1. Do you agree with the assumptions made in the Draft Impact assessment?
Yes but there is a crucial omission.
Please explain your reasons, with supporting evidence:
Every one of the options except retaining DPTAC would remove the statutory duty of DFT to consult with disabled people. Consulting with disabled people will become optional and there will be no redress when we are not consulted. The removal of this duty is likely to negatively impact on the involvement of disabled people in the decisions that affect us, and the quality of decision taken as a result.
Whatever option is eventually decided upon, legislation (including but not limited to The Railways Act, the Equality Act, and the Transport Act) must be amended so that references to DPTAC are not excised but replaced with references to a duty to consult with disabled people in whatever form the successor to DPTAC takes.
2. Which option in your opinion, provides more flexibility over working arrangements and appointments?
I do not believe that it is reasonable to judge the best option for replacing DPTAC by assessing the most flexible option.
Please could you state your reasoning:
Flexibility can be used to evade responsibility and can result in a less accountable, consistent process for involving disabled people. The best option for replacing DPTAC should be judged on the process which is most likely to give timely, sensible advice in an accountable way to Ministers.
3. Which option in your opinion provides the most accountability to Ministers:
Please could you state your reasoning:
4. In your opinion how important is it that the option is able to provide advice that is representative of all disabilities and disabled groups?
It’s highly important that the views of people with a wide variety of impairments are represented: people who are blind and visually impaired; people who use an assistance dog; people who are deaf or hard of hearing; people who use powerchairs, scooters and wheelchairs; people who walk upright with a frame, crutches or stick; people with speech impairments; people with learning and cognitive disabilities; ambulant people who have physical impairments; people with invisible impairments including respiratory; heart conditions and neurological conditions; people with mental health conditions, and others.
But more importantly, the option must ensure that the advice is representative of disabled people who regularly use public transport in its widest sense.
Please state your reasoning and provide examples of the implications on disability issues of advice not meeting your opinion:
Better decisions are made when the views and experiences of the widest section of disabled people are represented. Representatives need to be plugged into the wider disability movement – i.e. local groups, forums and .disabled people’s organisations.
Currently there appears to be a disconnect between DPTAC and the wider disabled community. There should be better and more effective two way channels of communication between the two. At present, there seem to be few lines of communication between DPTAC and other disability groups and disabled people, making DPTAC unaccountable and untransparent. An updated webpage showing what the option is considering and how disabled people can submit their views; as well as what advice is eventually provided, would be very useful – the current website is sorely out of date and inadequate. Similarly, care should be taken to ensure that the groups advising Government includes people who use all modes of transport, urban and rural, including buses and Door to Door, not just cars and trains.Advice to Ministers should reflect the concerns and priorities of disabled people who may not have the means to remain mobile and independent through cars, taxis and trains – options which are out of the price range of many disabled people.
845. In your opinion how important is it that the option is able to provide advice on technical matters?
Please state your reasoning and provide examples of the implications on disability issues of advice not meeting your opinion:
6. In your opinion how important is it that the option is able to provide cross government advice on transport disability issues, bringing together impacts on health, social care etc?
Important.
Please state your reasoning and provide examples of the implications on disability issues of advice not meeting your opinion:
There is ample evidence that inaccessible transport is a major factor in excluding disabled people from accessing work, healthcare, culture, sport and more. Given how greatly inaccessible transport affects these issues (e.g. the Mind the Gap report found that 23% of disabled people had turned down a job offer because of transport and 20% had found it difficult or impossible to get the healthcare they need because of inaccessible transport) other Government departments should take more account of the role that improving transport can play in helping them meet the overall Equality Strategy.7. Do you agree with the benefits and costs presented in the Impact Assessment for each of the options?
Yes but some costs and risks have not been taken account of
Are there any other benefits, costs and risks that we need to consider?
Please state your reasoning and provide supporting evidence:
See answer to Q1.
TfA is opposed to transport operators being included in a group which is meant to advise on the interests and views of disabled people. There are certain situations where theinterests of transport operators can be opposed to the interests of disabled people. Whatever option is chosen must represent the views of disabled people to Ministers. Advice from transport operators can, and will, be represented through other channels. But frequently, especially when there is a cost to transport operators to implementing an improvement to accessibility (e.g. cost of disability training; cost of installing ramps, tactile paving and lifts, cost of replacing or improving vehicles or ticket machines; cost of retaining staff assistance; cost of providing information in accessible formats) this could be opposed by some transport operators.
