One of the prevailing grievances of disabled people, as reported by the Disability Rights Commission, was being told that, because they represented an evacuation problem in the event of fire, they were either precluded from entering certain buildings or that they have to be supervised or accompanied by an able-bodied person in order to enter the premises. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 seeks to remove this injustice.

It is possible that this unenlightened attitude towards the disabled evolved because many building occupiers believed erroneously that it was the fire service which was responsible for the evacuation of disabled people in the event of a fire. This is not the case, however, and it is worth stressing that there is no directive which states that disabled people should be left in a building to wait for the fire service during a fire.

Rather, all current legislation or standards require that all people should be evacuated in the event of a fire. Furthermore, the Disability Rights Commission has stated that ‘building managers should not be contemplating refusing entry to disabled people but should have plans in place that ensure the safe evacuation of all building users whether or not the fire service is available’.

The Disability Discrimination Act seeks, therefore, to change the previously prevailing attitudes and stipulates that employers and service providers need to look a fire safety issues for disabled people in other ways. The Act effectively turns around the perceived problem so that rather than employers and service providers seeing disabled people as fire problems with the solution being to exclude them, they must seek to find solutions within the management of the service and design of the buildings.
According to the Director of the Disability Rights Commission, the Disability Discrimination Act ‘does not tell service providers and employers how to meet their obligations under the Act, or how to arrange for evacuation of disabled people in a fire; rather it provides the legal framework within which decisions are made’.

The general duty under the Disability Discrimination Act is to make reasonable adjustments. As such, the Act requires employers or the service provider to look at what they can do to change their building, to change the evacuation procedure, and to provide auxiliary aids and services.

In determining whether an adjustment is reasonable the employer or service provider should consider the effectiveness, practicality and financial cost of the adjustment as well as the extent of the organisation’s resources and availability of financial or other assistance.

The Disability Discrimination Act does, however, state that if there are other laws that apply to a situation, the employer or service provider must obey those other laws and, if they cannot obey both the Disability Discrimination Act and the other law in question, then the other law takes precedence.

However, the ability of the both the able bodied and the disabled occupants of a building to evacuate in the case of a fire is a fundamental aspect of fire safety and of determining the means of escape. In the case of a fire, people should be able to turn away from the hazard and escape to the open air or other place of safety. People should be able to make their own way out of the building and not have to be rescued by the fire services. How then can employers or service providers apply this principle to disabled people who cannot evacuate premises by means used by able bodied persons?

A consideration of the needs of disabled people means that the general principles relating to means of escape have to be modified, whilst it should be remembered that features and adjustments to allow disabled people to enter, may not always be suitable in an emergency egress situation.

There must be a careful balancing of obligations against the cost of meeting those obligations but, in certain circumstances, some actions such as access restrictions may be justified, even if there’s a negative impact on disabled people. That said, the burden of proof rests on the employer or service provider to prove that no reasonable adjustments were available to enable the disabled person to work or enter the premises safely, and that they’ve done all that is reasonably practicable.

Under the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act, it is the aggrieved individual’s right to make a claim against the employer or service provider, while responsibility rests with the employer or service provider to ensure that there are suitable procedures in place to evacuate everyone, including disabled people, without relying on the fire service. However, fire regulations should not be used as an excuse to place an unnecessary restriction on wheelchair users or other disabled persons based on the assumption that they will be an automatic hazard.

Ultimately, action should be proportionate to the risk and a balance found between protecting against the risk and restricting disabled people from using the service or from preventing employment.

Gerry Gilroy is Head of Building Surveying at Ross and Liddell, Property Managers, Surveyors and Estate Agents www.ross-liddell.com

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