The number of new complaints filed with the Commission for People with a Disability last year decreased by a fifth, with most objections being related to accessibility.

Between October 2014 and October last year, the National Commission for People with Disability worked on 327 complaints, 203 of which were pending from the previous years.

According to its annual report, there were 124 new complaints – down by 24 from the previous year.

The commission closed a third (120) of the complaints it investigated, most of which were related to the public sector.

Of those, 82 were related to the private sector, 55 were against local councils, another 51 the government, and 13 the Church.

Asked about this backlog, KNPD chair Oliver Scicluna noted that some of the alleged offenders took up to six months to acknowledge the commission’s complaint. Some of the pending cases were also going through court proceedings, he explained.

Mr Scicluna this morning presented Parliamentary Secretary Justyne Caruana with KNPD’s two annual reports – one consisting of an overview of its annual work, the other listing the complaints filed by people with a disability.

KNDP becoming Commission for the Rights of People with Disability

The KNPD, which is being renamed Commission for the Rights of People with Disability, will soon be able to focus more on its role as a regulator, when it transfers its service provision obligations to Agenzija Sapport.

Dr Caruana this morning noted that the Prime Minister had nominated Mr Scicluna for the new Commissioner role, and the same Commission, which is based in St Joseph High Street, Santa Venera, would soon be moving to better and more accessible premises.

Mr Scicluna told timesofmalta.com that while until last year there was only one person dealing with complaints filed with the KNPD, the team focusing on the commission’s role as a regulator nowadays consisted of three people.

Over the past 15 years, the KNPD investigated 1,645 complaints – an average of 110 yearly, with the largest number of new complaints (172) filed in 2008/2009.