Let me begin by wishing you a very Happy New Year. I hope you had a really relaxing time over the Christmas holiday and are now revitalised and refreshed. That is of course if you have been able to get back to work at all!! Snow maybe picturesque, visually stunning and all that kind of thing but it's a total nightmare to push through if you use a wheelchair, even worse if you use sticks! I think we require amendments to the DDA to either have all snow ramped or provide snow chains for wheelchairs as a reasonable adjustment!!Any supporters? On a more serious note this very cold weather has clearly caused major problems for severely disabled people particularly those who are older. What is often overlooked, of course is the additional stress this places on those people who provide care or support to family members or neighbours etc. Where would we be without them! The knock on effect for some employers, of course, is that some of their staff are unable to come into work not because ...

A disability organisation is looking for 100 ambitious disabled people to help become future leaders in the public, private and charity sectors. RADAR’s new leadership programme will bring together aspiring disabled leaders and provide them with the skills and personal development training they need. Government figures show that only one in 20 appointees to the boards of the UK’s 1,200 public bodies are disabled or have a long-term health condition. The government aims to increase this to nearly one in seven new appointments (14 per cent) by March 2011. RADAR secured funding over three years for the new programme from the Department for Communities and Local Government, following its previous leadership work with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Disability Rights Commission. David Stocks, RADAR’s empowerment manager, who is a graduate of one of its previous leadership schemes, said it was “of the utmost importance” to “help disabled people realise their potential as l...