I remind members that mobile phones should be switched off.
Yes. First, I apologise for being late. Various modes of transport held me up this morning, as did the fact that our capital city's airport was about as busy as it gets at 10 to 9 on the average weekday morning.
We welcome the fact that you have brought that information to the committee. As you would expect, we have a number of questions for you this morning. I will ask the first few questions.
The committee will be aware that many of the statutory deadlines relate to reserved issues. We have on-going discussions with the Department for Transport in London at official and ministerial level: there are discussions with ministers, there is dialogue between officials and there are working groups at official level.
Is the Executive doing anything to encourage providers to meet the requirements earlier than specified, in particular in relation to buses?
Yes. It would be fair to say that there is a live discussion. Tom Macdonald and the other members of the bus team are taking the issue forward in their regular discussions with the industry. I was at the Confederation of Passenger Transport's recent annual conference, and we discussed the issue both informally and formally.
That is good. How does the Executive ensure that equality considerations are mainstreamed into the work of Transport Scotland and the other organisations that are involved?
Equality considerations are one of the core principles of the Scottish transport appraisal guidance analysis that we do on all transport projects of any size. The national transport strategy consultation also offers people an opportunity to raise those issues and push them forward. The work that the Equal Opportunities Committee does to influence Government policy generally is also important. It will be interesting to see the committee's conclusions.
The committee is aware that the Executive has carried out research into improving transport for disabled people, although the outcome of the research has not yet been published. Can the committee expect to see any action being taken as a result of that research?
Yes. First, I should say that I would be happy to share the research with the committee. We could discuss with the clerks the possibility of arranging an informal briefing from the team.
Are you hopeful that the research will enable the Executive to develop a strategic approach to delivering accessible transport?
Yes. I hope that it will help us to augment what we are already doing. There is a reasonably strong picture of the development of transport projects, taking into account the need to make those transport services as accessible to users as they possibly can be. We will continue to build on that across all modes of transport where we have the powers to do so.
In evidence last week, the committee heard how important it is to carry out careful and meaningful consultation with disabled people to identify their needs in relation to transport services. What consultation was carried out with disabled people during the research into improving transport for disabled people?
Basil Haddad will deal with that question; I do not know the answer, to be honest.
The organisation that did the consultation met several disabled people and 10 case studies were carried out in which disabled people were asked how they deal with the problems that they have in getting from place to place. The research takes that into consideration. We are looking to make the research public later this month, and all the information will be made available to the committee.
It is very important that people are involved and that they know what is happening.
Yes.
What has been done to ensure the accessibility of the Executive's national transport strategy consultation process to the large numbers of disabled people in Scotland who are affected by this crucial issue?
I said in an earlier answer to the convener that the principles of accessibility are core to the consultation. Under the strategic projects review—the practical outcomes of which I am particularly interested in—strategies go through the STAG process, which also encapsulates the principles of accessibility for people with disabilities. I would argue strongly that those principles are being included in the consultation that is under way. We will of course look to organisations across the spectrum, including MACS, to give us further advice during the consultation process. I hope that we can act on some solid evidence.
We have heard that it is not enough just to make modes of transport accessible, and that we have to solve people's access problems more generally. Although I welcome the Executive's recognition of that in the national transport strategy, what is the Executive doing to enable those disabled people who do not currently travel to get access to transport services and to be confident that all the links in their required transport chain will be in place as they go to and from their destination?
With the greatest respect, I do not think that any Government can ensure that all the links will be there. We all have experience from our own parts of Scotland about the practical difficulties for people who have disabilities. I am not very keen on sweeping generalisations about satisfying everyone and sorting all the problems; I am sure that Mr McGrigor would agree with me on that.
Fair enough.
I have an example that might help you, minister. We have taken evidence from people who say that they cannot do anything on the spur of the moment. There is no spontaneity in their lives. They have to plan at least 48 hours ahead to be able to get the right train, for example. We took evidence from a person who told us about the difficulties that they have in getting from Fife to the west of Scotland. If they miss one link, or if their train arrives at a different platform that might not be accessible, they will miss the next link and the whole thing becomes horrendous.
Thank you—I understand the point that is being made. On the rail network, at both Network Rail stations and First ScotRail stations, there is a programme of improving accessibility. We can provide you with the numbers behind that work if that would be helpful, although I hope that the information has already been made available to the committee.
We intend to ask you some more questions on that.
I agree that local solutions are important and that regional transport partnerships have a role to play.
I would welcome a strong recommendation in the committee's report on that. I would have to look closely at what Marilyn Livingstone said, but my best guess about how we can take forward her suggestion is to do so through the guidance that we provide to regional transport partnerships. They are in the best position to oversee their regions and could come together to address the fair points that she raised about best practice.
On that issue, page 32 of the document "Scotland's National Transport Strategy: A Consultation" notes that Transport Scotland has a role in disseminating good practice on skills across the industry. How will the Executive monitor and evaluate Transport Scotland's performance in that area, particularly in relation to accessibility issues?
I will need to come back to Mr McGrigor on the precise mechanism for monitoring, but in many ways one of MACS's central roles is to provide advice to ministers about such issues. The chairman and the board of MACS are seized of what the formulation of Transport Scotland could mean for the delivery of projects and of the need to ensure that MACS's voice is heard in the process. Off the top of my head, I suspect that I would look to MACS, as the statutory body, to provide me and other ministers with advice in this area. In addition, there is the obvious point that Transport Scotland is an agency that is a servant of MSPs, so I have no doubt that there will be plenty of parliamentary scrutiny of its activities.