The further risks of Options 2, 3 and 5 is that the people from disability groups would not necessarily have the time to adequately research and give time to consider the issues. Especially when dealing with more complex questions of policy, sourcing the views of disabled people and formulating a considered response takes time – time for which DPTAC members were reimbursed. Many of disability groups have been affected by the economic downturn and staff workloads have increased. If representatives from these groups are asked to invest time in advising Ministers at the same time as other work commitments, the reality is that the quality of advice may be compromised. If Option 3 is chosen, when selecting representatives, perhaps DfT should ask that they sign a commitment to ensure that they spend a set number of hours per month on the role; including seeking the views of their members, so that they genuinely can speak for an impairment group not just themselves.
Option 3 includes that the group would meet 2 – 3 times a year, compared to DPTAC which meets 4 times a year. This reduction in meeting time would certainly have a negative effect on the inclusion of disabled people in decisions that affect us. If Option 3 is chosen, TfA would like to see meetings 4 times a year as a minimum.
Of the upmost importance is that more than 80% of the group are themselves disabled people. The record of the large disability charities in employing disabled staff is not good. For all its faults, DPTAC was genuinely a pan-impairment group. Whatever option is chosen, TfA would like to see that experts who are invited are ‘experts by experience’ and disabled; and disability groups who are invited are asked that they endeavour to send a representative who is disabled.
I do not agree that Option 3 would necessarily ‘entail a greater risk of not getting pan-disability advice as it would be limited by the stakeholder members who may not represent all disabilities. The advice therefore may not be as representative and comprehensive as required’ if care is taken with the selection of the members.
8. Considering your responses to above, what in your opinion is the best option/combination of options?
85Please explain your reasons and add any additional comments you wish to make:
The best options would be:
(a) To keep DPTAC and the statutory duty to consult with disabled people but to put in place processes that ensure DPTAC is more accountable to the wider disabled community and that it communicates what it is working on to disability groups and the public, through email updates, the DPTAC website and regular meeting with groups, so that interested parties can contribute their views and that the views it provides to Ministers can be scrutinised. OR
(b) To keep the statutory duty to consult with disabled people, and to implement Option 3 – though with the caveats that stakeholders need to be chosen carefully to represent a broad spectrum of disabled people; to exclude transport operators; to meet more than twice a year; to ensure that more than 80% of the group are themselves disabled and can speak from lived experience and that they commit enough time to the role. A group of 20 people is too large to effectively take decisions and ensure all voices are heard so the role of smaller working groups (accountable to the whole) would be important.OR
(c) To keep the statutory duty to consult with disabled people, and to implement a combination of Option 3 and Option 2 – involving both representatives of disability groups and some experts – for example, access consultants or individual disabled people who have have demonstrable expertise in specific areas. Smaller working groups would again be useful.
With all of these options, the group must meet more than twice a year – four times a year is reasonable if they communicate between meetings.
9. Are there other options that we need to consider?
NO
Please explain these in details, including providing information on the benefits, costs and risk of the option. Please provide supporting evidence:
10. Do you think that DPTAC should be abolished?
The main thing is that the statutory duty to consult with disabled people should not be abolished. If DPTAC remains, it needs to reform and become more accountable to the wider disabled community.
Please state your reasons for your opinions:
‘Nothing about us without us’ is a central slogan in the disability rights movement and a true one –the participation of disabled people, not simply well-meaning non-disabled people - is required to make good decisions.
TfA is concerned that the options presented have been qualified: e.g. ‘members could be drawn, on an ad hoc basis, when specific advice is needed’ or ‘convened when advice was required’.
It is vital, if the Government is genuine in seeking to improve transport for disabled people, that the group does not simply meet and give advice ‘when required’ but regularly. The group’s remit should be not only to advise whenever a decision is being considered that has implications for disabled transport users; but also to advise on an ongoing basis on what the Government and industry should do to improve the accessibility of public transport.
Without a duty to always consult with disabled people, not just when it’s convenient, we risk losing falling behind with working towards a transport system that disabled and older people can use with the same freedom