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PROPOSALS FOR COORDINATION OF ACTION BY SCOTTISH PUBLIC AUTHORITIES
Introduction
11. In order to make progress towards equality of opportunity between disabled people and non-disabled people requires action in relation to a wide range of Scottish Ministers' responsibilities. Here we present overarching policy priorities and process issues that have emerged from an analysis of the evidence, and which cut across a range of portfolio responsibilities and public bodies. These are the key areas where coordinated action is needed across and between public authorities in order to make progress.
12. The term ' policy priorities' is used to identify what needs to done. The key overarching policy priorities which have been identified from our analysis of the data and evidence available are:
- Promoting Employability
- Tackling Poverty
- Supporting Transitions
- Delivering Independent Living
13. The term ' process issues' is used to identify how we might make progress. These relate to all areas of public sector policy, including education and lifelong learning, health and wellbeing, social care, transport, justice, the arts, the environment and rural affairs. The key overarching process issues which have been identified from our analysis of the data and evidence available are:
- Awareness Raising and Changing Attitudes
- Use of Evidence and Data
- Inter-Agency Working
- Understanding of Disability
- Strategies for Particular Impairment Groups
- Consultation and Involvement
- Employment in Public Sector Bodies
Emerging Policy Priorities
Promoting Employability
14. Access to employment is one of the key areas determining progress towards equality for disabled people. This is an area which crosses ministerial portfolios and where it appears that actions require greater co-ordination. There is a recognition that disabled people find it much harder to obtain and retain a job compared with non-disabled people, and as a result disabled people are much more likely to be living in poverty. The Scottish Government's Annual Population Survey showed that whilst the employment rate for non-disabled people of working age in Scotland was about 82% in 2007, the rate for disabled people was less than 50%. The position varied greatly by local authority, with four authorities having fewer than 40% of disabled people of working age in employment.
15. Overall, employment and employability of disabled people is an area of critical importance which crosses ministerial portfolios and where greater co-ordination of action is needed. The low participation of disabled people in employment is clearly linked with their higher rates of poverty, posing the risk of social exclusion.
Tackling Poverty
16 . Achieving Our Potential sets out the approach of the Scottish Government and COSLA to reducing poverty and income inequality in Scotland. This framework sets out the Government's commitment to tacking poverty and acknowledges the fact that disabled people are disproportionately likely to be living in poor households, defined as those with less than 60% of the median household income.
17. This is an area which again crosses ministerial portfolios. New Policy Institute analysis conducted in 2007 showed that about 42% of households including a disabled person have low incomes (less than £6,000 per year), twice the rate for non-disabled people. Disabled people were more likely to be in low income households regardless of family status (couples without children; couples with children, single without children; single with children). In schools, Scottish Government statistics show that children with additional support needs, a group which includes disabled children, are twice as likely to be entitled to free school meals as other children. Despite this clear association between poverty and disability, only a minority of health boards and local authorities made this link and devised specific action points.
Supporting Transitions
18. Disabled children and adults undergo many different transitions during the course of their lives, as they move from pre-school into primary followed by secondary school. As young people progress into the adult phase of their lives, further transitions are involved in the move from school into a training programme or into further or higher education. At the end of this period, the expectation is that the young adult will move into the labour market and/or into the family formation life phase. However, these transitions may be disrupted and may lead into a revolving door of training programmes, since, as discussed above; disabled people are much less likely to be in employment than non-disabled people.
19. Given the complexity of the transitions, it might be expected that public bodies such as local authorities and health boards might prioritise support for disabled children, young people and adults at these critical times. However, very few health boards or local authorities mentioned transitions in their disability equality schemes and action plans, suggesting that this is an area where better co-ordinated action is required.
Delivering Independent Living
20. In 2007 the Disability Rights Commission defined independent living as: "Disabled people having the same choice, control and freedom as any other citizen - at home, at work and as members of the community."
21. Given this broad interpretation of independent living, it clearly lies at the heart of efforts to achieve greater equality between disabled and non-disabled people, and might be expected to receive a mention by all public bodies. Indeed, many health boards and local authorities mention independent living, but the concept tends to be construed differently. Health boards tend to focus on the provision of aids and adaptations, which are mentioned far less frequently by local authorities, despite their responsibility for housing adaptations. Local authorities tend to focus on community care, an area that is often omitted from health board disability equality schemes and action plans. In addition, self-directed support, seen by the disability movement as a key means of empowering disabled people by making them co-producers of services, receive scant attention.
22. The production of disability equality schemes provides an excellent opportunity for further reflection on the meaning of independent living and the actions which may be taken by public bodies, including those concerned with transport, education, the built environment, sport and the arts to shift services in this direction. There is some evidence of the concept being understood and developed, but there is also scope for further co-ordinated action in this field. In June 2008, the Scottish Government announced plans to develop a long term approach to supporting independent living for disabled people. This initiative will involve the Government working with public sector bodies to identify ways to break down barriers in areas such as housing, transport, employment and education.
Emerging Process Issues
Awareness raising and changing attitudes
23. Promoting equality for disabled people is partly a matter of targeting resources effectively to promote access to services, but it is also about changing damaging social attitudes which restrict opportunities for autonomy. Public bodies were clearly aware of the 'hearts and minds' issues and many disability equality schemes referred to disability awareness training programmes which were planned or ongoing. However, less attention was paid to evaluating the impact of this training, an important part of the process since poorly delivered training can have a negative effect. In addition, few public bodies focused attention on the issue of harassment, which is clearly relevant to the experiences of disabled people as service users and employees.