I have a final question on the national transport strategy consultation. The Executive notes in paragraph 42 of the consultation document that it has consulted widely on what the strategic priorities for Scotland's railways should be. Has that consultation process already identified the importance of accessibility and, if so, what are the Executive's plans to improve the accessibility of Scotland's railways?
Yes, the Executive has considered accessibility and our programmes to improve accessibility at stations and the design of rolling stock demonstrate that. The First ScotRail franchise is in its second year and when officials were assessing the bids, accessibility was a strong consideration in making recommendations on the franchise. First ScotRail will implement a considerable accessibility programme during its franchise. Again, we would be happy to furnish the committee with facts and figures on that, if that would be helpful.
Is it possible for more to be done to make rolling stock and railway stations as accessible as airports for disabled people?
It depends on what you mean by accessibility at airports, Mr McGrigor. You and I are familiar with airports in the west Highlands and in the islands where accessibility is a challenge if someone has to go for a hospital appointment, for example. I am aware of that situation as a constituency MSP for an island area. Do all the airports have air bridges? The answer is no, because it depends on the size of the airport and, for the shorter routes, on the size of the airplane. It is genuinely difficult to make direct comparisons between aviation and rail as regards accessibility. I certainly accept the premise of Mr McGrigor's question, which is that we should always seek to improve accessibility. However, we must accept that, in aviation, accessibility can mean using an ambilift to get on to an aircraft and that even then particularly small aircraft sometimes cannot be coped with. Therefore, there are accessibility issues at airports as well as at railway stations.
We have talked quite a bit about the accessibility of stations. You travelled on the train with us through Fife, and I know that you are aware of the issues about the accessibility of stations not just in Fife, but throughout the country. We are going to get some information from you about the upgrading of stations. What will the Executive do to ensure that, where upgrading is not deemed possible, suitable alternative provision is put in place?
That is a fair question. We have a programme and continue to work at the stations where that programme can improve accessibility. The short-term answer is that if a specific station has no facilities for people with disabilities of whatever variety we need to find ways in which they can be helped to get to a station where there are those facilities—a station that is compliant with the requirement for full accessibility.
How will the Executive ensure that accessibility issues are mainstreamed in procurement exercises? You have talked about the franchising, but how about procurement exercises in relation to transport services—for example, in relation to the lifeline air and ferry services for which the Executive is currently undertaking major tendering exercises?
Ferries have to comply with appropriate United Kingdom and European legislation on such matters, and it would be fair to say that Caledonian MacBrayne works hard on that. The tendering exercise will ensure that the tender specification—which is subject to both consultation and parliamentary observation—will also take the matter into account. There are a number of strands to ensuring that that can happen.
I would like to ask one or two questions about demand-responsive transport. What is the current situation with the pilot programme and what are your long-term plans for demand-responsive transport?
As I said to the convener earlier, demand-responsive transport has a strong role to play in Scotland, not just for the audience that the inquiry focuses on but generally in Scotland. A number of us will have reflected on that from our experiences in our own areas. I want the pilot programmes to continue, as we need to continue to evaluate the best and most effective way to take forward demand-responsive transport—inevitably, in the context of budgetary constraints.
One of the main issues that we keep coming across in evidence is the complexity of funding. This is probably a difficult question to answer, but what can the Executive do to streamline the current complex funding systems on which community transport initiatives seem to depend? Funding can rise and fall and there can be funding one year, but not the next. Users might become dependent on a successful community transport initiative, but if the funding or the criteria for it change, they might have to go cap in hand to different funding providers to maintain the service. We have heard examples of people losing services. One plea that has been made to us is to consider how to streamline the funding.
To be brutally honest, I do not have an easy answer to that. We reflected on the matter in Stewart Stevenson's recent members' business debate on Banffshire Partnership Ltd and Buchan Dial-a-Community Bus, which champions what community transport should be about. That great project does many good things, but Stewart Stevenson initiated that debate to raise the issue of funding.
Last week, we heard evidence that people cannot access free demand-responsive transport for a hospital appointment but can access it for a doctor's appointment. I understand what you are saying about community transport and local authorities. However, do you envisage that the concessionary travel scheme could apply to demand-responsive transport some way down the line?
I hope that Sandra White will forgive me for not making policy on the hoof. I believe that both scheduled services, which already come under the concessionary scheme, and non-scheduled services—the provision of which is the principle of demand-responsive transport—have a crucial role to play in the design of transport services to meet the objectives that the committee is considering so carefully. There is a judgment call to be made about how best to do that.
I have one or two questions on rural transport. To what extent do you consider the current level of ring-fenced funding that is provided for the rural community transport initiative to be adequate for the long-term needs of rural communities, and do you consider that ring fencing is the best policy?
The answer to the question of why the fund is set up as it is relates, to some extent, to the answer that I gave a moment ago about how best we can devise such services, whether in the Borders or in deepest rural Ayrshire, never mind in the Highlands and Islands. There are rural issues right across the country, with which we are all pretty familiar. It is important constantly to evaluate the best way of delivering innovative services, because people's expectations and users' requirements change. That is an argument for imaginative and innovative policy making at local level when it comes to devising such systems. If the committee has specific concerns about how the scheme is operating—on the basis, I hope, of strong evidence—I would be happy to consider it and any element of the scheme that is not effective. My inbox is not overloaded with messages from local authorities giving me a hard time about the scheme at the moment, but I stand to be corrected if I am wrong.
Given that the need for accessible transport services is likely to increase over time, what plans are there to keep the level of funding under review?
I can give a classic ministerial answer to that, which is that we keep all levels of funding constantly under review. That will certainly be the case as spending becomes tighter in the next spending review period. Mr McGrigor can be assured that there are no lines in my budget that will not be heavily scrutinised over the next year before the 2007 spending review. That will be one such line.
