Adapting public policies and public administration to the needs of physically challenged people

Abstract

People with disabilities and other societal groups merit to receive a special treatment when they visit public administrations to settle their affair. For the World Health Organization “disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation, is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations”. Nevertheless, it is not always the case that public service premises, public administration policies, procedures or civil servants are adequately prepared to deal with the various impairments that people with disabilities encounter. In this study, we demonstrate that public sector is not fully prepared to serve people with disabilities because of the systems, the policies, the administrative burdens, and the human resources that are not sufficiently qualified to serve people with disabilities and other vulnerabilities. General decisions and directions have been put into place so as to make clear that urgently needed modifications should be put into place in order for people with disabilities to be integrated and served effectively by the public sector. The analysis will focus on the guidelines of the United Νations Convention for People with Disabilities (2007), the 2030 Agenda and in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the European Union, the European Accessibility Act covering products and services, the Web Accessibility Directive, and other official documents that set the framework for the various modifications that should be put in place in public administrations in order to adapt its operations to the special needs of people with disabilities. Also, a special attention will be dedicated to the skills that civil servants should cultivate in order to better deliver services to the physically challenged people. More effort should be put into intensively and integrally satisfying the needs of people with disabilities, most of whom opt to remain at home or be placed in a special institution, instead of being integrated in the local community and have available resources, goods and services that correspond to their special needs (medical, paramedical services, administrative support, transportation, technological assistant devices, etc.). The personnel of public administration represent a very important factor that, if available, placed in the right position and trained to serve this specific category of users, could have a massive positive impact on their level of satisfaction and on the implementation of positive public policies that enforce the principle of equity, inclusiveness, impartiality and democracy.