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Communities Scotland
The Scottish Executive's Housing and Regeneration Agency
Core Functions of Agency
The Communities portfolio is concerned with both people and places. Its fundamental aim is to make Scotland a country where everyone has the opportunity to enjoy a decent quality of life through affordable housing in strong and confident communities, having access to learning and employment opportunities, and living free from poverty, inequality and discrimination We use our front line experience to help Ministers develop policies and programmes relating to housing and community regeneration and then deliver them. Our role is to help deliver the policy objectives and Partnership Agreement commitments of Scottish Ministers. We report to the Communities Ministers and work closely with them, along with colleagues in the Scottish Executive Development Department. We also have a housing regulation and inspection function to improve standard and protect the interestes of tenants. Our activities also bring us into contact with other portfolios in the Executive.
Agency Priorities in 2006-2009
The following key objectives for Communities Scotland received Ministerial approval when and were published in our Corporate Plan 2005-2008.
- to increase the supply of affordable housing where it is needed most;
- to improve the quality of existing houses and ensure a high quality of new build;
- to improve the quality of housing and homelessness services;
- to improve the opportunities for people living in disadvantaged communities;
- to support the social economy to deliver key services and create job opportunities; and
- to use our experience of delivering housing and regeneration programmes to inform and support the development of Ministerial policies.
Our Corporate Management Team ( CMT) established the Strategic Equalities Group ( SEG) in January 2004. It produced an Equality Strategy in 2005, following wide public consultation and service user involvement (including with disabled people) which is now being updated after its first year. SEG has since reported progress on equalities issues back to CMT. CMT has subsequently agreed the five corporate diversity and equality themes for the agency in 2006-2007.
Agency Statement of Objectives/Aims to Advance Disability Equality
The agency worked, in 2005, with a range of equality group interests to produce our equality strategy and action plan which lay out our equality commitments. For the majority of these we are taking a six equality strand approach to our work. There are however, some additional commitments focussing solely on disabled people.
We consulted widely to produce the strategy. One key event in the consultation process was hosting a national equalities master class, supported by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration. It involved eight individual consultation focus groups on the strategy, including disabled people, looking at the agency's proposals from the perspectives of each of the six individual equality strands and one focus group for people facing multiple discrimination.
Focus group participants were asked to identify and prioritise areas for action for the agency. These are the objectives which were published in our final strategy. We will again involve these groups when reviewing our strategy in 2008.
Our corporate priorities for 2006/08 are listed below. These are aimed at building sustainable development around equalities across the agency and provide a basis for mainstreaming disability equality across our work. These are a combination of areas of corporate work across the whole agency, as well as pieces of specific divisional work that will cut across our regeneration, housing, or investment remit.
1. Meeting the Scottish Executive's employment diversity targets for disability across the agency.
2. Meeting current and new disability equality duties across the agency - including looking at options for involving disabled people in an external diversity advisory group; and implementing a programme of Equality Impact Assessments of our functions and policies that has been drawn up following an initial review which identified those of our functions most likely to be relevant to disabled people.
3. Making our commitment to equality for disabled people more visible across the agency, both internally and externally.
4. Develop and implement a Training Strategy to support the delivery of our targets on disability equality across the agency.
5. Mainstreaming disability into our assessor functions across areas of divisional work including regulation, investment and regeneration.