Apart from supporting the rural community transport initiative, what else is the Executive doing to improve the accessibility of transport services specifically in rural and island areas?
The range is significant. The national concessionary travel scheme certainly has significant advantages in rural areas, as it does in urban Scotland. I have always had a difficulty with simply badging parts of Scotland as urban or rural. As we all know, Scotland is a much more geographically sophisticated place than that. People who live in Pencaitland, 20 miles outside Edinburgh, send me letters about grants for petrol stations, because they argue strongly that their area is every bit as rural as the most far-flung part of my constituency. Defining what constitutes rural Scotland is genuinely difficult. However, we work hard to ensure that the national concessionary travel scheme meets accessibility needs across Scotland, including in rural areas.
I wanted to ask about the concessionary travel scheme, and you have already touched on some of the issues that I was going to raise. You mentioned figures of £159 million to £163 million and said that the scheme would be accessible and that you would monitor it. How will you monitor the impact of the concessionary travel scheme for older and disabled people? I know that it is just newly out, but is there a timescale for monitoring it, and how will you do that?
Tom MacDonald is much more familiar with the detail than I am, but we will monitor the scheme continually, not least because there is a clear financial requirement on us to do so. In my view, we have a responsibility to Parliament to monitor the scheme continually. However, I am also interested in monitoring it from a policy point of view, by considering the gaps that we discussed earlier and asking how the scheme should be developed, if that is appropriate.
Thank you for that full answer.
Again, that is a tough one. How much should central Government lay down by diktat? If it tells local authorities what to do, local authority leaders will lobby people such as you and say, "This is outrageous. Central Government is telling us what to do on every issue under the sun." We need to separate out the statutory requirements on local authorities to commission particular services and the optional policy areas in which they might choose to place a particular requirement on taxi operators in the area.
We heard evidence from people in your part of the world and others that not all taxi owners can afford to adapt their vehicles to make them wheelchair accessible. Therefore, it is all very well to have concessionary travel, but if people cannot access transport such as buses, there is no point in having it.
I agree.
That is why I asked about encouraging different types of schemes.
Yes. It is a fair question. There is a lot of work that should and must be done on better integration of transport systems and modes of transport. I would argue that transport interchanges need to be much more friendly for all transport users but especially for people who find travel more difficult than you and I do. That is work that we continue to do.
I was going to ask a question on regional transport facilities, but Marilyn Livingstone asked earlier what the Executive could do to ensure that accessibility considerations are included in integrated transport provision and I think that the minister answered that, so I have a question on monitoring.
I guess that we must always make judgments about the kind of monitoring regime that we have in place. As we all know, from parliamentary questions, debates and so on, different tiers of government and organisations feel that central Government places a heavy responsibility on bodies to do monitoring and, as they would see it, provide an awful lot of paper. I am by no means belittling the need to ensure that such aspects are taken fully into account—we will continue to do that. Perhaps I can furnish the committee with evidence in writing on the particular monitoring mechanism that we will develop. However, we need to balance the monitoring requirement against all the other requirements, including financial requirements, that we place on regional transport bodies.
We have heard concerns about the consultation of disabled people. To what extent were disabled people consulted on the regional transport partnerships? Were they involved in the consultation?
They would have been involved in the sense that MACS had a clear role. Before the RTPs were set up, I talked to MACS about them and about the thinking on disabled people during policy development. Of course, not only does MACS provide guidance and advice to ministers, but it can make strenuous representations if it feels that we are getting something wrong. In that sense, MACS is our body and it certainly had a role in the consultation.
So MACS will not only consult, it will keep disabled groups informed about what is happening in the regional transport strategy.
Instead of my saying whether that is the case, you might want to ask MACS. However, I would assume that, through the normal communications strategies that all regional transport partnerships will have, they will get out information in their local areas, which I assume everyone will see.
So we could contact MACS to ascertain whether it is keeping people informed.
Yes. It is not for me to tell you what to do, but I think that it would be appropriate to contact MACS. You might also want to write to the chairs of the regional transport partnerships to ask for their perspective on the issue.
Would you look to MACS to come back to you to ensure that the partnership requirements were being fulfilled?
If we got anything glaringly wrong about the way in which RTPs operate—in other words, if they did not take accessibility issues into account—I guess that I would hear about it. I would probably hear from you, if from no one else.
That could be the case.
It would be helpful to understand what a level playing field means in that sense.
I know that accessibility is difficult to ensure in various areas, not just in rural areas, but how can you to try to create a level playing field across Scotland so that there is no postcode lottery in accessibility?
That is a fair question. The logical way to address the issue is through the consultation on and production of the national transport strategy, the components of which relate to rail, shipping and buses. It will be appropriate for us to check our approach against the principles with which the committee is concerned, such as accessibility. I am sure that the committee and the Parliament will check how we are doing against the benchmarks that are set.
My question is on the provision of information. During our consultation, disabled people have told us again and again how difficult it is to get the information that they need in a suitable format. The Scottish Executive invests in Traveline Scotland, Transport Direct and Traffic Scotland, which provide travel information. How can you ensure that the services are not only accessible to disabled people but provide suitable information to assist them to make decisions about their travel arrangements?
I would be genuinely worried if we were not doing that. If the committee's evidence suggests that we are failing in the way that Marilyn Livingstone describes, I would be concerned and I would like to see the evidence on that. The officials who run the three services that she mentioned are logical, rational and good people and I am sure that they would want to know if the services were not providing the information that people need. I am sure that websites and formulations of answers can be developed to improve the service provided.
We have quite a bit of evidence on that, which we will make available.
One of the biggest issues for disabled people is the attitude of the people who provide the service; the Executive acknowledged in its consultation document that the attitude of transport staff had been brought to its attention. What leverage does the minister have to tackle such attitudes?
