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COMMUNITIES SCOTLAND
The Scottish Government's Housing and Regeneration Agency
Core Functions of Agency
The Justice and 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. Our role is to use our front line experience to help Ministers develop policies and programmes relating to housing and community regeneration and then deliver them. We are accountable through our chief executive, to the Health and Wellbeing Cabinet Secretary and the Minister for Communities and Sport. And work closely with them, along with colleagues across a range of portfolios within the core Scottish Government. We also carry out the statutory inspection and regulation of social housing on behalf of Scottish Ministers to improve standards within social rented housing and protect the interests of tenants.
The new Government reviewed the agency in line with one of its manifesto commitments. The outcome of this review means that from spring 2008 our main functions - excluding our regulatory and local community regeneration roles - will be absorbed into the core Government. This means the end of Communities Scotland as a Government agency but with the bulk of our housing and regeneration functions being delivered from within the core Scottish Government.
One early impact of the agency review saw the transfer of some of our community regeneration functions during June 2007. The Social Economy Unit moved into the Public Sector Reform Division in the core Scottish Government. At the same time, Learning Connections, which deals with adult literacy and numeracy and community learning and development, transferred to Lifelong Learning. These areas of work will be included elsewhere in the scheme.
Agency Priorities in 2007 - 2008
Although these may be subject to further review, for the remainder of 2007/08 we have been set ten Ministerial targets, which are shown here:
- We will fund a further 8,000 affordable homes by the end March 2008, of which at least 1,800 will be targeted at helping first time buyers on modest incomes get onto the property ladder.
- During the course of the year we will work with social landlord organisations to ensure that they have reduced the number of houses failing to meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard by at least 25,000.
- We will ensure central heating systems are installed or repaired in 10,000 homes and that insulation measures are installed in 10,000 homes, by March 2008.
- We will consult on draft guidance and regulations which will provide local authorities with the implementation framework to use statutory and funding mechanisms to address poor conditions in the private housing sector.
- We will support Ministers to establish the housing and regeneration policy framework within which Glasgow Housing Association will develop a strategy for the future of its housing stock.
- The regulator will target housing and homelessness services that are not delivering well for tenants and other customers, and will drive improvement by inspecting 20 organisations by March 2008.
- We will ensure that by March 2008 all 32 community planning partnerships have provided evidence in annual reports that they are making measurable progress in focusing mainstream services and budgets on the most deprived neighbourhoods to deliver locally agreed regeneration priorities. We will also ensure that we achieve 100% match funding of Community Regeneration Funding of £112 million.
- By March 2008, in consultation with partners including communities, we will develop proposals to implement empowered status communities, and will have invited around 6-9 communities to opt for empowered status.
- We will work in partnership with Registered Tenant Organisations to formally establish 9 Registered Tenant Organisation Regional Networks by March 2008 to provide effective participation structures for engagement between the tenants movement in Scotland and the Scottish Government, and have involved the networks in national policy development during that period.
- By March 2008 we will have published the Agency's sustainable development policy to provide leadership to the housing and regeneration sectors to reduce their environmental impact.
Agency Statement of Objectives/Aims to Advance Disability Equality
Our Corporate Management Team ( CMT) established the Strategic Equalities Group ( SEG) in January 2004. It produced an Equality Strategy and a three year equalities action plan in 2005, following wide public consultation and service user involvement (including with disabled people). SEG revised and updated our corporate strategic equalities action plan 2005-2008 in early 2007, to take account of new and emerging priorities for the agency. For the majority of our equalities work we are taking a 6 equality strand approach. There are however, some additional commitments focusing solely on disabled people.
Hierarchically, our Action Plan is the detailed delivery plan for our corporate Equalities Strategy, which in turn sits under the broader Scottish Government Equality Strategy and its associated Race, Disability and Gender Equality Schemes.
