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The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) has published the names of more than 60 public authorities which have failed to produce a disability equality scheme.

Despite a deadline of December last year and subsequent warning letters from the Commission some public authorities have not complied.

It has warned those organisations that are still not complying that it will soon start issuing compliance notices to offenders. The Disability Equality Duty (DED) came into force on 4 December 2006.

There are four key elements to the duty, which require organisations to: eliminate unlawful disability discrimination and disability-related harassment; promote equality of opportunity for disabled people; promote positive attitudes; and encourage disabled people to take part in public life.

As part of the Duty all public authorities covered by the specific duties should have published a Disability Equality Scheme (DES).

In the process of producing this Disability Equality Scheme these key bodies must: involve disabled people in producing the scheme and developing the action plan; identify how they will gather and analyse evidence to inform their actions and track progress; set out how they will assess the impact of their existing and proposed activities on disabled people; produce an action plan for the next three years; and report on their progress every year and review and make appropriate revisions to this scheme at least every three years.

Local councils, health trusts, colleges, universities, museums, fire departments and Channel 4 Television are among those to whom the Commission wrote to at the beginning of March, but 65 (as of 27 March 2007) still have not provided any evidence that the required scheme is in place.

Sir Bert Massie, Chairman of the DRC, says: "The Disability Equality Duty is a real opportunity to transform disabled people's experiences of the society we live in. I'm really pleased that the public sector as a whole has done a great job in responding to the requirements of the duty, with more than 96% of organisations producing a scheme. The question is: Why have a small minority failed to do so?"

The naming and shaming exercise follows an audit carried out by Ipsos MORI for the Government's Office for Disability Issues (ODI) of 1,752 organisations in December 2006 to check whether disability equality schemes had been published. The ODI passed on the audit findings to the DRC, which has the responsibility for enforcing the duty.

A follow up check by the DRC revealed 65, or 3.7%, still do not have a scheme. Massie adds: "We'll now be considering issuing compliance notices to offending authorities, which could lead to court action."

Copies of the ODI's report Public bodies response to the disability equality duty: an audit of compliance with the requirement to publish a disability equality scheme is available from www.officefordisability.gov.uk