The Scottish Government

Minutes of Meeting

PSD Reference Group 14th April 2005

Held at DRC Office 502 Gorgie Rd, Edinburgh

Present:

Guest Speaker

Aubrey McCorory

Apologies:

The meeting was opened at 10.30am.

Irene welcomed and thanked all for attending and went through the agenda for the meeting.

Update on the Bill - Marie Pye

Marie gave the group an update on the bill. The disability bill got though parliament, but the timing was very tight and was given royal assent. It was the 2nd to last bill to get through that session of Parliament. So they are very pleased with the final shape of the bill and the changes that made it into the bill.

On a point of interest there is a requirement that schools in England and Wales have to produce a disability and race equality policy document. There is no equivalent requirement in Scotland, so Scottish schools will not have to produce this document.

An update on the consultation process - overall it is going very well across the UK. There have been 280 responses so far with high quality responses. Thee has been a lot of interest and as well as organisations there have been responses from the public as well.

The bill is progressing and there have been an additional 2 prongs added - that there is a responsibility to show due regard to encouraging participation of disabled people in public life. The implication of this is that organisations such as the media, school, local authorities will have to take this on board. The policy team at the DRC London is currently working on how to implement the bill.

The other issue is a duty on the secretaries of state to report on their sphere of influence and to produce an annual report on the progress and impact of the disability bill. The DRC are looking to clarify this. For example, what does this mean for devolved duties?

Update on Regulations

Graham Bryce updated the group on the progress of the regulations. There are two levels - General and Specific.

General duties are set out in the bill itself. The specific duties are set out in the regulations which will be set through the Scottish Parliament. These regulations will be very similar to the UK as a whole as many public bodies have countrywide responsibilities. The England/ Wales regulations have been published and the Scottish regulations are still at the drafting phase.

One thing they are still looking at is how to frame the secretary of states duty mentioned by Marie . They recognise that it is unusual to have this duty and they're looking at how it would be worded in the Scottish regulations.

Events

The consultation events held by the DRC

The event at Nairn was cancelled due to there not being enough numbers.

The events in Glasgow and Edinburgh were very successful with almost 100 delegates at each event. The feedback and evaluations of the events were very good and useful.

It was a chance to share experiences and helping to clarify what a lot a delegates had previously found daunting. Questions raised from the events included how the regulations are implemented at strategic as well as delivery level. Questions about what are impact assessments and how duty translates into practice.

Presentation

Aubrey McCrory gave a presentation on the experience of the Northern Ireland Equality Commission.

A hand out was distributed and Aubrey talked about different issues listed in the handout.

(KJ) asked for clarification on a point in the presentation about the Northern Ireland experience and there not being any recourse through the courts.

Aubrey explained that there is a judicial review process which is open to anyone and it reviews a public body's decision. The commission plays more of an ombudsman role which does not go though to the courts. An ombudsman report is produced, but if a body ignores the report, then it is taken further at a political level - it becomes a political recourse rather than going through the courts.

EQIA Discussion

(LS) There seems to be a focus of the EQIA on policies, but what is the actual experience of the practice on the ground?

(AM) Do find that screening focuses on policy and high level rules but that lower levels can be overlooked. Public bodies tend to think in terms of what their actual functions are rather than relate the policy to actual practices of that body. It is a big challenge, but through consultation with bodies it is possible to guide them.

(HT) asked about guidance and the stages of the EQIA in particular, has there been feedback on the actual practice of implementing this process?

(AM) Through practical case working and 'live' exercise public bodies are looking at the learning outcomes. It has been important to talk to actual officers who deliver. There has also been feedback on EQIA consultation documents.

It has been important that those that are decision makers have guidance and those decision makers are trained in Section 75. It needs to be demonstrated that decisions made have been done with awareness of section 75 and there has been feedback on the consultation process.

(SB) How inclusive is the process and effective for getting feedback?

(AM) There has been a large learning curve. Initially there were huge volumes of paper work produced. It seemed to follow paper based consultation where groups were inundated with requests to be part of a consultation and being inundated with information. Now the main players have gained enough experience and knowledge that their organisations know the right people to involve.

There have been huge advancements in electronic communication, but also there's no more knowledge about the networks within communities, verbal as well as written and bodies can tap into that much easier now. It has helped to raise awareness within the communities.

(LS) Any guidance examples of good practice. A lot of public bodies are unsure and examples giving a good range would be helpful for learning from.

(AM) There is practical guidance on a case basis rather than general guidance. The green section of the Section 75 document, has examples. But also, if you want consultation examples there is a good resource on the web.

www.equalityni.org

There are examples, impacts and outcomes on the web, the downloads section has information on Section 75.

Aubrey finished up his presentation hoping that it had given a good indicator has to how the legislation had been implemented in Northern Ireland.

General Discussion

(MP) There is a problem with getting the timing right in term of the Impact assessment. Also, whether it was a strategic level or a specific policy that the impact assessment should be looked at? It is in many ways easier to do an Impact assessment at a policy level, but then it can be hard to identify an end user. What is the NI experience at the high end of the process?

(AM) the Northern Ireland departments have done impact assessments at the higher level. There is further work to do on this issue and sometimes a lack of data is an issue. Some impact assessments can come back with the result 'no data, no adverse impact' which is obviously not the way to go but some public bodies are doing this. There is an expectation of a conclusion on an impact assessment, but there have been some difficulties some impact assessments come back and they're not worth the time.

(HT) It can be complicated to do an impact assessment at a strategic level, it is good to get an early position but how is the strategic level worked in?

(MP) It is important to get the recognition that the strategic level is important and that the strategic level does give direction to the lower level policies.

(AM) It's a matter of getting the screening at the correct point of time - it can be difficult to know when to do this.

(MP) The DRC are keen that an impact assessment is done at the 1st level if it is taken seriously at a strategic level, then senior people get involved and take it on board and see it through from the start which link to actual practical changes. There can be a tendency to focus only on physical access but this should be treated as more than that and should be integrated in from a higher level.

(BC) Asked about the vertical top down approach of the commission and about inclusion in the process of setting up that agency. There may be a problem that people can't understand the structure and the institution and so have problems accessing information needed.

(AM) There has been a management approach to Section 75 - if we go back to the 1st slide of the presentation with the triangle of bodies it would have been possible at the start to flip the triangle so the community, voluntary sector has more focus. It has been management led and workshops have shown that the process itself is difficult to understand and that the management of the changes was very important and who should that role fall to? The issue will be under review and who should be implementing the changes, tracking progress and managing the process. It has been a case of learning as we go.

(SM) What has been the impact of section 75 on the voluntary and independent sections, clearly there is uncertainty here within public bodies about how to proceed.

(AM) Gave an example of how the duties transfer between bodies. For example electronic libraries, an EQIA was done on access to the electronic library and how duties would transfer to a PFI. Through the EQIA the PFI contractor that was involved got an amended contract which clarified the roles and resources and put the onus on the contractor for monitoring, service provision.

Any Other Business

Further resources from the Northern Ireland Equalities commission can be found on the web at:

www.equalityni.org

Also at the Office of the First Minister

www.ofmdfmni.gov.uk

Consultation

A reminder that consultation closes on April 22nd

ACTION: if you haven't already done so, could you get in your responses, thank you

Irene concluded the meeting

Thank you to everyone for attending

Thanks to Aubrey for the presentation

Meeting closed 12.15pm.

Next Meeting

Thursday 16th June 10.30am-12.30pm at Riverside House.