SEG reported corporate progress on equalities issues during 2006/07 back to our CMT in June 2007. Our CMT subsequently agreed five corporate diversity and equality themes for the agency in 2007/08. These themes combine areas of corporate work across the whole agency, as well as pieces of specific divisional work that cut across our regeneration, housing, or investment remit. In relation to disability our themes are:
1. Meeting the Scottish Government's employment diversity targets for disability across the agency;
2. Meeting disability equality duties across the agency - including improving the way we involve disabled people; and implementing our programme of Equality Impact Assessments of our functions and policies ;
3. Making our commitment to equality for disabled people more visible across the agency, both internally and externally;
4. Developing and implementing a Learning and Development 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.
These are aimed at providing a basis for mainstreaming disability equality across our work and building upon what we learn about disability equality across different agency activities. A new priority for the remainder of 2007/08, will be to ensure that our equality work streams are successfully migrated into those new structures for our functions which are being transferred back into the core Scottish Government.
Our primary concerns are to meet current disability equality commitments and ensure that the invaluable progress we have made will continue to contribute to the Scottish Government's housing and community regeneration agenda.
Impact Assessment
Disability equality impact assessment is a mechanism for the thorough and systematic analysis of functions, policies or practices, to identify their consequences for disability equality. The Scottish Government has developed an Equality Impact Assessment ( EQIA) toolkit which can be used across 6 equality strands.
Assessing the impact on equality of national policy and delivery is a key area of equality work for the agency. We have already looked at and prioritised our existing policies and practices for impact assessment. We now have a timetable of EQIAs that we are undertaking and are on track to exceed our 07/08 commitments. Four of the six priority EQIAs we identified in our Equality Action Plan have been completed. These can be viewed on our website. Additional EQIAs are already underway. These include the Implementation of the Housing Scotland Act 2006, the Single Survey, our Sustainable Development Strategy and the Community Empowerment Scheme.
We will continue to try to involve disabled people and disability organisations directly in the development and review of our work. Our tenant advisory group and tenant assessor group, on both of which disabled people are well represented, give us particular assistance. However we are also aware of the outcome of the Scottish Government 'get involved' events which were held in autumn 2006 and the recommendations of the Disability Working Group report published in November the same year. We will also continue to rely on our Analytical Services colleagues to assist us by providing evidence to support our impact assessment work and to ensure we have accurate data which allows us to properly assess how policy or practice will affect particular groups.
The Scottish Government Equality Unit will continually look at how the impact assessment process can be improved and how staff from across directorates can best be supported. We also have our own in-house equality team that oversees our programme of EQIAs, provides tailored sessions for individual teams and offers one to one support to those undertaking EQIAs of their functions and policies in the agency.
COMMUNITIES SCOTLAND - 2007/08
Key policy areas for advancing equality of opportunity for disabled people
Policy | Action
Consultation and involvement | By whom | By when
Over the years | Expected Outcome | Progress and measure |
|---|
Scottish Government Objective - To increase the supply of affordable housing where it is needed most.
