The Royal Bank of Scotland has attained a rating of 95% in Business Disability Forum’s 2018 Disability Standard, a world-class tool that measures how good an organisation is at working with disabled people.

Hard work by the organisation boosted its Disability Standard mark by more than ten percentage points from last year, when it made its debut among top-scoring organisations with a Silver rating.

The Royal Bank of Scotland have worked to improve their approaches to disability by introducing a video relay system for customers who use sign language, enhancing wellbeing support, and training over 40,000 employees in CPR.

As a result the organisation has joined a select group to achieve ‘Gold’ in the Disability Standard assessment (for a score of 90% or more), indicating an excellent approach to employing, welcoming and supporting disabled people.

Achieving excellence in disability practice was very important to Ewen Stevenson, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Sponsor for Disability at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Ewen Stevenson said: 

“I have single-sided deafness in my left ear, so I am acutely aware of the day-to-day constraints that a disability can have on one’s life. It really matters to me that the bank has made such progress, and the benefits that progress now brings to a large number of colleagues across the bank and many of our customers’ lives.  I am incredibly proud that we have been Gold rated in the Disability Standard. This is the UK’s leading corporate benchmark which measures progress towards becoming a disability-smart organisation.

“This represents outstanding progress and is a tremendous tribute to the large number of people across the bank who have dedicated their time to helping achieve this. In particular, the Inclusion team, the disability leads and sponsors, and members of our employee disability network have worked tirelessly towards this goal.  I would also like to personally thank Business Disability Forum for their help and support to us over the last few years on our journey to become more disability-smart. Their insight and challenge has helped to accelerate our progress substantially.”

Bela Gor, Head of Campaigns and Legal at Business Disability Forum, worked closely with RBS on their disability initiatives and said:

“Royal Bank of Scotland’s step up from Silver in 2017 to Gold in 2018 is well deserved as they have shown not just that they can get it right on disability but that they are willing to lead the way and share the knowledge and expertise they have acquired with others.   We were particularly impressed with how RBS listened to feedback from disabled people and tested practice before rolling out improvements across the business. This systematic approach led to real improvements for disabled colleagues and customers.”