Leading UK bank Barclays has achieved 98% in Business Disability Forum’s world-renown Disability Standard – the highest ever score awarded to any organisation since the introduction of the Disability Standard in 2004.

Barclays join only a handful of other organisations that have achieved Gold status on BDF’s Roll of Honour for achieving a score over 90% in the Disability Standard evaluation.

The Disability Standard is only business-led management tool used to assess a company’s whole organisational approach to disability. Analysing 10 essential criteria, including physical accessibility, workplace adjustments and products and services, the Disability Standard allows businesses to measure their entire performance on disability and identify ways to improve their strategy for disabled customers, clients, service users, employees and stakeholders

Through the Disability Standard evaluation process, BDF has identified Barclays as among the very best large employers and service providers for disabled people in the UK. The organisation’s commitment to being the most accessible and inclusive company in the FTSE100 is strengthened by the visible leadership of senior executives such as Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays UK, who champions improvements to disability performance across the business.

Mark McLane, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Barclays, said:

“I am delighted we have achieved Gold status in BDF’s Disability Standard. This is excellent recognition of our innovative approach to drive sustainable improvements across the whole organisation relating to accessibility, and shows we are well on our way to becoming the most accessible and inclusive FTSE100 company.

“This is a powerful endorsement of our commitment to provide the best possible results for all colleagues, customers and clients, and as a leader in this field we are committed to sharing experience and best practice by working with other companies and organisations to improve access and inclusion for all.”

George Selvanera, Strategy and External Affair Director at BDF, said: “The benefits of Barclays’ systematic approach to driving improvement in disability performance was showcased throughout the organisation’s Disability Standard submission. What makes Barclays’ actions especially successful are that they are consistently grounded in the lived experience of colleagues and customers with disabilities.

“BDF looks forward to Barclays continuing to extend the limits of access and inclusion for disabled people and for our continued close partnership and shared ambitions for improving access and inclusion for disabled people in all types of organisations in all types of sectors.”

The organisation’s significant achievement follows on from success at BDF’s Disability-smart Awards in 2015 and 2014, where the bank was recognised with a total of five awards for recruitment, retention, branding, website communications and working with suppliers & partners.