Note of Scottish Executive 'Get Involved' Event - 7 November 2006
Development of the Scottish Executive's Disability Equality Scheme
Introduction
1. The Scottish Executive Equality Unit held a 'Get Involved' event for disabled people on the 7 November 2006 to:
- thank disabled people for their involvement in the development of the Scottish Executive's Disability Equality Scheme (DES) so far;
- update them on how the issues highlighted at the 'Get Involved' events in September have been used in developing the Executive's scheme; and
- provide a further opportunity to influence the structure and content of the Executive's DES.
2. The Equality Unit provided a brief overview of the key messages that had come out of the Executive's 'Get Involved' events held in September 2006 including that the Executive needs to:
- lead by example;
- involve a wider range of disabled people, especially younger disabled people;
- reach beyond 'professional' disabled people working as consultants;
- remove barriers and create opportunities; and
- build the capacity of disabled people to help increase opportunities for participation in public life.
3. To ensure that the views and issues raised by disabled people were reflected throughout the scheme and in particular within the Executive's Departmental action plans, the report of the 'Get Involved' events held in September was circulated to all departments to take into account in developing their action plans.
Opportunities to Influence - Structure of the Scheme
4. Participants were given the opportunity to see the proposed structure of the scheme and were asked for their questions and comments e.g. what's good, what's bad; what's missing. Comments and questions included:
- How is the Executive intending to undertake impact assessments of their policies? - The Executive has developed an Equality Impact Assessment Toolkit to be used by officials in the development of Executive policies to help assess the impact of policies and initiatives on disabled people and other equalities groups. The Executive has issued guidance to help people to use the toolkit and has implemented a programme of training for officials across the Executive.
- Will Executive Agencies have action plans too? - This will vary between Agencies depending on their status and their functions.
- How will the Executive ensure those organisations contracted by the Scottish Executive will adhere to the duty/ Executive's commitments on equality? - This is still under consideration. The duty to promote equality rests with the Executive. We need to consider how we build into our contracting methods a requirement to make sure this happens.
- Will Departmental action plans include timescales and if so how are these decided? - Departments are being encouraged to use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timed) targets in their action plans. In addition the scheme has a three year lifespan and actions included should be completed by the end of the three years.
- What are the budget implications for the duty and is additional funding being provided to meet this? - Public bodies are not being given extra money to implement the duty. Public bodies are expected to take the duty into account when devising their budgets e.g. the Equality Unit has set aside money for implementation of the duty in the Executive. In addition many of the things we are talking about do not cost a huge amount of money. However, lack of funding to properly implement the duty is a concern that has been raised by a number of people.
- As all the different Departments have to develop their own action plans how do we know that they are taking disabled people's views into account without similar meetings to this? - To help ensure different Executive Departments take disabled people's views into account, the Equality Unit has fed back the issues raised from the 'Get Involved' Events in September to all Executive Departments. The Equality Unit has been clear that Departments need to reflect what disabled people said in their action plans. They can also tap into some other initiatives that the Equality Unit has co-ordinated such as the Disability Working Group, which is due to report soon and provides the Executive amongst others with recommendations on improving equality for disabled people in Scotland. There are also existing relationships with disabled people in Departments for example the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland, which advises on transport issues. However, we know we need to develop and build this further across the whole organisation. Once we have seen the Departmental action plans we will have a better picture of the level of involvement across Departments and what we need to do to improve involvement of disabled people in the future.
Opportunities to Influence - Content of the Scheme
5. To consider again the issues raised by disabled people, identify any gaps and highlight key areas where the Executive should focus the groups split into three workshop groups. Each group considered the issues highlighted by disabled people in the report of the 'Get Involved' Events held in September 2006. An overview of the group's discussions and comments is provided below.
Workshop Group 1
6. Group 1 found it hard to prioritise as all of the issues identified were important and many were dependent on or had implications for each other. However they identified two key areas:
- Education and Training - Important to start teaching early and that education and training including Disability Equality Training (DET) had vital roles in raising the awareness of the general public. The group agreed that DET should be carried out by disabled people themselves and the creation of a validated course for DET should be considered. Other methods of raising awareness and educating people should be considered e.g. via the media, storylines in soap operas etc.
- Accessibility - Access should be promoted in its widest sense e.g. beyond the physical to include access to education, transport.
7. The group thought these two areas were key to improving equality for disabled people and would help address many of the other issues identified.
Workshop Group 2
8. Group 2 came up with some additional issues that they thought were missing from the areas already highlighted including independent advocacy, use of television and isolation and considered what the Executive could do in these each of these areas.
- Independent Advocacy - The Scottish Executive should support independent advocacy and encourage disabled people to provide this.
- TV - TV should be used to promote positive images of disabled people. While the Executive is limited in what they can do the BBC are also covered by the disability equality duty and therefore will need to have due regard to promoting positive attitudes to disabled people.
- Isolation - Problems accessing transport contribute to the isolation of disabled people and mean they can't access support and services, which compounds the problem.
9. Out of the issues raised at previous meetings a number of areas were highlighted as being particularly important for the Executive including:
- Disability Equality Training - Provision of standards, using disabled people to provide the training and funding to support disabled people to become trainers were discussed.
- Building Standards and Regulations - There was a sense from the group that these were not being properly implemented.
Workshop Group 3
10. Group 3 firstly discussed the importance of the Executive leading by example particularly on issues of involving disabled people and access particularly to buildings and highlighted a number of issues about Victoria Quay and the event as examples of areas for improvement including:
- being clear about housekeeping arrangements e.g. fire alarm instructions;
- provision of alerter systems for deaf participants;
- integrated induction loops;
- improved signage car park and building;
- spacing of chairs etc.
11. Other key areas for the Executive were:
- Building Standards - Building standards have a vital part to play in improving the physical accessibility of buildings in Scotland. The group felt more needed to be done to make these reflect good practice. The Executive could promote the use of access panels in Scotland to advise local authorities on access issues. Could change planning and building standards to ensure access panels are consulted before planning/building consent is approved.
- Procurement - Suggested that sanctions should be built into Executive procurement/contracts to ensure services provided on behalf of the Executive consider the needs of disabled people. Suggested a three Stage process e.g. warning, penalty and finally loss of contract. However, would need to also build in contingency to ensure no gap in services.
- Access - Access in its widest sense e.g. physical access , access to education and training, access to information and services. It was suggested that the Executive could adopt the Scottish Accessible Information Forum (SAIF) Standards; that the Executive's scheme should be made available in British Sign Language, Braille, large print, audio, easy read as well as in community languages. Some people highlighted how difficult finding information in alternative formats sometimes was and suggested that a single point of contact in the Executive for this would be helpful.
12. In addition the use of the media in changing attitudes and providing positive role models was also discussed.
Conclusion
13. Equality Unit thanked all those who had attended for their positive input in the development of the Executive's scheme and looked forward to continuing to work with them over the life of the scheme. A note of the event would be circulated to participants as well as a copy of the Executive's Disability Equality Scheme after 4 December 2006.