Supporting people with disabilities : easy-to-read version.
Date: 2023-10-17
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: EU law, EU policy, EU statistics, EU strategy, European Semester, European Union, audit, disabled person, financial aid, fund (EU), fundamental rights, performance audit, report, social integration

EN 

2

023

20

Special 

r

eport  Supporting people with disabilities

Easy-to-read version

EUROPEAN
COURT
OF AUDITORS

Contents 

Introduction 

Our audit 

1. Checking if the European Commission’s strategy  

is well designed 

2. Checking if the money from the European Union  

helps people with disabilities 

3. Checking if people with disabilities  

get the same support in the different member states 

4. Checking how the member states collect information 

5. Checking if the European public bodies employ  

people with disabilities 

Our recommendations 

Disclaimer 

Page 

3 

5 

6 

8 

8 

9 

10 

11 

13 

2 

 
 
 
Introduction 

The European Union is made up of 27 countries.  
We call these countries the member states. 

The European Union helps its member states  
to support people with disabilities.  
It does this by setting goals and providing money. 

Disabilities can limit people’s daily activities.  
This means that support is important. 

About a quarter of people in the European Union  
say that they have a disability.  
People over 65 are more likely  
to have a disability. 

People now live longer than before.  
This means that there will be more  
people with disabilities in future. 

People with disabilities may have difficulty: 

o 

finding the right school or job, 

o 

travelling abroad, 

o  getting the healthcare they need. 

3 

 
 
 
People with disabilities are more likely to be poor.  
It can be harder for them to take part equally in society. 

The COVID-19 crisis made these problems worse. 

4 

 
 
 
Our audit 

Our organisation is called the European Court of Auditors.  
Our job is to check what the European Union does with its money. 

We check that the European Union is spending its money correctly.  
We also check that the money makes things better. 

Our checks are called audits. 

In this audit we checked if support from the European Union  
really helps people with disabilities. 

Our audit checks what the European public bodies are doing. 

It would cost a lot of money  
to check every member state.  
Because of that, we only check 4 member states  
in this audit: 

o  Spain, 

o 

the Netherlands, 

o  Romania, 

o  Sweden. 

5 

 
 
 
In those 4 member states  
we spoke to some public bodies. 

These bodies deal with issues  
affecting people with disabilities.  

We also interviewed groups  
that represent people with disabilities. 

Our audit checks 5 points.  
The next section of this easy-to-read report  
explains each of the 5 points. 

1. Checking if the European Commission’s strategy 
is well designed 

One of the European public bodies  
is called the European Commission. 

The European Commission has a strategy  
to help people with disabilities. 

A strategy is a plan of what you want to do  
and how you will do it. 

The strategy follows the United Nations Convention. 

The United Nations Convention is an agreement between countries. 

6 

 
 
 
Its full title is the United Nations Convention  
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  

The European Commission’s strategy sets goals  
for the European Union and the member states. 

The goals aim to improve the lives of people with disabilities.  
Here are some areas they cover: 

—  accessibility, 

—  quality of life, 

—  equal access, 

—  people’s rights, 

—  non-discrimination.  

Discrimination is when people are treated unfairly  
because of who they are. 

The member states of the European Union decide  
how to reach the goals in their own countries. 

The European Commission only helps  
if the member states cannot reach the goals on their own. 

7 

 
 
 
Our audit shows that the strategy tries to help people with disabilities.  
It also shows that the strategy could help  
people with disabilities even more. 

2. Checking if the money from the European Union 
helps people with disabilities 

Our audit checks if the money from the European Union  
helps people with disabilities directly. 

It also checks if the European Commission  
keeps track of the money. 

The European Commission needs to keep track of the money  
to see if it improves the lives of people with disabilities. 

Our audit shows that it is hard to keep track of the money. 

This means that it is hard to know  
if the money makes a difference to people with disabilities. 

3. Checking if people with disabilities 
get the same support in the different member states 

Our audit checks if the member states have the same way  
of deciding who should have disability status. 

Having disability status means that people can get support. 

8 

 
 
 
The member states have different ways of deciding  
who should have disability status. 

The member states also have different ways of deciding  
what support people get. 

Sometimes the member states do not agree with each other  
on who has a disability. 

Our audit shows that people with disabilities  
get different support in different countries. 

Our audit also shows that people with disabilities  
might get different support in different parts of the same country. 

4. Checking how the member states collect information 

Our audit checks if the member states have the same way  
of collecting information about disabilities and support. 

This is important because the European Commission needs to  
compare information from different countries. 

Our audit shows that the European Commission collects this information 
using surveys. 

Our audit also shows that the member states have different ways  
of collecting this information. 

9 

 
 
 
All these different ways of collecting information mean that  
the European Commission can’t compare the information easily. 

It also means that we can only guess  
how many people have disabilities in the European Union. 

5. Checking if the European public bodies employ 
people with disabilities 

The European Commission says that the European public bodies  
need to set a good example. 

They should make sure that they employ people with disabilities. 

Our audit shows that the European public bodies do not know exactly  
how many people with disabilities they employ. 

10 

 
 
 
Our recommendations 

Now we have finished our audit.  
We are making some recommendations.  

Recommendations are ideas  
that can make things better. 

The European Commission can use our recommendations  
to help more people. 

Here are our 3 recommendations for the European Commission. 

1.  The European Commission should collect enough information.  

It needs enough information to know  
if the support is helpful.  

It also needs enough information to know  
what needs to be done better. 

2.  The European Union should make the European Union rules better. 

The rules should help people with disabilities  
with work and with their daily lives. 

11 

 
 
 
3.  The European Union should help people with disabilities to travel 

abroad easily.  

People with disabilities should not need extra paperwork  
to travel abroad.  

Here are our 3 recommendations for the European public bodies. 

1.  The European public bodies should employ people with disabilities. 

2.  The European public bodies should keep track  

of how many people with disabilities they employ. 

3.  The European public bodies should compare the results  

from the different European public bodies and member states. 

12 

 
 
 
 
 
Disclaimer 

Use and purpose (disclaimer) 

This is an easy-to-read version of our report. 

We have tried to make it accessible and easy to understand.  

We hope it will help people with intellectual disabilities  
and other people who have difficulty reading.  

This easy-to-read report explains what we check in this audit. 

It also tells people the results of our checks. 

At the end, it gives our ideas  
on how the European Union can do better.  

The full report is available on our website.  
The full report is the official report.  
It is the version approved officially by the European Court of Auditors.  

The full report is more difficult to read.  
It includes more details and examples.  

Please use the full report for all purposes  
other than accessibility and easy understanding.

13 

 
 
 
Copyright 

© European Union, 2023. You will find the full copyright notice on the ECA 
website. 

© European Easy-to-Read Logo: Inclusion Europe. More information at 
www.inclusion-europe.eu/easy-to-read. 

Revision of the easy-to-read version: Inclusion Ireland. The National 
Association for People with an Intellectual Disability. 

HTML 

ISBN 978-92-849-0818-9 

doi: 10.2865/053497 

QJ-09-23-334-EN-Q 

PDF 

ISBN 978-92-849-0759-5 

doi: 10.2865/324 

QJ-09-23-334-EN-N 

 
 
 
EUROPEAN COURT OF AUDITORS 
12, rue Alcide De Gasperi 
1615 Luxembourg 
LUXEMBOURG

Tel. +352 4398-1

Enquiries: eca.europa.eu/en/contact
Website: eca.europa.eu
Twitter: @EUAuditors