We can best tackle such attitudes through, for example, the First ScotRail franchise. For example, there is an investment programme for staff training that takes such issues into account. That is one element of the negotiated franchise. To be fair, the company is well aware of the issue and we do not need to tell it that it needs to continue to work on the attitudes of its staff. I am sure that Mary Dickson, the chief executive of First ScotRail, could give you chapter and verse on what the company is doing in that regard.
There are no further questions, so I thank the minister and his officials for attending. I will suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Our next panel of witnesses will discuss issues related to information provision for disabled people. We have many questions for them. I welcome Grant Kennedy, from Direct Enquiries Ltd; Dr Gregory Burke, from DisabledGo; Stephen Harvey, from the Scottish Accessible Information Forum; and Lionel Long, from Update.
The trouble is that a wide breadth of different types of information is needed. Until recently, the standard for the internet was not set. Lots of best practice and ideas were put forward by the Royal National Institute of the Blind, but the publicly available specification standard has come into place only recently.
I associate myself with those comments. As the committee heard during the previous evidence session—members were probably already well aware of the fact—disability is not a monolithic or homogeneous grouping. What is accessible for some people is not necessarily accessible for others.
I agree with what has been said. The consultation is interesting for us, because all the research shows that, although information can be gained by consulting disabled people, the gathering of information can be achieved more readily if disabled people are involved in running disability information and advice services. It is not so much about consultation, as that word is usually understood, as about involving people in providing a service, because they understand that we are examining something that is not monolithic but multifaceted.
I am not sure that the challenges are particularly great. SAIF has been in existence since 1997. We have issued standards for disability information and advice provision in Scotland, distributed thousands of copies of those standards and responded to thousands of requests for those standards, along with a number of other guidance publications. I hope that there are not many public sector organisations or voluntary information and advice providers in the country that do not have those standards or some sort of guidance from us.
What is your experience of the level of accessibility that disabled people have to general information services, and do you feel that disabled people have enough input into the development and implementation of information services at local level? Stephen Harvey and Lionel Long both said that it is important that disabled people are involved and are listened to, but do you think that there is enough of that?
We promote that as an essential. We are in touch with all local authorities in one way or another. Perhaps we can talk about local authorities at some point. Many local authorities—or perhaps all of them—involve disabled people in discussions on issues such as information provision. We regularly attend events at which disabled people and local authority officers and councillors discuss the issues that we are talking about today. However, I suspect that, often, that does not convert into real influence by disabled people around the planning, delivery, management and review of services. That real influence is what we promote. If it is to happen, real partnerships are required, but that is a difficult jump to make; it is difficult for local authorities and organisations of disabled people to move from a consultation process to a process in which there is partnership and power sharing.
We deal mainly with national organisations such as the major high street banks. When they are considering their communication strategy across 1,000 or 1,500 locations, it is difficult for them to communicate directly with every local group in every local area. Apart from anything else, they have to have a corporate policy in order to do something. We work with organisations such as the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, which gets input from local organisations and disabled people across the board.
Update is a membership organisation and the majority of the voluntary sector disability information and advice services that work with us are disability led. We know that local authorities consult, but the challenge is that they normally consult the usual suspects and those small, often poorly funded, disability groups or organisations suffer from consultation fatigue. They also find it difficult to keep turning out and going to events and focus groups. The ability of those small groups to participate depends partly on energy, but also on money.
The private sector faces different difficulties and challenges from those that are faced in the public sector. We produce guides to towns and cities throughout the UK, which typically cover 1,000 service providers, at least 75 per cent of which are in the private sector. Often, they are small businesses and they express surprise that information is needed in different formats. We deliver training materials, which we have written in partnership with a number of leading charities and disability organisations, to help to acclimatise them to the fact that they need to do that. When it has been explained to them—and, crucially, when it has been explained that it is in their own interests—they are quite willing to provide information in different formats, but there seems to be a massive awareness gap between the public and private sectors.
Disabled consultees have suggested to us that we need a central source of information for disabled people. What are your views on that suggestion?
To do that, one would need a mainframe computer bigger than this building. Sometimes we talk about information when we mean advice. Up to a point, Update, which is Scotland's national disability information service, provides a central source of information. We provide information to information providers, to avoid duplication of work. However, to expect people to use a central source of information when they seek information on employment and vocational training for disabled people, for example, would create difficulties. Most of us could not feasibly be expected to digest all the aspects of the issue if all that information was thrown at us at once. People need to know how to deal with information.
It is interesting that you used the example of information on employment, because education and work form one of the strands that the committee is considering. The committee has heard significant evidence that relevant information is inadequately co-ordinated—I think you alluded to that. Disabled people said that it would be helpful if information on education courses could be co-ordinated with information on financial support and job opportunities, because the situation can be complex. Disabled people asked us how we can encourage information providers to ensure that they provide effective links to other sources of relevant information. Perhaps signposting is needed. How can a disabled person who wants to go into further education or higher education break down the barriers? Where can they access information? Those are big questions.
Direct Enquiries is a central source of information on access and facilities. The service was developed in partnership with RADAR and the Employers Forum on Disability, which works with major organisations to help them to adopt best practice in employment. The forum has also started work with smaller businesses.
We work in partnership with Skill Scotland, which provides a good information and advice service on FE and HE opportunities for disabled people in Scotland. If an existing or would-be student makes an inquiry to it on an issue that goes slightly beyond what it deals with, the person from Skill Scotland will deal with the inquirer, but, in this example of partnership, will ring our rights worker to talk about the educational opportunities that exist, where the person will stand with therapeutic earnings if they are a part-time student and so on. Through working in partnership, another organisation can provide the more rounded service that it has been said people are asking for. SAIF and Update have tried to get national organisations to work in such partnerships since 1999, when Update was established. We have had mixed success, but I have given an example of how things can work.
