Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department has taken to ensure the provision of accessible communications for disabled people in (a) pandemic and (b) disaster preparedness work.

The Government Communication Service (GCS) is committed to ensuring that all government communications are available and accessible to all audiences. Its crisis communications operating model commits to improving preparedness plans across the risks facing the government. This includes meeting statutory requirements and setting standards of best practice for accessible communications.

Departments make commonly-requested alternative formats of communications such as Easy Read and Large Print available in order to meet people’s needs. The recently published British Sign Language (BSL) report details what the government is doing to promote and facilitate the use of BSL in its communications with the public.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, GCS continuously engaged with disability charities, using polling and focus groups with hard-to-reach audiences, to better understand how our communications were received. Examples of new guidance were also discussed in regular sessions with disability charities and experts in accessibility, so these groups could review and make recommendations on how to improve government communications. We used these insights to improve government messaging and challenge misinformation.