DDB 132 Local Government Association -
Further Evidence
| Lord Carter
Joint Committee on the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
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| 2 April 2004
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Dear Lord Carter
Further evidence
I agreed to send you some further written
evidence following my appearance before the Joint Committee on
the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill on 10 March. I believe
there were three areas where I suggested the LGA may be able to
supply further evidence:
1. Examples of work that authorities
are engaged in regarding the promotion of good community relations
between disabled people and non-disabled people;
2. Examples of specific issues that
affect disabled councillors, and;
3. Some indication of the potential
costs to authorities of a duty to promote disability equality.
1. The promotion of good relations
The key to promoting good relations
between disabled and non-disabled people is inclusive access to
mainstream services and facilities. As with the duty to promote
good race relations, where communities are segregated with little
opportunity to interact there is no opportunity to foster good
relations and a 'them and us' attitude will prevail. Provision
for wheelchair users in many of our football stadiums (in 'disabled
enclosures') is one example of how disabled people are segregated
from non-disabled people in a social setting. A duty to promote
good relations between disabled and non-disabled people should
direct public authorities to seek to provide inclusive access
to services and facilities rather than provide separate services
and facilities. There are many examples of how local authorities
have sought to facilitate inclusive access to facilities and services
contained within the 'Access to Services' report which I passed
to the Committee on 10 March.
2. Disabled councillors
We have collected many examples of
how disabled councillors are often unwittingly discriminated against,
which we hope will inform the accompanying guidance to the new
legislation:
- The chair of a council planning
committee is driven to site visits by car as he is unable to access
the coach which takes other committee members to the site. He
has complained that he feels excluded from the inevitable discussions
between committee members during the journey back from the site
visit. An obvious solution would be for the authority to obtain
a new bus that can accommodate wheelchair users.
- Another councillor and wheelchair
user, who sits on a partnership body, attended a meeting of the
partnership only to find that the lift was out of action and he
was unable to access the first floor meeting room. Although the
lift had been under repair for some three weeks, no one had thought
to move the meeting to the ground floor. Had the organisation's
staff undergone disability awareness training this situation might
have been avoided.
3. Potential costs of a duty to
promote
As I stated in my oral evidence, it
is very difficult to accurately assess the costs of promoting
disability equality. My officers have, however, made a broad
assessment of the potential costs of staff training needs in relation
to the duty. Assuming that training would need to be provided
for all managers across an authority you are probably looking
at the need to train some 1000 to 2000 staff, depending on the
size of the authority (assuming an average of 10,000 staff in
a small authority and 20,000 in a large authority). The Disability
Rights Commission state that they pay trainers some £1000
per day. If we assume that a minimum of half a day's training
is required for all managers and that some 50 staff can be trained
in the same venue then the costs of a one off training exercise
would be £10,000 to £20,000 per authority. This amounts
to a total cost to local government across England and Wales of
some £5.5million. In addition to training costs there would
be a human resource requirement across the authority if, as expected,
there is a specific duty to produce a disability equality scheme
and monitor its implementation.
I hope this further evidence assists
the Committee in its scrutiny of the Draft Bill.
Yours sincerely
Cllr Laura Willoughby
Chair, LGA Equalities Executive
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