusts um which I know nothing about um to like breach of contract claims or whatever the like discrimination practition should be better I think Ashley's made a a significant Point really if I think back to rad and their law centers I mean you know maybe it wasn't the perfect solution but it was a solicitor there was funding and then the funding I I don't want to go on about it but the funding was ceased but sadly that provisio

n was then gone there's a disability Court service there is a f a National Fund available it's limited but there is some funding in my view the government should recognize this is an issue recognize that there's a gap saying there needs to be a National Fund for disabled and deaf people so they they're properly funded to make sure that things are fully accessible rather than relying on individual solicitors I mean in some way that's about fairness right and again this then comes back to as Nicol

a said and ol has said and others campaigning as well as using the legal route I mean the hopefully in the future maybe it will be important for us to be able to do that people will have access to solicitors without discrimination I just want I just wanted to add as well I think for a long time there's been this scap so there's the legal sphere and then there's de community and I think for many years death people have felt this intense frustration as I think as Olie said the smile test you know

it's wrong we know it's wrong we've all known this for a long time and I think there's been this real barrier to be able to move forward on it and I think today is the first step it's about building Partnerships it's about de organizations charities campaigners and also us within the legal profession thinking about how we can move forward to prevent these ills that have per Fallen de people over the years because some things are about campaigning some things are about other appeals or claims the

y want to bring I don't want to be a tokenistic thing I don't want this to be a one-off event I don't want anything to not come as a legacy from this I want us to be able to work together I am sorry to say we don't have any more time for presentations tonight I've Been Told have to finish but I know there's a lot more questions there's lots of questions online I'm so sorry for everybody on Zoom has asked questions but we haven't had time to answer but you've got our email address if people have

got ideas or questions please do email and really all that's left for me to say is say thank you to the people who's online I'll send a feedback forms to the people who attended online as well please do give us your feedback that'll be really useful for us to think about how we train future events and also people who are here and online will send you the slides when I send you the slides that also be a links feedback we really would value your feedback because if it's been something that's been

useful and beneficial we'd really like to do more of it so the people who are here in the room there's some food cold so long there's plenty of drinks available and it's an excellent opportunity for us to network so I'll see you down thank you so much