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1.    Why will participating in the evaluation stage of the Disability Standard be beneficial to my organisation?

When you complete an EFD evaluation you will get a tailored report and debrief to discuss your results. The results will help your organisation to identify areas for improvement with short and long-term goals.  It is also considerably cheaper than getting a consultant! These goals can then be mainstreamed into your action plan on disability for the coming years.  Completing the Disability Standard on a regular basis will help you to track your progress on these actions.

2.    My team has been working on a self-assessment.  We are now ready to start an EFD evaluation.  What do we need to do?

If you contact EFD we will enable access to the evaluation part of Standard site.  You will need to inform us (please call us on 020 7403 3020 or email disabilitystandard@efd.org.uk) of the deadline you would like to set for your completion of the evaluation.  We can arrange a deadline at any point during a month.

3.    How do I copy information from my self-assessment to my EFD evaluation?

Before attempting to transfer information you’ll need to ensure you’ve completed your self-assessment, otherwise it won’t work.  Our advice is that if you have only just started a self-assessment and are intending to do an evaluation we would advise that you stop and focus solely on the evaluation.

4.    What time does my EFD evaluation deadline run out?

The deadline ends at midnight on the date you’ve agreed with EFD to submit your evaluation.

5.    Can I book an EFD evaluation for the middle of a month?

Yes, you can book your evaluation for any day in a month.  If you would like to participate in the Disability Standard benchmark for 2012, the last evaluation date available is 29 June 2012.

6.    The deadline I agreed with EFD for submitting my evaluation has passed and I am not yet ready to submit.

If you require an extra couple of hours don’t worry.  Just let us know and we’ll be happy to give you an extension.  If you think you’ll need a few more days let us know and we will see whether we can agree a new deadline.  Please note that if your evaluation deadline is in June we may need to consider postponing your participation to the Disability Standard 2013.

7.    I took part in the Disability Standard pilot, can I use any of this information in my EFD evaluation.

Unfortunately, the pilot questions are not the exactly the same, so this isn’t possible. However, any files you uploaded as evidence are still stored on the site, so you can use these.

8.    We did the Disability Standard in 2009. Can we see our submission?

We are able to provide a copy of your 2009 report, but unfortunately are unable to supply a copy of the submission.

9.    We would like to compare our results from the Disability Standard 2009 with our 2012 evaluation. Is this possible?

We can provide a copy of your 2009 report.  But following comments from members, the Disability Standard 2012 is an advance on previous years and its questions are significantly different.  So, trying to make any comparisons may be difficult.

10. How can I access my organisation’s EFD evaluation report? I am not the super-user.

You will need to ask the super-user, who will be able to assign the report to you, in a similar fashion to which you may have been assigned criterion in the evaluation.

11. Can I email a copy of our EFD evaluation submission to colleagues?

Yes.  If you are the super-user you can do this by clicking on ‘Print out this assessment’.  The next stage depends on whether you are using a PC or Mac computer. Please call us on 020 7403 3020 or email disabilitystandard@efd.org.uk for guidance.

12. What logo can I have for participating in the evaluation stage?

Once your work has been submitted for EFD evaluation, you will be entitled to use the Disability Standard logo on your website or communications.

Once EFD has evaluated your organisation's submission, you will receive a further logo depending on your score.  This logo can be used from that point onwards.

Logos will be awarded for:

·      Gold (90% or more)

·      Silver (80% or more)

·      Bronze (70% or more)

·      Participant status.

13. What are the stages following evaluation?

You will receive a personal debriefing over the phone or at our offices (all members), or at your offices (Gold members only).  Your results will also be entered into our database, and in September 2012 we will release the EFD benchmark and inform you how you have done.  If you are in the top 15, in summer/autumn 2012, we will be looking again at those organisations to ascertain who should be in the Disability Standard top 10.  We will announce the full benchmark results in September 2012 and will also decide who will qualify for an EFD award.

14. In criteria 7 for letter 'I', what do you mean by sanctions?
We’ve been told by our legal department that you cannot enforce contracts with penalty clauses.

For those of you who are lawyers, please note that we don’t mean inserting clauses that require punitive amounts of damages to be paid if a breach occurs. We are suggesting inserting what are essentially liquidated damages clauses i.e. a clause that says that if the other party does not comply with accessibility requirements and you have to pay an additional amount to retrofit or have to pay damages yourself in a discrimination claim, these can be recovered from the party in breach of the accessibility terms. You can specify this sum in the contract if it is a genuine pre-estimate of losses but of course that can be quite difficult to do. You could, therefore, avoid specifying that a specific amount of money will be paid on breach of contract but make particular obligations conditions of the contract e.g. accessibility requirements. If the other party fails to meet these obligations you can accept the breach as a repudiatory breach of the contract and bring the contract to an end and, as the innocent party, you could sue for damages.