Tackling inequalities disabled people face

More than a hundred people came together to tackle the inequality challenges disabled people face when dealing with the utilities sector.

The event was organised by leading disability charity and British Gas Energy Trust-funded organisation, Scope earlier this year and sponsored by Salesforce, Experian and Charis Grants.

It brought the utilities sector, industry experts and disabled people together for a one-day innovation challenge looking at the barriers disabled people face – as customers and potential employees.

The day featured panellists from experts including Ovo, Ofgem, Citizen’s Advice and Scope – but most importantly, delegates heard from disabled people themselves.

Rachael Burdon, Programme Lead at Scope, said:

“We’ve been working closely with the utilities sector since 2019, bringing people together to try and tackle barriers that disabled people are facing.

“As utilities is such a complicated sector, with many barriers for disabled people, we wanted to do something different. We felt the sector needed to connect with each other and come up with solutions together.

“And you have to talk and listen to disabled people if you really want to tackle disability inclusion. Lived experience should be at the heart of solutions.”

At the event, Scope’s Insight team outlined the results from its Disabled Customers Experience of Utilities Survey, based on feedback from 650 people with lived experience of disability via a panel of over 3,300.

Rachael added:

“The feedback we get is that inaccessibility is a huge problem – physical, digital and attitudinal. There’s a definite lack of contact options across water, energy and broadband for disabled people.

And we found that there are many barriers to inclusion in the workplace, and often that comes down to attitude.

Disabled people said it was the attitudes of interviewers and employment support staff who had the biggest impact on them deciding to look less or stop looking for new employment or promotions.”

The afternoon session focused on Salesforce’s interactive workshop which saw teams take on a persona of a disabled person facing common barriers and create solutions to support the sector with disability inclusion. At the end of the activity, teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges with some friendly competition.

The day also introduced delegates to the social model of disability. The model considers people as being people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference. Utilities companies took a keen interest in finding out more.

Rachael concluded:

“Suppliers have been very interested in the social model and the way we look at things. We’ve had meetings about the problems they’re facing and made recommendations as to how they might be able to fix them. It’s all about starting the conversation.”

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