History
Established in 1986 as the Employers Forum on Disability the group pioneered the first employers’ organisation of its kind. At the time of its formation, the initiatives to promote the employment of disabled people in the UK were largely developed in isolation of employers’ needs, so the creation of EFD started addressing that gap.
EFD was launched with support from the Prince of Wales' Advisory Group on Disability and Business in the Community (BiTC), a business-led coalition promoting corporate social responsibility. The original founding members at the official launch in 1991 were Barclays, BBC, Pearl Assurance, Prudential Assurance, Shell International and Shell UK.
EFD was created when its founder, Susan Scott-Parker, proposed to business leaders that companies should jointly fund a central expert resource which would allow employer members to benefit from best practice and disabled people to benefit from economic and social inclusion. Many of these business leaders had personal contact with disability through connections with disability NGOs and/or family members.
EFD was re-branded to become the Business Disability Forum on 1 October 2012.
Read more about this topic: Employers' Forum On Disability
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