Communities Scotland
Disability Equality Duty Action Plan
Key policy areas where the agency is or will take forward disability equality. |
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Policy | Action
Consultation and involvement | By whom | By when
Over the years | Expected outcome |
|---|
Scottish Executive Objective - To increase the supply of affordable housing where it is needed most. Scottish Executive Objective - To improve the quality of existing houses and ensure a high quality of new build. |
Our Housing and Investment Programme:Affordable Housing Investment Programme - which will fund a further 7,100 houses for social rent and low cost home ownership. | The Scottish Housing Investment Framework will be subject to an equality impact assessment.The EQIA will include involvement with disabled stakeholders and the diversity advisory group. | Head of Investment. | The assessment will be carried out during 2006/07 | 95%+ new homes will be built to accommodate people with varying needs |
Funding for housing adaptations | The Local Housing Strategy process will be equality Impact assessed and LHS guidance revised | Head of Strategic Planning | Completed by June 2007 | EQIA report will identify any issues which impact unfairly on disabled people. These will be addressed wherever possible. |
The policy will be subject to an equality impact assessment.The EQIA will include involvement with disabled stakeholders and the diversity advisory group. | Review by Head of Investment. | Completed by March 2007 |
Central Heating and Warm Deal programmes - which will install or repair central heating systems in 12,000 homes and ensure insulation measures are installed in 11,000 homes. | Both programmes will be subject to an equality impact assessment.The EQIA will include involvement with disabled stakeholders | | | EQIA report will identify any issues which impact unfairly on disabled people. These will be addressed wherever possible. |
Scottish Executive Objective - To improve the quality of services to tenants and homeless people |
Our Regulation and Inspection ProcessDevelop a risk-based approach to regulation and undertake 30 regulatory assessments and 8 inspectionsPublish a clear statement of our regulatory expectations in relation to equalities practice and performance; | Publish a revised inspection framework for equalities setting out clearly what we will look at in inspection and how we will assess performance. | Head of Inspection, Regulation & Inspection Division. | Ongoing | Regulatory inspection process which ensures housing providers can respond to the needs of disabled people. |
Publish a revised self assessment framework for all landlords to use | Director of Regulation & Inspection. | Ongoing | |
Develop the role of our tenant advisory group and tenant assessor group. Both of which are well represented by disabled people. | Director of Regulation & Inspection. | Ongoing | |
Develop closer working arrangements with the Disability Rights Commission. | Head of Inspection | | Ensure that registered social landlords meet the expectations of the new disability duties by incorporating them into our inspection process. |
Continue to take an equalities focus in our inspections, which included disbility considerations. | Head of Inspection | |
Publish an equalities thematic study which covers all six equality strands.Provide guidance to the housing sector highlighting the new DRC statutory code of practice. | | | |
SE Objective - Building stronger, safer communities through regeneration and tackling anti-social behaviour |
The Community Regeneration FundSupport all 32 Community Planning Partnerships to evidence that they are regenerating the most deprived communities and communities of interest against the agreed outcomes set out in their Regeneration Outcome Agreements, | Ongoing programme of direct support for Community Planning Partnerships to help meet legislative requirements including new disability duties. The Disability Rights Commission has been involved in the development or a continuous improvement strategy in this area of work. | Regeneration Equalities Team | Ongoing | Evidence through ROA annual reports of positive outcomes for disabled people across the 5 national closing the opportunity gap targets. |
Joint host two national conferences with the three equality commissions to set out the legal expectation of public bodies working within public partnerships. | | By end Feb 2007 | Clarification amongst public authorities of their requirements under the disability duties in carrying our partnership work. |
The Community Regeneration Fund will be subject to an equality impact assessment. The EQIA will include involvement with disabled stakeholders and the diversity advisory group. | Head of CRU | EQIA completed by Mar 2008 | EQIA report will identify any issues which impact unfairly on disabled people. These will be addressed wherever possible. |
Evaluate the impact of the Community Voices Network on community engagement at national and local level. | The evaluation will include an equalities impact assessment. The EQIA will include involvement with disabled stakeholders and the diversity advisory group. | Manager of The Community Engagement team in Learning Connections | By Mar 2008 | EQIA report will identify the extent of involvement of disabled people within the Community Voices Network. |
Arrangements for delivering the general duty to promote disability equality. |
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Policy | Action | By whom | By when | Expected outcome |
|---|
1. What arrangements will you put in place to ensure that the policies you develop and/or the services you provide pay due regard to the need to eliminate any unlawful discrimination against disabled people? | We will ensure that equalities guidance for staff is updated to reflect new duties. | Corporate Management Team/ Human Resources | Dec 06 | All staff will understand their responsibilities to disabled staff and stakeholders. |