There is clearly a need for a national organisation, or a range of national organisations, that provides signposting facilities and for organisations to work together and co-ordinate their work in certain fields. Good signposting, co-ordination and partnerships are essential if there is to be effective information and advice provision. We often do not mention advice, but advice is not the same as information.
I am intrigued by what has been said about access to HE and FE and would like to address that issue. I do not want to cover ground that has already been covered, but I associate myself in particular with what Grant Kennedy said about access. There is an appetite for being able to know about access from a central database. Our website, which has more than 50,000 unique users, gets 1.2 million hits a month.
We have been doing that—we have been examining the aspirations of disabled people and the guidance that they receive. As part of the investigation that we have conducted up and down the country, we have taken evidence on that subject and we will make recommendations on it in our report. You are right that that is a major issue.
We have recently done work with Borders College, which has drafted an accessible information policy. We have spoken at Glasgow School of Art and various other places. There is activity in the colleges and universities. We are talking about a big field. It is not just about courses; there are issues to do with accommodation and so on, the information on which also needs to be co-ordinated.
That brings me neatly to my final question on the provision of accessible information. I asked the minister about the sharing of best practice, which is important. From the evidence of the work that you do, is there a forum for that to happen? You say that good work is being done in Borders College. How is information about that passed on to other colleges? How is best practice shared? Are we getting that right? I accept Gregory Burke's point that your organisations are young but, in your experience, is there sufficient space to allow you to share best practice?
There could be more. We are keen to share best practice—we focus on it in our publications whenever we can to show what can be done. We certainly put information on best practice on our website and share it within the network of organisations to which we belong, but there is no facility to allow us to do that on a wider scale, which might be more effective. I am not quite sure what is required, but I think that more could be done.
When it comes to best practice on accessibility, we have found over the past three or four years that there has been peer-led pressure among venues. For example, if we have surveyed about 30 restaurants in a given area by visiting them in person, we have found that when we do the annual renewals, because the information that we have gathered allows the facilities of different restaurants to be compared, disabled people naturally vote with their feet—or with whatever they have got—and go to those places where their needs will best be met and which will put them in control. When we do our annual renewals, we generally find that about 20 per cent of businesses and service providers in an area upgrade their facilities.
RADAR investigated what the biggest problem was for bodies such as small businesses, colleges and schools. Part of the problem was caused by smaller, localised access groups visiting premises and perhaps being a bit overzealous in their recommendations, with the result that such bodies were so scared that they just did not do anything. We heard of small bed and breakfasts being told that they would have to provide vibrating pillows, which would have cost them £150,000, so they did not do anything.
I agree with everything that has been said. I am not sure what best practice there is among local authority information providers. I assume that there is some, although perhaps not a great deal. I do not know whether any of us has answered how well our best practice gets shared at a strategic level. SAIF and Update were involved in an event recently to encourage local authorities to take up the responsibility for adopting a strategy for accessible information. We had 16 local authority representatives in a room who did not know what one another did in that area or whether it was good or bad practice. Work could be done on that.
Marilyn Livingstone touched on an issue that I was going to ask about when she talked of FE and HE. However, I want to expand the issue beyond FE colleges and universities. Concerns have been raised that disabled people are not seen in the advertising of service providers' products, prospectuses and that type of thing. What do you think needs to be done to put over a more strategic view to disabled people so that they can access services and information? That issue was raised with us during our evidence taking on university prospectuses. You have already partly answered my question, but do you think it would help if more disabled people were seen to be involved, for example in service providers' advertising?
I feel strongly that the disabled community must have attainable role models. Stephen Hawking, who has kindly endorsed what we do, and David Blunkett are fine examples, but they are not attainable role models. We must have disabled people—there are enough of us—going to university, holding down jobs and just being everyday and run of the mill. There must be a breakout from the existing conceptualisation.
Absolutely.
Well, I do not know—somebody here might be able to do that.
Disabled people are fighting the same battle to be seen in the media that people from ethnic minority groups had to fight; their media visibility is now taken as read. What underlies the issue is attitudes. Do we assume that 39 per cent of disabled people are unable to achieve qualifications when 19 per cent or so of non-disabled people are unable to do so? If we do, we do not bother to put a wheelchair user in a university advertisement.
One of the fundamentals is employment; ultimately, not enough disabled people are employed. There is resistance among employers to employ disabled people. The percentage of disabled people who are unemployed is far greater than in the general population. More disabled people should be employed. That would help with some of the other matters that have been discussed.
That is another strand of our inquiry.
When we talk about profile, we begin to talk about the press and so on. Profile is much more difficult to get hold of and to have any control over. We should aim to get more people into employment. Things would lead on from that.
That is true. It is right to say that the mindset of employers is laden with stereotypes about disabled people. At university, when I went to the library to get books, the librarian would talk to my book runner, even though I was at university and must have been reasonably bright. Having attainable role models and other positive images of disabled people can help to affect the general mindset, which will filter down to the grass roots.
I could not agree more. I wonder whether that links to my question about service providers being more proactive in advertising what they have. For example, they could use disabled people to front their campaigns—perhaps they find that too expensive. What is stopping service providers proactively advertising effectively? That is another concern that has been expressed.
Major service providers are improving. Organisations such as B&Q and the major supermarkets have gone out of their way to put in place a policy of employing disabled people. Organisations such as SCOPE have programmes that take disabled students straight from university into work placements. Much is going on, but perhaps it needs to be publicised better.
