We want what you've got

Following the publication over the summer of several reports on access to digital content and equipment, Head of Access Consulting at AT Care and incoming chair of RNIB Kevin Carey looks at some of the issues

I’ve always had a rather down-to-earth view about why people need things, so I assume that disabled people will want access to stuff that other people have got access to, unless you can show me that they don’t. If you think something’s useful and good, then there’s no reason I shouldn’t have it.

People want access to television and to radio, and that’s simply what I call “peer normative”. So if you’re 80, you’re not necessarily going to be campaigning to make Facebook accessible to 80-year-olds, whereas TV and radio are peer normative.

The major barriers to full access are firstly that there isn’t a legal right to it. So there’s a regulated right of access to broadcasting in the UK but no regulated right on access to telecoms, and access to internet material is a bit up in the air.

Secondly, parts of the system are regulated so, for instance, in broadcasting, subtitling and audio description (AD) content is regulated by Ofcom but the design and usability of the sets that pick up AD and subtitles aren’t regulated. So regulation isn’t end to end and you end up with a situation like in the 1990s when, for a very long time, the BBC was required by the regulator to provide audio description and subtitles but there was no set-top box on the market that could decode the AD.

The reason the Government can’t regulate hardware has to do with the R&TTE (Radiocommunications and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment) Directive from the European Union. The directive deregulated the design of hardware except in respect of health and safety. So we can’t actually regulate hardware unless we amend that directive.

If you look at the big issue for the last three years, it’s been the switch-off of the analogue system. Now that wasn’t driven by the market. That happened because the Government passed a law saying that after 2012, thou shalt not have analogue. So if the Government’s going to use a law to cut people off from analogue content, then it has an absolute duty to ensure that, at the very least, no citizen is worse off as a result.

You might argue that responsibility for access should devolve back to the manufacturers, but I think manufacturers have a duty to maximise shareholder return. The Government should override the market. They should legislate the means for making the digital signal and equipment accessible. They should calculate the difference between a normal set and making it accessible and then get a coalition together of its own funding, get more funding from the voluntary sector and maybe get the manufacturers to pitch in with a bit of their own money. That way, you get a partnership to fund the difference.

• Kevin Carey was talking to Ian Macrae