The Scottish Government

Disability Working Group

Satellite Group 2 Meeting Note 24 August 2005

Group 2 - Public sector duty to promote disability equality; mainstreaming disability equality; corporate responsibility; engaging public authorities

Attendance:

David Thomson, Scottish Executive Equality Unit (Chair)

Lewis Morrison, West Dunbartonshire Council

Joyce Wilson, Sense Scotland

Carol Chamberlain, Scottish Human Services Trust

Maggie Williams, RNID Scotland

Lynn Waddell, Fair for All

Kim Hartley, Communication Impairment Action Group

Heather Fiskin, Disability Rights Commission

Karen Martin, Scottish Executive: Civic Participation

Elaine Sosinka, Scottish Executive: Public Service Performance

Graeme Bryce, Scottish Executive Equality Unit

Also attending

Ali Jarvis, Commission for Racial Equality

Apologies from/unable to attend

Bill Campbell, Inclusion Scotland

Sandra MacDougall, SAMH

Gordon MacRae, Leonard Cheshire

Iain Montgomery, STUC

Stephanie Miller, Update

Sheila Williams, Capability Scotland

Welcome and Introductions

1. David welcomed the group members, in particular Kim Hartley who was attending for the first time.

Note of last meeting

2. The note of the previous meeting recorded that Joyce had attended all of the DRC's reference group meetings for the disability equality duty. This was not the case and Joyce pointed out that she only attended one. With this amendment the note of the last meeting was agreed.

Public sector duties

3. The focus of today's meeting was the public sector duties on disability and race equality. Heather from the Disability Rights Commission gave a presentation on the disability duty and was followed by Ali who spoke about the CRE's experience of the initial implementation stage of the race duty.

Disability equality duty

4. Heather spoke about the structure of the new duty and the DRC's role in taking forward implementation. (A written paper on the duty had already been provided to satellite group 2 for its last meeting in June). Heather made the following points:

• The duty comes into force in December 2006 - not from December 2006 - so, public authorities must already have their schemes in place by then.
• It applies to organisations carrying out public functions and some private sector organisations will be caught by this.
• The duty includes elimination of harassment which raises issues about disabled people are presented - it is important not to present disabled people as necessarily vulnerable and subject to harassment, yet it is also important to take steps to meet this aspect of the duty. The DRC were still considering approaches to this.
• The aspects of the duty about promoting positive attitudes and participation in public life had clear links to education.
• The DRC would be producing the statutory code of practice and would supplement this with a range of specific sets of guidance.
• A key message to get across was that the disability duty does not simply repeat the requirements of the race duty. For example:

1. issues around disability and race are different
2. the disability duty requires annual reporting (race does not)
3. the disability duty requires ongoing monitoring and measuring of progress and is very outcome focussed
4. disabled people must be involved in developing disability equality schemes

• The DRC recognised that proportionality was an issue and that organisations could not necessarily put everything into their first scheme.
• The DRC wanted to engage with organisations with the aim of embedding the disability duty within organisational culture.

5. Joyce asked what an organisation's priorities should be. Heather stressed the importance of proportionality and that more would be expected of some organisations than others.

6. Maggie and Lewis both asked about engagement with chief executives. Heather agreed that this was important and that the DRC wanted to do this but at this stage had not yet developed a timetable.

7. When it came to involving disabled people Kim noted how difficult this could be for people with communication impairment and offered to work with Heather to look at the breadth of issues.

Race equality duty

8. Ali spoke about the history of the race equality duty and key learning points from the first phase of implementation.

• The race duty had been in place since 2001. The first phase could be characterised as laying foundations, starting processes and improving awareness and systems. The second phase, which would start at the end of 2005, might be characterised as being more about delivery and outcomes. A third phase would then see race equality become mainstream and part of the norm.

Key learning points:

• strong need for support and partnership working - perhaps expectations should not be too high at the start
• leadership was essential - the CRE saw a clear correlation between leadership involvement and delivery of the duty
• action plans needed to focus on outcomes
• the CRE considered that monitoring and assessment were often where organisations had most difficulty
• involving communities had implications for capacity

9. Maggie asked about particular barriers at the start. Ali considered that many organisations failed initially to appreciate the amount of work and the amount of resource needed to deliver the duty.

10. Heather was interested in how the CRE had engaged with organisations at leadership level. Ali commented on the use of umbrella structures such as CoSLA and SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives).

11. Lewis suggested that it was sometimes difficult to see how the duty fitted with the work of audit and inspection bodies. Ali noted that they themselves were covered by the duty and also had a role in inspecting other bodies. The CRE had convened an audit and inspection bodies group with the support of the Scottish Executive and this was making progress on how these bodies engaged with the race equality duty.

Discussion

12. Following the presentations by the DRC and CRE, there was some broader, group discussion which focussed mainly on involving disabled people in implementation of the disability equality duty. It was recognised that involving people was essential but that this would be difficult given the breadth of issues and low capacity of disability organisations. It was also thought that there was low awareness about the disability equality duty generally amongst disabled people and local disability organisations. A number of suggestions were made:

• Kim suggested that a business case could be made and that this would help public authorities to see the importance of involving disabled people
• Lynn suggested that public authorities might work together and nit was noted that this was already happening inn some places - for example in Edinburgh the local authority, police and health board were working together to engage with a disability forum. This might be something that could be recommended.
• Lynn also made the point that disabled people were interested in all policies and should not just be involved on disability issues
• Ali noted the importance if employment policies and disabled people might find it easier to engage with organisations where there was a high level of visibility of disabled staff.
• Finally, Ali was clear that it was the responsibility of public bodies to go out and engage with communities rather than waiting for disabled people to approach them.

Planning future meetings

13. At its next meeting the group wanted to look in more detail at mainstreaming and the Executive agreed to provide a paper on this.

14. The group also considered that the next meeting should be more focussed on outcomes and drafting recommendations.

15. Joyce agreed to report back to the core group meeting on 15 September.

Equality Unit

September 2005

Action Points

1. Equality Unit to prepare a paper on mainstreaming for the next meeting

2. Equality unit to prepare a paper on emerging themes and potential recommendations from the group's work to date.

3. Equality Unit to find out more about the ODPM research project on local authorities and the DDA.