I agree with what has been said. When we did our promotional briefing for the private sector, we pointed out that disabled people in Scotland have an estimated £4.5 billion a year to spend. Some employers are cottoning on to the fact that disabled people have not only money to spend, but skills to offer as employees.
I am sure that Stephen Harvey is right. When we do surveys, which are typically of 1,000 businesses and service providers in an area, businesses normally say, "We don't want to be part of the guide. We have no disabled customers." We say, "We think you probably do and that if you don't you should have. How many disabled people do you think there are in the UK?" They say, "I don't know. Half a million?" and we say, "No, it is upwards of 10 million. How much do you think disabled people spend annually in the UK?" "I don't know; about £5 million?" We say, "No, it is upwards of £80 billion."
I was going to ask about bodies that give grants. Obviously the DRC can do it because there is legislation for it. I think it was Grant Kennedy who said that providers do not make their areas accessible because it costs money. Businesses need to know their rights and what they can claim.
That is certainly one of the big issues that have come up since the start of our inquiry. Disabled people and employers have all said the same thing.
There needs to be a higher profile campaign of public statements and actions from places such as the Scottish Parliament about the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
The problem is even more fundamental than that. We work closely with the DRC. It has told us that 33 cases have gone through what is called consultation and that out-of-court settlements have been made. That is no use to anyone. Okay, the complainant gets a bit of cash, and good luck to them, but the organisation that settles does not necessarily go back to change and improve things. No one knows about the case. Other businesses are not made aware of it.
The underlying issue is that people will not complain if they do not know what their rights are. I do not know whether we are allowed to grass people up at committees, but I will just keep going. Nationally, the DRC has done a grand job in telling service providers what their duties are under the DDA, but some people are a bit concerned that a similar amount of effort has not been put into telling members of the public, particularly disabled people, what their rights are.
I have a different take on the issue. After part III of the DDA, on access to goods and services, came into force in February 2004, a DRC survey found that 70 per cent of businesses had made no changes or adjustments whatever. The core reason for that could be the lack of compulsion, in that there is no local or national inspectorate. No law since 1867 has succeeded without that level of compulsion. The anecdotal evidence that we have from many businesses is that they simply do not know what they should be doing.
You have answered my first question, which was on the DRC.
I feel strongly that it is worth a go. The majority of local authorities do not have a co-ordinating officer to which organisations such as mine and Stephen Harvey's can talk about a strategic approach to disability information. It would be a step in the right direction and it might start to answer the questions about sharing best practice that were asked earlier.
When we talk to local authorities about local accessible information strategies, we occasionally conduct questionnaires to find out how things are going. We ask about a dozen questions to get an idea of what authorities are doing. We always ask whether someone has been put in charge of promoting and implementing the accessible information strategy. Many local authorities have said yes. The problem is that that responsibility is just one of the many that the person in charge has. We feel strongly that local authorities should have someone in charge of disability issues—a champion for disabled people.
Someone with a title.
Yes. Someone who co-ordinates work throughout departments. It is interesting that at Government level we have the new Office for Disability Issues, which I do not know much about. Its remit is to bring the perspective of disabled people to bear throughout Government departments. Something similar is needed in local authorities.
I agree absolutely that that is needed. The thing that frustrates me more than anything is when we come across local authority officers who have the right job title but absolutely no authority or budget responsibilities. We have meetings with such officers who say that they would love to be able to do certain things or get others to do them, but that they cannot get to the board and cannot meet anybody. That is such a waste of money, but it is not their fault.
We work with more than 45 local authorities. Building control departments are the best places in which officers can influence new builds and liaise with local groups to ensure that local disabled people are consulted when new building plans are being drawn up.
Another issue that has been raised at nearly every consultation event that we have had with disabled people is negative attitudes to disabled people and the barrier that such attitudes can create. Given your experience, what do you think should be done to tackle negative attitudes to disabled people? I am sorry; I know that that is a huge question.
It is. I will give you an example. A major supermarket has an event every year when a mystery shopper talks to all the staff, and every year they got top marks on the way their staff worked with disabled customers until all the staff had equality training, at which they were told what they could or could not say and do. The following year, their marks went through the floor. The trainers had scared the staff so much about saying or doing the wrong thing that staff ran the other way when a disabled customer came in.
It is refreshing to hear that, as PC language can be a barrier to inclusion, yet some disability organisations are absolutely obsessed with it. You can call me a disabled person, disabled, handicapped or an invalid, if you must, but what I am really bothered about is whether I have access to education and health care and whether I can get to the toilet if I need to use it. That is what is important to me.
I think that the terminology is important. It is a road that we move along, and we hope that we are moving from bad things to better things, and from there on to still better things. That is done through conducting consultation with disabled people and getting feedback from them about what terminology they would like to be used.
I would not disagree with that. However, when I first got involved in equality training, I went home and said to my father, "By the way, dad, you're a wheelchair user." He replied, "That makes me sound as though I'm a drug user. Who decided that I should be called a wheelchair user?" I am not knocking equality training; I am saying that it is about getting the right message out to everybody.
Progress is measured when these things are not even considered—when my name is Gregory and I am the chief executive of DisabledGo, and that is it.
Attitude is an essential aspect of accessibility. Everything can be in place to enable physical accessibility, but if a service is not accessible because of attitudes, the customer might, like any other customer, use it once, but never use it again. I agree with Stephen Harvey that equality training or disability awareness training is an essential aspect of that.
We often forget that attitudes are bad because confidence is lacking. Through good training, confidence can be gained and the attitude issue can be sorted out.
The best disability equality training that I have come across has generally been user led. Such training tends to be more balanced.
I want to ask some questions about accessible formats. What problems are associated with the provision of information in accessible formats? What do we need to do to improve the availability of accessible formats?
