1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Scottish Ministers' Duty forms part of the duty on public bodies to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people contained in the Disability Discrimination (Public Authorities) (Statutory Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2005. The Scottish Ministers are required to publish reports which give an overview of progress towards equality of oppoprtunity between disabled people and other people made by public authorities; and to set out their proposals for the coordination of action by public authorities so as to bring about further progress towards equality of opportunity.
1.2 This report was commissioned by Scottish Ministers to enable reporting on the progress which is being made towards equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people across the Justice ministerial portfolio. The research was undertaken by Rosemarie Mcilwhan, Rowena Arshad and Luke Padfield, from the University of Edinburgh. It is one of 7 reports published in response to the 'Scottish Ministers' Duty'. Collectively the 7 reports constitute the Scottish Ministers' response to the duty.
1.3 The area of justice is complex, covering legal justice as well as other aspects, for example, restorative, social and environmental justice. While there are related areas of importance to the concept of justice such as debates on end of life issues or the rights of vulnerable people, this report confines itself to the core functions of the public authorities related to the justice portfolio, namely access to justice, hate crime, victim support, community safety and issues around licensing. Other portfolio reports have also touched on aspects of justice, for example, the recently established Additional Support for Learning Tribunals are considered in the Education and Lifelong Learning Portfolio and the rights of disabled people in terms of access to care provision under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act 2003 are covered within the Health and Wellbeing Portfolio.
1.4 This report contains five thematic sections corresponding to focus areas in the Justice Minister's ministerial portfolio
a) Access to justice
b) Hate crime
c) Victim support
d) Community safety
e) Licensing
1.5 Each of these sections contains:
- an introduction to the relevant policy context;
- research and statistical evidence on position of disabled people and progress towards greater equality;
- findings from examination of the Disability Equality Schemes about areas where progress is evident, and areas where progress is less evident;
- a summary and conclusion.
1.6 As the authorities delivering services are generally the same for each focus area, discussion of categories of impairment and consultation and involvement have been drawn together at the end of the thematic section to avoid unnecessary repetition of information.
1.7 This report considers progress on disability equality based on consideration of publicly available material only: in particular, the disability equality schemes and annual reports of relevant public bodies.
1.8 The disability equality duty came into force in December 2006. Both the legislation and the documents which flow from it - disability equality scheme and annual reports - are new. The amount of documentation on which to base this report was therefore necessarily limited. No interviews with public authorities were undertaken in the preparation of the report.