Scottish Government 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. (2006/07) | 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 | In 2006/07 - 96% of homes approved for funding were to be built to accommodate people with varying needs. SHIFEQIA was completed Sept 07. See - Arrangements for Delivering the General Duties, No 7. |
Funding for housing adaptations | The Local Housing Strategy process will be equality impact assessed and LHS guidance revised The policy will be subject to an equality impact assessment. The EQIA will include involvement with disabled stakeholders and the diversity advisory group. | Head of Strategic Planning Review by Head of Investment. | Complete by June 2007 Complete by March 2007 | EQIA report will identify any issues which impact unfairly on disabled people. These will be addressed wherever possible. | The LHSEQIA was completed to time. Recommendations for action in terms of revised guidance are now being taken forward. The EQIA included both policy and implementation processes. See - Arrangements for Delivering the General Duties, No 7. |
Scottish Government Objective - To improve the quality of services to tenants and homeless people |
Our Regulation and Inspection Process Develop a risk-based approach to regulation and undertake 30 regulatory assessments and 8 inspections | 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. | Our three key regulatory framework documents were published in November 2006. In 2006/07, R&I undertook a major review of the regulation and inspection framework for housing. |
| Publish a clear statement of our regulatory expectations in relation to equalities practice and performance; | Publish a revised self assessment framework for all landlords to use. | Director of Regulation & Inspection. | Ongoing | | This identified equalities as one of six key areas that we expect to give more priority to over the coming years. The Regulatory Code of Governance is supported by more detailed guidance and self-assessment questions to help landlords consider how they can apply the Code's principles, including on equalities and diversity. |
| 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 | | We expect to complete the review of our published self assessment framework by the end of 2007. Our tenant advbisory group continues to meet regularly, and tenant assessors are involved in all but a few of our inspections. |
| Develop closer working arrangements with the Disability Rights Commission | Head of Inspection | | | We worked closely with the DRC until it was subsumed into the single Equality and Human Rights Commission |
| Continue to take an equalities focus in our inspections, which include disbility considerations. | Head of Inspection | | | In 2006/07, R&I undertook a major review of the regulation and inspection framework for housing. which identified equalities as a key priority area. |
| Publish an equalities thematic study which covers all six equality strands. | Head of Inspection | | | We published the equalities thematic study in Decemember 2006. |
| Provide guidance to the housing sector highlighting the new DRC statutory code of practice. | | | | We are extending the timescales for this action to allow us to incorporate any relevant outcomes from DCLG's review of discrimination law. |
SG Objective - Building stronger, safer communities through regeneration and tackling anti-social behaviour |
The Community Regeneration Fund Support 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. | All three legacy equality commissions were involved in the development of a continuous improvement strategy, which is now in its final phase of implementation. |
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. | Two joint national conferences were held in Edinburgh in Jan 07 and Inverness in Feb 07. The success of these events led to requests for additional sessions to be held regionally. Our interaction with the three commissions prompted them to publish joint guidance for public partnerships on meeting the equality duties. |
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. | The CRFEQIA is on hold pending a policy decision by the new administration around future regeneration funding. |
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 (now transferred to core SG) | By Mar 2008 | EQIA report will identify the extent of involvement of disabled people within the Community Voices Network. | We are currently collating equal opps information on the membership of the network to inform our EQIA. |
Arrangements for delivering the general duty to promote disability equality
| Action | By whom | By when | Expected Outcome | Progress and measure |
|---|
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. We will roll out mandatory disability equality training to all staff. | Corporate Management Team/ Human Resources Exchange | Dec 06 End Sept 07 | All staff will understand their responsibilities to disabled staff and stakeholders. | Our Virtual Learning Environment contains a range of equalities information for training and guidance purposes. This is updated in-house, ensuring that it includes information relevant to the Agency as well as general equalities/disability guidance. All staff have access to the VLE and this is a mandatory training requirement for all staff. For new entrants to the Agency, general training is provided through our virtual learning environment. |
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 | New duties fully integrated into Corporate Equalities Action Plan which in turn has been successfully integrated into corporate planning cycle |
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. | Disability monitoring has been rolled out across our grant functions. Collecting evidence is an early stage in our EQIA process. |