One of the problems is supply. There is a poor supply of transcription services in Scotland. Much of the work is carried out by national organisations such as the RNIB, using volunteers. However, because it can take five or six weeks to get something done, we undertake our own transcription. Some things can be done more quickly. We live in an electronic age, and a document can be whizzed from Edinburgh down to Bristol, Brailled and returned the next day. However, that is usually done by private sector organisations and it is quite a bit more expensive.
I agree that it is more difficult to get accessible formats in Scotland. We carried out assessments of organisations such as Abbey and were told, "When you phone our branches, don't ask how many sign language interpreters we have. We don't have any." However, we forgot to tell our customer relations team not to do that and, as it turned out, 35 per cent of those branches had sign language interpreters—people who had a daughter, friend or husband who was deaf and who were able to provide that service. It is probably correct to say that there are only about 80 trained sign language interpreters in Scotland, but there are probably more people than we think in Scotland who know sign language.
If people do not know that information is available in alternative formats, they will not ask for them.
No, but it is a matter of stating that in large print or ensuring that it is part of customer service to ask people whether they need more help.
There should be an assumption that people are able to get the information in the format of their choice.
Yes.
That takes us back to what we said at the beginning of the debate. It might not be necessary to have information available in a range of formats if the most accessible format for everybody is used in the first place. Rather than having eight or nine different formats, it may be necessary to have only one or two.
SAIF and Update produce a guide to transcription services in Scotland, the second edition of which is out this month. Some 3,500 to 4,000 copies of the guide will be widely distributed, although more may be distributed if there is demand for them. We need to increase the awareness of service providers in general that there are people out there who can provide transcription services.
There is a marvellous opportunity for social enterprise firms. Such opportunities do not need to be taken on by the commercial sector.
If businesses use larger type-faces and the appropriate paper and generally produce accessible information, it will be found that the demand for certain formats will be less than it otherwise would be. I think that that was said earlier.
That is exactly right.
I now hate any type-face that is less than 14-point size—indeed, I almost refuse to read it.
On access to information, I have a question about the internet. Do we rely too much on the internet and expect too many people to have access to and knowledge of the relevant technology?
There is a balance to be struck. The internet and advances in information technology have been a fantastic benefit for many disabled people. There is no question about the benefits that they have brought in making information accessible. I am not an expert in the field and am sure that there are people here who can say much more about such things than I can, but I can say that the technology represents a tremendous step forward. However, it is clear that some people will be unable to access the internet, so we must ensure that we do not overuse it or put all our eggs in one basket, although I do not think that there is any evidence that that is happening at the moment. We must maximise our use of the internet because it has been an enormous benefit to many people.
I agree 100 per cent. The internet is probably the medium that can most easily be made accessible to everybody. There can be audio files and downloads—wonderful and fantastic things can be done on it—but, more important, information on it can be updated daily. An access guide that is printed on paper will be out of date before the ink is dry, which is often a problem, but the internet can be updated daily. I think that it is also the fastest-growing medium.
A balance needs to be struck. We provide information on what makes an accessible and comprehensive website, but the website is just one source of information and we also provide information on paper and CD-ROM. The BBC relies heavily on the internet for the provision of information on its business, but there should be a more balanced approach—that is a hobby horse of mine.
DisabledGo could not exist without the internet. When we survey towns and cities, we provide information to a depth and breadth never attempted in the past. If we produced the information in hard copy, we would be publishing the equivalent of two editions of "Yellow Pages" per guide. People would not be able to lift the document.
A few years ago, we produced a guide to making websites accessible and sent it out through the normal channels. There was quite a lot of demand for the guide from web designers. I have no evidence on the matter, but my impression is that during the past three or four years there has been an increase in website designers' awareness of accessibility issues.
Can we do more to make websites accessible to disabled people?
Yes. We produce guides about how to make websites accessible, as do other organisations. I have limited knowledge of the matter, but I know that it is not particularly difficult to make a site accessible. Often, people simply have to compromise on their fancy design ideas. I do not know where the people who design websites are trained, but perhaps more training on accessibility could be offered.
There is a plethora of people who can design accessible websites, but companies have to want such a website. I think that the RNIB's most recent statistics on the matter show that fewer than 25 per cent of websites in the United Kingdom are accessible, which is disgusting when we consider that it is not difficult to make a website accessible. There are young guys out there fresh out of college who can design a website and who will not charge an arm and a leg to do it. I do not think that we have to get more people trained because there are lots of people out there who can do it. The focus has to be on telling companies that they must do it, not just that they should do it.
Perhaps companies should be told that it is in their own interests to make their website accessible. That is the key. If it is easier for me to order a book or get information from a website, that company is going to benefit. If the company does not make its website accessible, it is cutting itself off from an enormous consumer group. It is in businesses' own interests to do it; that is the key way to drive change.
Is there enough capacity in Scotland to deliver the alternative formats? Grant Kennedy said that someone who has just graduated can set up such websites; is there enough IT capacity in Scotland?
I do not know the specifics, but I will take a wild guess and say absolutely. My 10-year-old niece can use a computer. Most people who have any kind of IT training can do it and there are many people out there who have hypertext markup language skills who can do it. It would be very easy to find out what the capacity is in Scotland by advertising; I imagine there would be a plethora of responses.
We need to build in website accessibility at an earlier stage of the process—just as we need to do for general information provision. SAIF gets queries from lots of information providers who work for local authorities and are interested in accessibility issues. It would have been nice if they had learned all about accessibility when they were being trained to be information providers.
