There were more than 500 complaints filed to the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) in 2017, it was announced on Tuesday.

Addressing a press briefing, the Commission’s compliance unit manager, Bernard Busuttil, told journalists that between October 2016 and September 2016, 522 complaints were received.

Of these, 319 were pending from the previous years while 203 were “newly-placed”.

According to Dr Busuttil, a drop of 45 complaints over the previous year was registered. He also added that the CRPD worked on 20 requests received from the public for consultancy or advice.

The compliance unit manager also noted that the accessibility sector remained the area most-frequently complained about, with 86 new complaints received. On problems in the education sector, the CRPD received 42 complaints throughout the period reviewed, up from 13 in the previous year.

The highest number of new complaints for another year were made against the government (89 reports), surpassing the number of reports against the private sector (61 reports).

Speaking during the briefing, Commissioner Oliver Scicluna noted that accessibility remained the biggest problem that those with disability faced, pointing out that a recent exercise by the CRPD found that of 300 shops in Valletta, only 33 were accessible to everyone.

Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary Anthony Aguis Decelis, who was presented with the Commission’s report, said that increase in the number of complaints meant that people trusted the CRPD to deal with their problems and so did not hesitate to come forward.