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, or to disabled individuals. | We are systematically reviewing our monitoring arrangements for each of our grants. Regeneration Grants - to date Futurebuilders Scotland, Wider Role, Seeing is Believing, New Ideas Fund and Scottish Community Action Research Fund are all monitoring applications and awards by disabled organisations Investment Grants - Mortgage to Rent Scheme and Homestake both monitor by disability. Homestake figures to date demonstrates high uptake by 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. | Our Area Network assesses and supports the continuous improvement of equalities in Regeneration Outcome Agreements. Community Planning Partnerships received specific feedback on their 2006/07 Annual Reports against the DED. Local Housing Strategy updates are specifically assessed for consideration of disability issues. |
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 | Strategy and Action Plan were completed but required updating in light of the transfer of some function from the Regeneration Division back to core SG. The strategy will need further review in light of the parliamentary announcement on the agency's future. |
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 | All staff have access to the VLE and this is a mandatory training requirement for all staff. For staff who have a need for more in-depth training, particularly where they have a role in promoting diversity, we have also piloted a tailored disability training course. In addition, we run lunchtime seminars in different offices, aimed at maintaining staff awareness of equalities issues, including disability. Recent seminars have been delivered by RNIB and RNID. |
Disability Issues will be covered within CS supplementary questions in SE staff surveys We will explore options for establishing a staff group to capture staff views around equality issues. | Human Resources Human Resources | Mar 08 Mar 08 | Identification of any harassmen issues. | The annual Employee Survey includes questions on the physical working environment, culture (eg respecting individual differences) and discrimination in the workplace. The survey results are disseminated on an Agency basis, allowing us to act on the responses from our own staff. . We currently have a number of mechanisms in place to capture staff views around equality issues, eg Strategic Equality Group, Partnership Meetings with the trade unions, Learning Representatives Group, SG Diversity Network Groups (which we publicise at induction), and Health & Safety Groups. Equalities is also a standing item at various regular meetings, such as CMT meetings. |
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 continue to update our photo library with positive images of disabled people, but are mindful that not all disabilities are visible. |
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 | All our publications as well as our newly developed website, offer positive coverage of disability issues. We publicised Mental Health Week (8-14 October) on the intranet, including information on initiatives taking place across the country and links to relevant websites. |
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 | Presentations have been made to staff from Inclusion Scotland, RNID and RNIB. Lunchtime Seminar are now being taken forward by the Exchange. |
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. We will continue to participate within SE and Cabinet office diversity and disability placement schemes | Human Resources | Mar 08 | Increased applications for our vacancies by disabled people. Increased number of disabled staff | We regularly place external adverts with disability organisations, and participate in the Job Centre Plus "Positive about Disabled" scheme. Although we have recruited very few external staff this year, we have managed to increase our percentage of disabled employees from 3.6% to 3.9% (equivalent to the SG) and exceeded the management target for Band A staff. We continue to participate in the SE/Cabinet office diversity placement scheme. |
We will ensure all meetings are held in places that provide disabled access | Human Resources | Ongoing | Enabled involvement of disabled people | Where our own offices are not accessible for disabled people, meetings are held in buildings that have appropriate facilities. We also direct staff, including new entrants, to the SE intranet which provides an equalities checklist for holding meetings. |
We will replicate our work with our tenant assessors and tenant advisory groups in the Regulation and Inspection Group. | All staff Regulation & Inspection | Ongoing Ongoing | Enabled involvement of disabled people | Tenants are involved in all three of our participatory groups. A number of these representative have disabilities. |
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. We will encourage applications from disabled people when we next advertise for Non Executive Management Board members. 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. | Head of Investment | Apr 07 2009 | Policy development and delivery of services directly influenced by views, needs and aspirations of disabled people | The development of an external Equality Advisory Group was put on hold, pending the new administration's review around the future of the agency. Involvement with equality groups is being taken forward on an individual policy basis. For example, involvement of Ownership Options in Housing and the Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living in the implementation of the Housing Sct Act 2006 and the Disability Alliance in the development of the Community Empowerment Scheme There has been no recruitment of board members during the reporting period. See No. 7 above |
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 | Our Strategic Equalities Group reported to our Corporate Management Team in June 07. This identified progress as well are priority targets for 07/08. |
Equalities issues will be covered within our public Annual Report | Corporate Strategy | Ongoing | Public accountability for our work | We strengthened equalities coverage within our 2006/07 Corporate Annual Report. There is a specific equalities focus for each target reported on, in addition to a separate equalities section. |
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. | There continues to be a mandatory equalities objective for all staff; this is part of the performance appraisal form. Staff are assessed against this objective at their annual appraisal. |
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