Use of evidence and data
24. Judicious use of evidence and statistics is essential in setting appropriate targets for change, measuring outcomes and evaluating the experiences of service users and employees. Existing evidence needs to be used effectively, and additional data may need to be gathered where necessary.
Inter-agency working
25. Inter-agency working is recognised as a key element within the modernisation of welfare agenda, which emphasises the need for co-ordinated and personalised services. Disabled people are clearly likely to require services delivered by a range of agencies, including health, education, social work and transport. Within disability equality schemes, there was some evidence of imaginative collaborations between different agencies, for example, joint working between social services, a transport agency and an FE college in an island authority. There was also evidence of some degree of joint working between health, education and social work, but also scope for much further development, for example, in relation to independent living and support for disabled children and their families.
26. Planning mechanisms developed over the last decade have sought to promote joined-up policy making in particular areas, such as community care and children's services. It is interesting that disability equality schemes often failed to cross-refer to other planning mechanisms and documents within the public sector, such as Accessibility Strategies, Children's Services Plans, Community Care Plans, Health Improvement Plans and Community Development Plans. Clearly, there is a danger of public bodies sinking within a welter of plans, which in themselves have an opportunity cost in that valuable personnel time has to be invested in order to make the exercise informative and worthwhile. However, careful thought with regard to the links between different plans would lead to better informed, co-ordinated and evidenced disability equality schemes.
Understandings of disability
27. It was evident from our analysis that public sector bodies were working with widely different understandings of disability and were using a range of different categories. For example, in further and higher education, colleges and universities worked with the categories stipulated by the Higher Education Statistics Agency which have been used for data gathering purposes for more than a decade. Health boards clearly had some difficulty in moving away from categories of illness, which have tended to inform their data collection activities. Similarly, it was evident that education authorities were closely wedded to the concept of additional support needs and sub-categories of difficulty within this over-arching concept.
Strategies for particular impairment groups
28. As discussed above, public sector bodies have widely varying understandings of the definition of disability with the Disability Discrimination Act and different levels of experience of disability and equality issues. It is therefore unsurprising that they differ in the extent to which actions proposed are targeted at specific impairment groups. In areas such as justice, public sector bodies tended to refer to disabled people as a homogeneous group, and this was also the case in considering access to services for disabled people in rural areas. Health boards and social services departments within local authorities appeared to have a more sophisticated understanding of the needs of different impairment groups, often targeting particular actions on specific groups, for example, people with learning disabilities, mental health difficulties, sensory impairments, physical disabilities and long-term conditions.
Consultation and involvement
29. All public bodies appeared to have made efforts to consult disabled people in relation to their priorities for action. This took a variety of forms, sometimes consisting of one-off focus groups, and at other times long-term consultation bodies, such as parents' fora, had been established. In rural areas, there appeared to be scope for the further development of video conferencing to enable those in isolated locations to contribute their views. More attention needed to be given to accessing the views of 'hard to reach' groups, such as people with mental health difficulties, profound learning difficulties, long term illnesses and older disabled people. The views of disabled pupils in schools are also very important, but sensitive and imaginative consultation methods are required. For some groups of disabled people, advocacy may be a very important means of allowing their views to be accessed, but was mentioned in only a minority of schemes. In addition, some public bodies were working in conjunction with voluntary organisations to access user views, for example, universities and colleges were often working closely with Skill Scotland. Rather than setting up new consultation mechanisms, some public bodies worked with existing fora such as Pupil Councils in schools. Service user satisfaction surveys were also being used to good effect by a range of bodies ranging from universities to art galleries, illustrating the merits of utilising existing data sources.
Employment of disabled people in public sector bodies
30. All public sector bodies included a section in their disability equality scheme on the employment of disabled people within their organisation. Generally, it appeared that a relatively low proportion of workers disclosed a disability, often less than 1% of employees. Many public bodies appeared to lack adequate data on the employment position of disabled people. Questions therefore arise as to why, across all public sector bodies, data are lacking or incomplete. On the one hand, it might be that public sector bodies allow some degree of flexibility which enables disabled workers to manage their job without needing to disclose. A second explanation is that individuals fear that disclosure will bring little or no benefit and might lead to victimisation.
Conclusion
31. The evidence presented in the Scottish Ministers' reports, summarised here, demonstrates areas where there is marked progress in relation to the position of disabled people in Scotland and areas where further work is needed. In particular, some issues which cross ministerial portfolios and the domains of a range of public sector bodies, such as poverty, independent living and transitions, clearly demand greater concerted action. Process issues relating to inter-agency working, use of data, the definition of disability and the needs of particular groups of disabled people have also emerged, and are relevant to all areas of public policy.
32. Disabled people will have views on the findings of our research and the issues which have emerged. Public bodies too will be interested in how they can further promote disability equality and the issues which have been identified through the Scottish Ministers review of progress. They will also be interested in how they can consider the issues as part of the development of their approach to national outcomes. As a first step we therefore propose to have dialogue with disabled people and with public bodies.
33. We will have dialogue with disabled people through national disability led organisations. The Scottish Government will also have dialogue with Scottish public bodies, including the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The purpose of dialogue will be two fold: to raise awareness of our findings with disabled people and public bodies; and to discuss collaboratively, in the context of the new arrangements for public service delivery, the themes which have emerged
Reporting
34. We will report by June 2009 on the outcome of our discussion with disabled people and with public bodies about the issues which have emerged through the Scottish Ministers' Duty reports. Our reporting will include a programme of specific actions for coordination.
Scottish Government
December 2008
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