How to phrase your disability monitoring questions

 

Collecting data on your disabled employees relies on 1 important thing. It’s that the relevant employees need to share they are disabled. When you ask about this, you need to make sure that:

• the wording follows best practice recommended by relevant equality organisations
• the questions meet your needs

Different ways of defining disability

We mentioned before that there is a legal definition of disability:

“You’re disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.”

Definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010 (GOV.UK)

Scope recommends using the social model of disability to ask people about their conditions. This is wider than the legal definition. For example, the Equality Act 2010 says that ‘long-term’ means 12 months or more.

The social model of disability (Scope)

The exception to this is when it comes to legal obligations. In that context, you need to ask about disability using the Equality Act 2010. The government carried a consultation on disability workforce reporting. This could lead to mandatory reporting on disability in the workplace. This would likely use the legal definition of disability. So there is a need to have an additional question in HR forms using the legal wording.

Disability workforce reporting (GOV.UK)

You can still use your HR system to ask people about their conditions using the social model of disability. But you should make sure you also ask the question using the legal definition.

Options for disability questions

Equality Act 2010

The wording that we recommend at Scope to ask if someone is disabled under the Equality Act 2010 is:

“The Equality Act 2010 defines a disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to perform normal day-to-day activities.

Does this definition apply to you?”

With the response options: ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘prefer not to say’.

This question is helpful for:

• HR systems
• comparing your data with the census
• comparing your data with any other data that used the Equality Act 2010 definition

Social model

We recommend that you use a question based on the social model of disability in your staff survey and in HR. Doing this will:

• help reflect your values
• show your commitment to inclusion
• avoid some of the negative words in the legal definition

The wording we suggest is:

“Everyone should have the same opportunities. We want to make a difference for disabled people. This means putting adjustments in place to support everyone to reach their potential.

Under the social model of disability, people are disabled by societal barriers. We aim to remove these barriers for people who have a condition or impairment.

Are you disabled, have an impairment, condition or access need?”

With the response options: ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘prefer not to say’.

The aim of this question is to be as inclusive as possible. We used ‘disabled’ rather than ‘have a disability’ because this is in line with the social model. Some people don’t identify as disabled. So the words ‘impairment’ and ‘condition’ are also used. Finally, ‘access need’ makes the question relevant to people who don’t use any of these words. They might just consider that they need adjustments.

The social model of disability for businesses (Scope)

Using disability inclusive language in the workplace (Scope)

Specific conditions or impairments (tick boxes)

You should not ask a question about specific conditions by itself. You also need to have a justification and a use for this data. And the size of your organisation matters. If you are a small organisation, people’s anonymity will be harder to maintain.

You should not generalise needs based on conditions. The goal must remain breaking down individual barriers. But this data could be helpful if you want to make comparisons with other data sets.

If you decide to include this question in your survey, we suggest the following wording:

“What categories best describe your impairment, condition or access need? Please select all that apply.

Chronic or long-term condition

Chronic or long-term pain

Dexterity (handling or using objects)

Hearing

Learning, understanding or concentrating

Memory

Mental health

Mobility (moving around)

Neurodivergence (including autism, social or behavioural differences or ADHD)

Neurological condition (including epilepsy)

Speech or language

Stamina, breathing or fatigue

Vision

None of these describe my impairment, condition or access need.

Prefer not to say”

Specific conditions or impairments (self-describe)

You should not ask this question by itself. It should be optional, and the responses shouldn’t be used for monitoring purposes. So, it won’t affect data evaluation.

There are some contexts this question can be helpful. For example, so that someone can record information in their own words. It can also help highlight additional gaps.

The phrasing we suggest is:

“How would you describe your impairment, condition or access need?”

With a free text box under the question.