We will roll out mandatory disability equality training to all staff. | Exchange | End Sept 07 |
2. What arrangements will you put in place to ensure that the policies you develop and/or the services you provide are able to pay due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity between disabled and non-disabled persons? | We will make meeting disability duties explicit in agency's 5 equality theme areas for 06/08 | Corporate Management Team /Strategic Equality Group | Mar 07 | A corporate equality strategy and action plan which outlines clear actions relating to fulfilment of disability duties |
We will ensure we use evidence we have on disabled people's uptake of our services when undertaking Equality Impact Assessments | Whole Agency | Ongoing | Any disproportionate impact of our policies on disabled people identified will be addressed wherever possible. |
Where we are not currently monitoring by disability in our grant giving arrangements, we will introduce this and take action where we identify gaps in applications or awards. | Regeneration/ Investment/ Regulation and Inspection/ Corporate Strategy/ Human Resources/ Area Network | Ongoing | Proportionate distribution of awards to organisations working by or with disabled people. |
Where we assess the strategies of others (for example Regeneration Outcome Agreements or Local Housing Strategies) we will include an assessment of their commitment to promoting disability equality. | Regeneration/ Investment/ Regulation and Inspection/ | Ongoing | Improved delivery of public services to disabled people by the public bodies we assess. |
3. What arrangements will you put in place to ensure that the policies you develop and/or the services you provide are able to pay due regard to the need to eliminate any harassment of disabled people, related to their disability? | We will develop a mental health and positive well-being strategy for the agency | Community Regeneration Division/ HR | By Mar 06 | Raised profile of mental health and promote good mental health amongst staff |
We will roll out mandatory disability equality training to all staff to ensure they understand their responsibilities | Exchange | Sept 07 | All staff will understand their responsibilities to disabled staff and stakeholders |
Disability Issues will be covered within CS supplementary questions in SE staff surveys | Human Resources | Mar 08 | Identification of any harassment issues. |
We will explore options for establishing a staff group to capture staff views around equality issues. | Human Resources | Mar 08 | |
4. What arrangements will you put in place to promote positive attitudes towards disabled people? | We will continue to maintain a photobank of positive images of disabled people for use in our publications | Communications | Ongoing | Our publications will be socially inclusive |
We will continue to include coverage of positive disability items within our internal and external staff magazines | Communications | Ongoing | Our publications will highlight the positive contributions disabled people make to Scottish society |
We will continue to invite disability organisations to speak to our staff about their work | Community Regeneration | Ongoing | Our staff will be aware of the positive contributions disabled people make and the everyday challenges they may face |
5. What action will you take to encourage the participation of disabled people in public life? | We will develop working arrangements with relevant disability employment organisations to ensure targeted advertising of our vacancies. | Human Resources | Mar 08 | Increased applications for our vacancies by disabled people. Increased number of disabled staff |
We will continue to participate within SE and Cabinet office diversity and disability placement schemes | Human Resources | Ongoing | Enabled involvement of disabled people |
We will ensure all meetings are held in places that provide disabled access | All staff | Ongoing | Enabled involvement of disabled people |
We will replicate our work with our tenant assessors and tenant advisory groups in the Regulation and Inspection Group. | Regulation & Inspection | Ongoing | |
6. How will you ensure that disabled people are involved in the development of your department's policies and activities? | We will establish an equalities advisory group to involve equality groups, including disabled people in our work and to inform in particular the focus of our Strategic Equalities Group. We will ensure disabled people are well represented on the group. | Strategic Equality Group | Apr 07 | Policy development and delivery of services directly influenced by views, needs and aspirations of disabled people |
We will encourage applications from disabled people when we next advertise for Non Executive Management Board members. | Corporate Strategy | 2009 |
Our tenant assessors group and tenant advisory group are well represented by disabled people. We will try to replicate this model across our regeneration remit. | Strategic Equality Group |
7. What arrangements will you put in place to ensure that we are able to report on progress on an annual basis? | Our Strategic Equality Group will continue to report to our Corporate Management Team annually on progress against our equality commitments. | Strategic Equality Group | Ongoing | Continued leadership demonstrated and operational staff held accountable for meeting equality objectives |
Equalities issues will be covered within our public Annual Report | Corporate Strategy | Ongoing | Public accountability for our work |
We will continue to include equalities as a mandatory corporate objective within each member of staff's performance appraisal. | Human Resources | Ongoing | Equalities will be intrinsic to every member of staff's job remit. Evidence will need to be positively demonstrated. |
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