There is a common theme whether we are talking about information, access to buildings or access to websites. If providers start off with the right fundamental premise—inclusivity for everyone—and listen to the key stakeholders, who will include disabled people, they will be sure that they are providing a service that meets people's needs. One of the reasons for DisabledGo's success is that we talk and listen to the community. We deliver what people want. We do not do all the work and then ask them what they think of it; that would be entirely the wrong way round.
I have a question about BSL. Someone mentioned that there are 80 interpreters in Scotland; someone said last week that there are 40, but 80 is probably nearer the mark. There is obviously limited provision of face-to-face BSL services. Is enough being done to ensure that sufficient alternatives are available, such as BSL video links, text services, and staff trained to a sufficient level of BSL? It takes so many years to train BSL signers and we do not have enough of them.
I would like some research to be done into what is an ideal target figure for BSL interpreters, what uses they have and how often they are used. It would be nice to have a target figure to aim at. For years, everyone has been saying that there are not enough and that there is a terrible shortage, but no one has said to me how much of a shortage there is. It would be good to know that. I do not think that there is really an alternative. BSL video and text services are substitutes, but their uses are limited. We need to have BSL interpreters, but I do not know how many.
There are some examples of alternatives here in Edinburgh and the Lothians. A number of the staff in the City of Edinburgh Council's equalities unit are undertaking BSL training so that they will be able to work at a basic level with service users who come through the door. I was also talking to someone from Lothian and Borders police who said that they are doing the same. The council and the police force are putting some key staff through BSL training courses as an alternative to trying to get someone to come along to the council office or the police station at short notice, which just does not happen. If we could all communicate in BSL, that would be the answer but, as someone who has done a basic course, I know that one of the problems is keeping it up. If you do not use it, you lose it.
There is a children's television programme on CBBC on which there is a chap who signs all the time. Has anyone seen it?
It is past my bedtime, I am afraid.
It is not a programme specifically for people who need sign language; he just does it all the time. I have a three-year-old grandchild who often talks to me and makes the signs. If everyone did that, it would be amazing.
On the way to the committee, I read a report by Action Disability Kensington and Chelsea. The report said that around 60 per cent of people with hearing impairments in that borough found that their primary point of health care was inaccessible to them. There is huge demand for BSL interpretation. The issue overlaps with what was said earlier about attitudes and behaviour. If we can incentivise organisations to address their policies and practices and reward good behaviour, we might be able to get them to consider BSL training.
Staff in the Parliament are being offered training in BSL. However, I want to ask about the alternatives. I raised the matter a couple of weeks ago in the context of video links and that type of thing. There is a pilot project in London at the moment, which has been successful, and I have asked the Executive to consider starting such a project here. Do you think that we need more BSL interpreters, or could video links provide an alternative? The project that I saw enables someone up in Stornoway and the islands to phone up and get video linked to the signing—the interpreter does not need to move physically but is available to people wherever they are in the country.
That is an increasingly common method of communication for people with hearing impairments. They can go through RNID Typetalk and various other things and get an online, real-time interpreter. I imagine that video linking would reduce the problem considerably, especially given the geography of Scotland.
Faced with the alternative, that would surely be a way forward, but nothing beats human contact. Most people would prefer to deal with someone face to face rather than over the phone, regardless of whether they have an impairment. If we are seriously trying to create an inclusive society, we must ensure that provision is made on an equal opportunities basis.
Such projects are also reliant on technology. As we said earlier, great advances can be made through technology, but if someone does not have access to the technology, whatever business or service is being provided—
It comes through the television screen via a small box.
It is massively better than having no provision at all.
Do you think that enough training is provided to information providers in understanding the need for alternative formats and the range of formats that might be needed?
Are you talking about training for service providers?
Yes.
Many public and private sector organisations offer training to service providers. There is no lack of training opportunities, but there is a lack of wanting that training among service providers. I do not think that a huge amount of training is involved in giving people advice on the alternative formats that they can use; it is a matter of whether the service providers are willing to take up that training. If they want to do it, it is quick and easy to get such training in place; two Scottish organisations that can do that are represented here. There is no lack of people to do the training, but there is a lack of will.
Disability awareness training is one aspect of it and training about the mechanics of providing information in alternative formats is another. The training is out there; people just need to ask for it. It is advice and guidance about the mechanics of it that people need. I repeat what I said earlier: I just wish that people undertook such training earlier in the process, when they are learning to be information providers.
Do you expect the forthcoming disability equality duty to have a significant impact on the provision of suitable, relevant and accessible information?
I hope so. This year we are running seminars for policy makers and training for practitioners in local authorities. The fact that all the events that we have organised so far have been oversubscribed is largely a result of the disability equality duty—that is certainly the feedback that we have had from the people who have attended them. I am glad that the duty is causing people in local authorities to focus their attention.
Good.
We work with many local authorities and, in my experience, their employees are scrupulously fair and, in general, want to do the right things. If the disability equality obligation is laid down in law, they will do their very best to abide by it.
My next question is for SAIF. You have produced and published "Standards for disability information and advice provision in Scotland" and a guide to barrier-free information. How do you monitor the uptake of that guidance and what can be done to improve its uptake?
We monitor the uptake of the guidance with difficulty. We have probably distributed about 4,500 copies of our standards and about 1,500 copies of our publication on barrier-free information, which targets local authorities and other large public sector organisations. Given that those are only two of our publications, a significant number of them have been sent out.
We have asked many questions. We are taking evidence that will form part of a report that will make a number of recommendations. If there is anything that we have not asked members of the panel about that they think we should know about, or anything that they would like to tell us about their organisations or the issues that we have covered this morning, I invite them to do so now. It is not compulsory to respond; I asked just in case anything had been left out. No one has anything to add, so I thank the witnesses for the evidence that they have given.
Meeting closed at 12:19.
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